Author: Todd_Lappin

Black Jet Bakery Now Open for Business on Cortland

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Gillian Shaw at her new Black Jet Bakery

There’s been a lot of excitement and anticipation about Gillian Shaw’s plan to open her celebrated Black Jet Baking Co. in the former Sandbox/Pinkie’s space at 833 Cortland, at the corner of Gates. Now the wait is over, because Black Jet is officially open for business.

As you may recall, Gillian Shaw is a former Bernal Heights resident who was also the baker the former Liberty Cafe. She tells Bernalwood:

We are in love with our space, our goodies and so delighted to be open!

We are so excited to be in the space and seeing all the friendly faces! As a wholesaler, we’re not used to seeing our customers in the flesh, and it has been such a treat! I love seeing all the Liberty faces and longtime Black Jet fans who remind us of pastries we have done in the past. Bernal is such a special place and I feel so lucky to have learned to bake on Cortland and have a bakery on this street!

I am planning for a GRAND OPENING PARTY on Saturday APRIL 29th, which also happens to be my birthday! We were thinking of having a happy hour party with cupcakes and snacks to celebrate! Would love to welcome people to stop by! I am thinking festivities to begin at 5 and go til 7.

For your info, we carry the following Liberty Items:

  • Blueberry Corn Muffins
  • Raspberry Bran Muffins
  • Banana Cream Pie
  • (Chicken Pot Pie to come sooooon)
  • Liberty Scones

MY FAVORITE ITEMS that are exclusive to the shop:

  • Danish!
  • Boston Cream Croissant is a croissant filled with pastry cream and topped with ganache. This beauty is named after my sister Jen, who is the mastermind.
  • Croissants! We are using the SANDBOX recipe under the kind guidance of Mutsumi who is the best landlord ever. We adore her and are so proud to be using the Sandbox recipe.
  • Mascot/Somerville: our signature beverage is the SOMERVILLE which is a shot of espresso, steamed milk and dollop of housemade toasted FLUFF. Fluff, my obsession was created in SOMERVILLE, MA where I used to live. We developed the’ MASCOT’ after Audrey Duane, our amazing mascot who doesn’t care for espresso… and has a hot chocolate with fluff instead.

Other Points:

We have the best staff ever and I am so proud of each and every one of them! It is a stressful and crazy time opening a bakery, but everyone has been so determined and excited and hardworking to create our little shop.

I am also over the moon to let people know that Max B. Newman, who worked with me at the Liberty, is BACK in the Black Jet fold after working at Zuni & Marla. We are so lucky to have him back in Bernal.

I am a happy happy tired baker and are so grateful to everyone!

Hope to see everyone in the shop soon, especially you!

The Bernalwood Culinary Expedition Team had the opportunity to visit Black Jet last weekend.  We ate many things during our foray, including a meyer lemon and havarti danish, a ham, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, and a morning bun. We  can confirm that everything we tried was insanely delicious. Yum!

PHOTOS: All photos by Telstar Logistics

UPDATED: Neighbors Say Fertilizer Used in Precita Park Made Dogs Sick

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Two Bernal Heights neighbors say their dogs became ill after visiting Precita Park last week, shortly after City workers applied a chemical to the grass.

In an email to D9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Neighbor Linda writes:

Last week, the day that fertilizer was applied to the grass in Precita Park, our dogs started foaming at the mouth and throwing up. My dog became seriously lethargic for 24 hours.

We need to know:

  1. What fertilizer was used? so that we can tell our veterinarians.
  2. What is the schedule for applying fertilizer on Precita Park grass and can it be posted in the park?
  3. How do we stop the use of this/these chemicals in Precita Park?

This must also be dangerous for babies and small children. It couldn’t be healthy for larger children and adults either.

I expect that the rain has diluted the chemicals for now, but Precita Park will get fertilizer again.

