Month: July 2012

New Blog Chronicles Flotsom Found on Eugenia Steps

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

Neighbor Lee has started a blog to document “images of stuff that is left on Eugenia steps in Bernal Heights.” Lee tells Bernalwood:

For my own entertainment I am posting pictures of the junk I find on the Eugenia steps between Winfield and Prospect. The rule is: if the item is remotely useful to anyone I will leave it there for a while, otherwise I remove it. I only document junk left between Winfield and Prospect and I am not interested in anywhere else (sorry). I have to say: since I started the blog it feels like the volume of junk has dropped off. Maybe we need another 100 or so similar blogs for Bernal?

PHOTOS: Junk on Eugenia

Sell Your Extra Stuff at the 2012 Bernal Hillwide Garage Sale

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

Neighbor Lynn from the glamorous Bernal Business Alliance wants to give all the Citizens of Bernalwood a heads-up about the upcoming 2012 Bernal Hillwide Garage Sale. If you’ve been looking for an excuse (or an exogenous kick in the butt), this will be an excellent opportunity to declutter your crib:

We are just getting set up for the Hillwide Garage sale scheduled for August 11th, 2012, and we wanted to give Bernal residents advance notice that they can now get their garage listed on our super-duper Google Map – to avoid some of the last minute rush.

All of the details are on the BBA website. including the flyer and instructions on how to get their listing in place, which are as follows:

If you’d like to get onto our Hillwide Google map please email the following details to bernalbusiness AT gmail DOT com, no later than noon PT on Friday August 10th. Send us:

• the street address of where people can find you
• a short description of what you’ll have at your location (max 140 characters!)

There are no registration or listing fees, but we’d like to suggest that you make a donation of $5 (and up) to the BHNC using the donate button here.

Feral Blue Bags of Doggy Poop Invade North Bernal

/ Todd_Lappin / 16 Comments

It’s not as much fun as a Bigfoot sighting — but it may be even more smelly. Neighbor Carlina is unhappy to report that blue bags filled with doggy poop have taken root on the streets of Precitaville:

The rumors are true… there are stray Blue Bags of Poo (BB-OPs) on the loose.  Somehow, bags of dog poop keep mysteriously leaving the hands of their owners and depositing themselves on Shotwell Street.  This happens once or twice a week while they are presumably on the way back home from Precita Park.  While waiting to see what path they take next, I have discovered that these BB-OPs like to find their way to the gutter.  They tend to shy away from what might normally be considered their home (the garbage can three feet away) and instead place themselves in harm’s way, where a car tire usually finds them.

I see several possible scenarios:

1) BB-OP gets alarmingly and spontaneously hot forcing it’s owner to spontaneously drop it before it is able to reach it’s proper resting place,

2) BB-OP was out taking a walk, independent of a dog or owner and lost it’s way,

3) Someone(s) is/are not so clear on the Blue Bag’s true destiny and the reason it came to this world, instructions for which are as follows:

  • Pick up pooh with Blue Bag thereby protecting your hands and the feet of future walkers
  • Deposit said blue bag in the closest garbage can or keep walking until you find a garbage can (in the case of these photos – three feet)
  • Ultimately this will lead the Blue Bag to it’s True Destiny and it will no longer be forced to take the desperate measure of throwing itself beneath the tires of parking cars

Consider it a movement, a social imperative, a calling, or at minimum, a courtesy to your neighbors in Bernalwood…

PHOTOS: Feral bags of Dog Poop, by Neighbor Carlina

FINALLY!! BIGFOOT SIGHTING ON BERNAL HILL!!

/ Todd_Lappin / 11 Comments

Friends and neighbors, that is a headline I’ve wanted to write for almost two years.

But, really, it’s true! Bigfoot WAS spotted today on Bernal Hill, and Neighbor Frank was there with a camera to capture an image of the wild beast. Let’s zoom and enhance for a closer look:

Neighbor Frank writes:

My wife and I were walking around the top of the hill just before noon today and spotted Bigfoot, or something like that, running up the hill near the top of Rosenkranz Street.

We thought that maybe Bernalwood was Bigfoot’s new habitat, but in the heat, Bigfoot removed his head and looked more like a person in a costume, surrounded by two photographers.

Phone pictures are all I have as evidence.  No footprints or DNA samples.

PHOTOS: Neighbor Frank

Controversial Bernal Library Mural Cloaked in New Controversy

/ Todd_Lappin / 77 Comments

Bernal Heights Branch Library

Bernal Heights Library

Just like Lindsay Lohan, the proposal to create a new mural for the Bernal Heights Library has a talent for attracting controversy.