In a follow-up note to Supervisor Ronen, Neighbor Roman adds:

My dog Yogi went to the park around the same dates and has gotten very sick. He has been vomiting and foaming at the mouth. Please do advise us the type of fertilizer and if any new type of grass has been used to replace dry spots. We have taken our dog to surrounding parks and not encountered these issues. I will continue to ask other dog owners if they are experiencing similar issues. This is a major concern for us and we are taking this matter very seriously.

Supervisor Ronen says she will follow-up with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to learn more. Bernalwood will provide additional information as it becomes available.

UPDATE: 1:30 pm: Connie Chan from Rec and Park sent this response to Bernalwood:

The Department received feedback including possible concerns about dogs getting sick after visiting Precita Park last week.

Recently, the Department has roped off newly seeded areas in Park as these areas were re-seeded some time ago with standard grass mix, and the grass mix should not have any negative effect on humans and animals, including dogs. We have checked in with our park operations staff about their maintenance activities, and they confirmed that there were no fertilizer applications at the Park for well over a year.

It should also be noted that the Department utilizes Integrated Pest Management (IPM) throughout our park system, which means we minimize any use of herbicide (and no rodenticide or any toxic chemical are allowed) and all herbicide application that meets the SF Environment regulations would be posted at the site for public notice and documented in our records. Here is more info on IPM from SF Environment.

However, with abundance of precaution, we are still looking into our maintenance activities last week and would welcome any input from the public on any incidents that they might have possibly witnessed and believed to be related. At this point, the only other maintenance activity of note that was occurring at the park, was our spring irrigation system tune-up. We will be inspecting the Park this week to see if we can identify any potential hazards that could be related to this incident.

PHOTO: Magic, one of the dogs that recently became ill. Image of Magic shown in Precita Park prior to the sickness incident, courtesy of Neighbor Linda.

Owner Sentenced in Fatal 2014 Workplace Accident on Cortland Ave.

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1525cortland

1525 Cortland, as it looked in 2014

Back in 2014, two workers were killed by falling slabs of granite at 1525 Cortland, which at the time was a warehouse operated by a granite distributor called Galaxy Granite.  (Three years later,  the building is now home to Barebottle Brewery.)

This week, justice in the case was handed down as the owner of Galaxy Granite was sentenced after pleading guilty  to two counts of involuntary manslaughter. SF Gate reports:

The owner of a granite company in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood was sentenced today to one year of home detention and three years’ probation in the 2014 deaths of two workers who were crushed by falling slabs of granite.

Meng Peng, a Hillsborough resident, was sentenced after pleading guilty in January to two felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and three labor code violations in connection with the deaths of two of his employees on Feb. 17, 2014.

Philip Marich, 53, of South San Francisco, and Hector Vazquez, 46, of Oakland, were removing large slabs of granite from a shipping container at Galaxy Granite at 1525 Cortland Ave. when slabs fell on them around 10:15 a.m.

 

Skillshot Pinball Quits 1000 Cortland, Begins Search for Other Spaces Nearby

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Life Lesson: When the Great Pinball Machine of Life sends your ball sliding down a side gutter, that doesn’t mean Game Over. Instead, you take a deep breath, load a new ball into the plunger, and play again.

Thats the lesson Neighbors Christian and Elisabeth seem to have drawn from their effort to open Skillshot Pinball at 1000 Cortland Avenue, in the former Cutting Edge Salon space. After all the fuss, fear, and befouling bureaucracy, Neighbors Christian and Elizabeth have decided to seek a more friction-free location on Cortland for Skillshot Pinball — and perhaps one with a kitchen attached too.

Skillshot’s latest newsletter says:

We recently came to a somber decision. We’ve decided to no longer pursue 1000 Cortland (formerly Cutting Edge Salon) as a location for the pinball. You’re probably aware of the protestations of some of the tenants of the building and their pledge to challenge all the permits we would need to acquire along the way in building out the space and opening. We did meet with them and tried our hardest to explain our vision and reassure them of the steps we would take to mitigate any impact on their tenancy. Throughout that process we also discovered that to bring the space up to code because of how large it is we would have to make some costly renovations (egress doors would have to swing outward and therefore be inset in the structure; fire abatement also installed). The cost of installing the plumbing for the beer and kitchen sinks would be also be quite high while not allowing for much flexibility in food options since we wouldn’t have a hood. When you add up the amount of time it would have taken to get through the protests and renovate we were looking at a 1.5 year timeline. In addition, the city’s alcohol advisory panel signaled it would probably recommend not issuing our permit, even though we hadn’t yet presented our case to them. Sadly, renovation costs and the rising probability of losing the beer permit felt like too big of a financial gamble for the little pinhall we had envisioned.

The good news is that we are not letting the dream go and will march on with the goal of opening this pinhall in Bernal Heights and on Cortland Ave. We’ve also resolved to have a bit more of a food program to generate more attraction, and based on feedback from the community we will aim for a beer and wine license instead of just beer. We’ve just begun negotiations to buy-out a restaurant, though out of respect for the owner’s privacy will not name that restaurant. But a restaurant would allow us to do fuller meals which is very exciting.

PHOTO:: Side gutter of a 1964 Williams “San Francisco” pinball machine, by Telstar Logistics

Bernal Coyote Scared But Safe After Close Call With Dog

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Bernal Coyote, hiding in a thicket after the chase. Photo by Janet Kessler

The coyote that lives on Bernal Hill had a close call last week, after a domesticated dog decided to chase her. The ensuing scene was so loud and chaotic that several readers wrote to tell Bernalwood about it, so we in turn reached out to San Francisco coyote-whisperer Janet Kessler to see if he had any information about the incident.

Providentially, Janet was on the scene when the dog chased the Bernal Coyote, and Janet shared this report:

The coyote had just spent a few moments on a peaceful grassy perch where she was observing the urban world as she knew it: the large city below and the dog walkers on and off the trails of a grassy park higher up. She got up to wander around the hillside when suddenly a dog caught sight of her and was after her in a flash — it was a large, golden retriever-like dog.

The coyote ran lickety-split away from the dog, into the street with the dog right at her heels. In the street, of course, both coyote and dog are endangered by traffic, but fortunately cars were sparse at that moment. Having flown across the street, the coyote dashed into the thicket on the other side of the street. Thickets serve as harborage for our wild coyotes, especially from dogs and people. It’s where they can rest and relax without being seen, and when the thickets are impenetrable, coyotes feel safe. Dogs usually can’t, or have difficulty, venturing into these thickets, so the dog remained on the street where the owner was able to grab it.

In the thicket, with her eyes glued in the direction of the dog, the little coyote vented her distress. She remained there and screeched her heart out for 20 minutes, looking over her shoulder now and then as dogs, people and loud traffic moved by on the next street. This is what she sounded like:

When she was done, she got up and walked away. I followed the coyote to make sure she wasn’t injured. I knew the dog hadn’t reached her, so she would have no injuries from his/her mouth. It wasn’t an “attack” but simply a harrowing “pursuit”. Still, I’ve seen coyotes injured in the past as they fled pursuing dogs. One such coyote limped for days, having twisted or injured an ankle or wrist in its hurry to get away. Luckily, the Bernal coyote displayed no signs of any injuries.

I also spoke to a dog-walker, Patrice, who said she had witnessed two motor scooters pursuing this same little coyote up and down the streets several weeks ago. It must have been another harrowing experience for the coyote. Did these humans not know how cruel they were being? What might be considered fun and games for us and our dogs is actually a matter of life and death for this little coyote. Please help stop this kind of activity whenever you notice it!

PHOTO AND VIDEO: Courtesy of Janet Kessler from Coyote Yipps

Bernal Heights Proposed As Guinea Pig in SFMTA Parking Permit Experiment

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Streets initially proposed for a new northwest Bernal RPP zone. Source: SFMTA

Streets initially proposed for a new northwest Bernal RPP zone.  Source: SFMTA

The SFMTA is moving ahead with plans to use Bernal Heights as the site of an experimental Residential Parking Permit (RPP) scheme that will no longer emphasize preventing non-residents from parking on neighborhood streets. Instead, under the new system, the RPP program will also seek to limit the number of cars residents can park on the streets of their own neighborhood.