Right now, the library is covered in scaffolding and repainting was supposed to have started this week. Instead, the project is on hold because the estate of Arch Williams, the artist who co-created the 1980s-era mural that will be replaced, wants to preserve the old mural — more or less forever.

Here’s the press release from the Williams estate:

Letter to Library from Bernal Muralist’s Heir Ensures Paint Out Stoppage for 90 Days

San Francisco, July 8, 2012 – The Victor Jara mural on Bernal Heights Branch Library got a surer reprieve from destruction this weekend, when Nancy York, sister of muralist Arch Williams, sent a letter to San Francisco Public Library’s head enclosing proof that she is the executor of his estate.

Peter Warfield, Executive Director of Library Users Association, said the action ensures that “the library will have no excuse whatever to remove the mural any time before expiration of the 90-day notice period, and we certainly hope that the mural’s survival can be permanently assured prior to October 1.”

City Librarian Luis Herrera requested that Ms. York send “documentation of your current role as executor or representative of the artist’s estate on or before July 10, 2012.” It continued, “if you are unable to remove or pay for the removal of the mural before October 1, 2012, the City will proceed with its Bernal Heights Branch Library renovation project as planned, including the removal of Mr. Williams’s mural.”

Ms. York asserted her rights to 90-day notice of removal — and the right to remove the mural or have it removed — under the California Art Preservation Act (CAPA), which she faxed in a letter on June 8, 2012.

Under CAPA, the artist of a work of fine art that is to be destroyed must be notified so that he or she may remove the work, or have it removed. The right passes to the heir or personal representative in case of the artist’s death, and continues for 50 years. Arch Williams died in 1996, so the rights would be valid until 2046, 34 years from the present.
Ms. York’s letter encloses a copy of her brother’s “hand written will in which he names me (Ms. York) as his executor of his estate.”

Ms. York continues, “I must say that it concerns me that you are only now complying with the California Art Preservation Act, Civil Code 987 especially as the Bernal Mural was already altered in 2008-09.” She continued, “It was only through the efforts of Peter Warfield, Executive Director of Library Users Association, that I became aware of the pending June 11 destruction of the mural, resulting in my fax June 8th asserting my rights.”

The Library had planned scaffold erection for June 8th, which went ahead, and paint out of the mural starting June 11th . That work was suspended and continues to be suspended to date.

###
The existing mural was painted by muralists Arch Williams and Carlos Alcala in 1980-1982, with participation by many adults and children. Approved by the Arts Commission and Library Commission at the time, it covers three sides of the building. The front includes the important Chilean musician Victor Jara playing his guitar, with his name, and words in Spanish and English from one of his songs. Jara was tortured and killed by the Chilean military when they seized power in 1973; the stadium in Chile’s capital where arrestees were brought after the coup is now named after Jara. The front panel also includes singer Holly Near’s name and words in Spanish and English, and the image of an African American singer modeled on Roberta Flack. The mural also honors working women, and Native Americans. The proposed mural omits Jara, Near, working women, a local history, children, the UN symbol and more.

Citizens of Bernalwood, please discuss.

PHOTOS: Bernal Library mural by Arch Williams and Carlos Alcala, by Telstar Logitics, January 2012

Alemany Beehives Destroyed in Pointless Vandalism Attack

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

From the Annals of Stupid Behavior comes this sad report: Some dimwits recently decided to trash the beehives kept on the Alemany Farm overlooking I-280. The Chron brings the bad news:

Two weeks ago, vandals, armed with large chunks of concrete and tree limbs, knocked over and smashed wooden beehive boxes at Alemany Farm, a volunteer-run community farm and hands-on educational program on Alemany Boulevard, tucked between the south slope of Bernal Heights and Interstate 280.

“Every now and then someone knocks over a hive,” said veteran beekeeper Karen Peteros, co-founder of nonprofit group San Francisco Bee-Cause. “But this went beyond that; it was mayhem violence.”

Hundreds, if not thousands of bees, were killed, said Cameo Wood, who serves on the board of San Francisco Bee-Cause. The surviving bees temporarily became more aggressive – a sign of trauma – and the beekeepers lost hundreds of dollars in equipment.

PHOTO: Alemany Farm bee hives. 2010 photograph by Rob Williamson

Photos of the July 4th Fireworks as Seen from Bernal Hill

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

Ah, the rituals of summer in San Francisco: BBQ, fog, more fog, and then some fog, punctuated by the annual Fourth of July fireworks show, which is rather fabulous from atop Bernal Hill. Even in the fog.

The fashionistas at 7×7 magazine published a glamorous online gallery of the 2012 Fourth of July fireworks displays (both officially sanctioned and not), as seen from our always-fashionable vista atop Bernal Hill. Note also: Fog.

H/T: Neighbor Rebecca
PHOTOS Joseph Schell