As previously reported, the SFMTA’s Bernal parking survey showed that roughly 70% of the cars parked on northwest Bernal streets on a typical weekday afternoon likely belong to other Bernal Heights residents. Under SFMTA’s longstanding rules, at least 50% of parked cars would have to belong to non-residents in order to establish a new RPP zone.

northbernalrppwhosecars

Source: SFMTA

Yet after some residents organized a petition drive last year to establish a new RPP zone in northwest Bernal, the SFMTA moved its own goalposts. The 50% non-resident requirement was quietly disregarded, but SFMTA has not explained what the updated criteria for establishing a new RPP zone will be.

Since then, other San Francisco publications have shed more light on SFMTA’s intentions.  In mid-March, the San Francisco Examiner reported:

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing a stricter cap on residential parking permits issued in The City, from four permits to a household to perhaps only two, or maybe limited to one permit per driver.

The cap might make it possible for more parking to be found on San Francisco streets in neighborhoods where visitors cars park in “high rates” and displace residents’ cars.

“I don’t think anyone envisions this as being a silver bullet,” said Hank Willson, parking policy manager at the SFMTA. “But it certainly has the potential to help.”

The permit cap and other restrictions are part of a new pilot being proposed for a section of north Bernal Heights and in the Dogpatch.

Does northwest Bernal Heights have “high rates” of non-resident parking?  We have no idea, because SFMTA has repeatedly declined to specify what the non-resident parking threshold will be under their new rules.

A few days after the Examiner article ran, SF Bay News reported that the proposed Bernal Heights scheme isn’t really focused on non-resident parking. Instead, it mainly targets other Bernal Heights residents:

Kathryn Studwell, SFMTA program manager of the Residential Parking Permit (RPP) program, said the transit agency will test out the pilots to measure if they improve parking availability in the neighborhoods and see how residents in the pilots react first before going citywide with the proposals.

One pilot the transit agency is proposing is on the northwest side of Bernal Heights, where the parking occupancy averages around 90 percent on weekdays and weekends, according to SFMTA documents.

The pilot would cap the number of permits from four permits per household to one permit per driver and two permits per household.

In survey conducted by the SFMTA, 95 percent of residents own a private vehicle in the area, but nearly 50 percent of homes do not have off-street parking.

These details were not shared with Bernal Heights residents when the initial petition drive was organized, and several neighbors have written to Bernalwood privately to complain about a SFMTA “bait and switch.” Because of the new, uncertain, and ambiguous rules, they say, the old petition should not be considered valid and a new petition should be required.

SF Bay News adds:

Both Bernal Heights and Dogpatch parking permit pilots would need to go before the SFMTA Board of Directors before staff can implement the pilots.

Studwell said she plans get the Bernal Heights pilot to the Board of Directors for approval sometime in the summer.

Bernal Dads Launch 24-Hour Super-Express Muni Weekend Service

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Closed course. Non-union driver. Do not attempt in Bernal Heights.

Those fuel-huffing fathers from Bernal Dads Racing are pleased to announce that as part of their effort to move Muni Forward, Bus 670 will offer  24-hour super-express transit service on a trial basis this weekend,  from 11 am on Saturday, March 25 until 11 am Sunday, March 26.

As every SFMTA enthusiast knows, the Muni Forward program is about making it easier and safer to move around San Francisco. Based on feedback from San Francisco transit riders, the Bernal Dads have taken it upon themselves to explore the possibility of providing  faster, more convenient, and more reliable super-express Muni service anytime, day or night.

To accomplish this, Bus 670, a 1992 Volvo 240 wagon fitted for public transit duty and enhanced with a high(er)-performance BMW engine, has been further upgraded with an advanced photon-emission system that enables the vehicle to turn night into day at the flip of a switch. This video was taken during a recent test of the system:

With those modifications complete, Bus 670 will head to Buttonwillow Raceway Park this weekend to study the feasibility of uninterrupted super-express Muni  service by participating in the Lucky Dog Racing League’s “Doggone 24” competition, a continuous, 24-hour endurance race that will provide a realistic simulation of extended-duration rapid transit operation, driver fatigue-management, and intense maneuvering in wheel-to-wheel San Francisco traffic.

“This Muni Forward infrastructure improvement was funded entirely with loose change the Bernal Dads found beneath the cushions of our sofas, with no support whatsoever from Prop A, the bond measure passed by San Francisco voters in 2014. We have listened to Muni riders and look forward to reducing travel times and increasing high-speed service in a rapidly growing city,” said Neighbor Brandon Powell, Bernal Dads Racing’s Director of Advanced Projects.

To monitor this important public transit experiment and get regular NextMuni updates on lap times and anticipated service intervals, aspiring passengers are encouraged to visit Bernal Dads Racing on Facebook throughout the weekend. And as always, thank you for riding Muni.

PHOTOS: Courtesy of Bernal Dads Racing

Bernal Heights Cameos as Neighbors Produce New “Budding Prospects” TV Show

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Oh hey. Bernal neighbors (and wife-husband duo) Melissa Zwigoff (Axelrod) and Terry Zwigoff of Montcalm Street are the executive producers of Budding Prospects, a new television show on Amazon Prime. Naturally, Bernal Heights co-stars in the pilot.

Here’s how Deadline Hollywood describes the show:

Amazon s joining the hot trend of marijuana-themed shows with Budding Prospect, a 1980s comedy from Bad Santa director Terry Zwigoff, which has tapped Will Sasso as one of the leads.

Written by Melissa Axelrod based on the TC Boyle novel of the same name and to be directed by Zwigoff, Budding Prospect is set in 1983 San Francisco. Three hapless city boys move to the country to grow marijuana. Their expectations of the experience being a back-to-the-land, nurturing adventure in a beautiful rustic setting run up against the harsh truth upon their arrival at “The Summer Camp” – a miserably run-down shanty out in the middle of nowhere, where they are bedeviled by rats, snakes, mosquitoes, and harsh, unfriendly growing conditions, noisy neighbors, dangerous locals, and menacing law enforcement.

There are lots of Bernal Heights scenes in the pilot, including some tsk-tsk driving on Bernal Heights Boulevard:

Also, the Bernal Heights Library on Cortland puts on a costume to masquerade as the Mission Police Station:

Bernalwood caught up with Neighbor Melissa for an EXCLUSIVE celebrity interview about the show. She tells Bernalwood:

I wrote Budding Prospects (based on a novel by TC Boyle) and my husband Terry directed. We wanted to work from home, and the book is set in and around the Mission prior to a journey up to Mendocino, so we knew we’d at least get to sleep in our own beds while filming the pilot. We hate leaving the ‘Hill’ for too long! Our last foray into Hollywood kept us there for years and that ain’t happening again.

I wrote Budding Prospects as Melissa Axelrod, my maiden name. I started writing when Terry was working on Bad Santa. I did some uncredited work on that script, then started writing in earnest about 10 years ago.

I wrote a feature that had a lot of interest, Fred Armisen attached as lead, but indie features are so tough to finance I’ve pretty much given up on that seeing the light of day. I did get some work out of it, a couple of jobs writing pilots, but they never made it to TV.

It’s tough to work in the film business and live in SF, but my husband and I love it here. I’ve lived here since ’86 and he’s been here since something like ’72 – we have a cozy set-up: cats, a house we love, people we love …  we never wanted to make the big move to LA. We’re not so ambitious as to give all this up! Budding Prospects is our ideal project, as we plan to set several episodes in SF.

Congrats Neighbors Melissa and Terry!

Budding Prospects is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, and watch the trailer right here.

IMAGES: Screenshots of Bernal Heights, as seen in the pilot episode of Budding Prospects

CurbedSF Collects Cute Pics of “Dopey Dogs of Bernal Hill”

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Our friends at CurbedSF have collected a lovely set of photos about all the doggies to be found atop Bernal Hill. They write:

If you rent in San Francisco and your rent-control lease specifies no-pets, you too might known the pain of living a pooch-free life. So much so that you’re resorted to petting any dog that passes by and/or visiting dog parks alone just to take pics of other peoples’ pups. Which isn’t creepy at all.

Abate your puppy pangs with this series of shots atop Bernal Hill. The Bernal Heights summit is noted for being the place in San Francisco to take your dog.

And from there, a great deal of cuteness ensues.

A Letter to Whomever Broke Into This Car Last Week

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Last week, after Neighbor Jes parked just south of Cortland Avenue, someone broke in to her car.. There was nothing inside the car worth stealing, so Neighbor Jes wrote this letter to the would-be thief:

To whomever broke into my car Tuesday evening,

Well it’s obvious why you chose my car. Two-toned duck-tape holding up my passenger side mirror, on an old beat-up 2003 Nissan. Absolutely nothing inside but a few cassette tapes which you rummaged through and didn’t seem to appreciate. You stole nothing, but you left me a new umbrella. Thanks kindly.

Neighbors beware. My car was parked on Anderson near jarboe. Looks like the perpetrators were looking for money, any technology, &/or a garage door opener.

Neighbor Jes

PHOTO: Car after the break-in, courtesy of Neighbor Jes

Housing Deal Adds $1 Million for Calle24 and Temporary Homeless Shelter

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What does it cost to build new housing on an abandoned lot near Cesar Chavez Avenue? In the case of 1515 South Van Ness, the  157-unit mixed-income development proposed for the site, a previous commitment to make 25% of the new units affordable wasn’t enough. Yesterday we learned that it’ll also take a $1 million payment to an anti-development organization  with close ties to D9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen to get the project approved.

Reporter J.K. Dineen from the San Francisco Chronicle broke the story about the deal yesterday, adding that in addition to the $1 million payment to a “cultural stabilization fund” run by Erick Arguello of the Calle24 Council, the former McMillan Electric building on the corner of 26th Street and South Van Ness will also be converted into a temporary homeless shelter until construction begins.

Dineen writes:

A four-month impasse over a key Mission District housing project is headed toward resolution after the developer agreed to new community benefits including discounted “trade shop” space for local businesses and a $1 million contribution to a cultural district formed in 2014 to preserve the neighborhood’s Latino heritage and community.

In a deal hammered out with Supervisor Hillary Ronen, Lennar Multifamily Communities has committed to leasing out its six 700-square-foot trade shop spaces at 1515 S. Van Ness Ave. for 50 percent of the market rate. The $1 million contribution would be made through the San Francisco Foundation to a cultural stabilization fund that could be spent on building or acquiring sites for affordable housing.

In addition, Lennar, which had previously agreed to make 25 percent of the 157 housing units affordable and to use 100 percent union labor, has agreed to let the city use the current building that is on the property as a navigation center — a pop-up shelter for homeless services.

IMAGE: Aerial view of 1515 South Van Ness, via Google Maps

Woman Attacks 14 Year-Old Student at Paul Revere School

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From SFGate:

A girl was taken to a hospital after a 30-year-old woman came to her school and punched her, police said Monday.

The woman showed up at the 14-year-old girl’s Bernal Heights school at 11 a.m. on Friday and began arguing with her before the altercation turned physical, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

The woman then allegedly pushed the girl to the ground and punched her. The altercation was broken up by school staff and the woman fled in an unknown direction, police said.

IMAGE: Paul Revere School, by Telstar Logistics

Colorful Sunrise Bathes Bernal in Magical Light

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From my home in the North Bernal lowlands, I noticed this morning that the sunrise was creating some fiery orange reflections on the glass of a few downtown high-rises.

It was a lovely scene, but from his vantage point in Noe Valley,  Bernalspotter Christopher Baker had an even more glamorous view of this morning’s colorful sunrise — because it highlighted us.

Welcome to the new week, Bernal Heights!

PHOTO: Courtesy of Christopher Baker