Stars collide, galaxies collapse, websites fall over, and the macroeconomic forces of global capitalism grind inexorably onward. Yet all is well in Bernal Heights, because there’s been a sighting of the legendary Bikini Jogger.
A Bernal neighbor shared this snap of the Bikini Jogger on the move yesterday near the Folsom gate on Bernal Hill. With it, we can all rest assured that at least our corner of the universe remains enlivened and perplexed.
Previous Bikini Jogger coverage on Bernalwood
Recently, Neighbor Emily launched Guesthop, a new service for people who host guests via websites like Airbnb and VRBO. She tells Bernalwood:
From the East Side of Bernal, introducing Guesthop.com.
We created Guesthop to deal with the problems people face when they are hosts on AirBnB. People love to rent their spaces on AirBnB but it’s a lot of work! They have to list the place and handle inquiries, keep it clean, make it guest-ready, plus take care of the guests while they are in town. It’s a lot of management and attention to detail.
Basically, everything a concierge would do in a hotel — that’s what Guesthop does. We handle all the work for people, to make renting out your space hassle free.
Mention Bernalwood and get $10 off your first Guesthop service.
Neighbor Markus lives in northeastern Bernal Heights, in the Santana Rancho subdistrict. On Sunday morning, he got up ridiculously early to photograph the sunrise from atop Twin Peaks.
Cleverly, Nature conspired to place the sun directly behind Neighbor Markus’s house — and the rest of Bernal Heights — when he took this photo, which was then shared in the stylish Bernalwood Group on Flickr.
Frankly, Bernal looks pretty fantastic. We also look like we could use a cup of coffee.
PHOTO: Markus Spiering
If you are of the opinion that what Cortland Ave. needs is more places to buy warm drinks west of Bennington Street, then the gods have heard your prayers, because that stretch of Cortland will soon be home to two (2) new purveyors of fine warm drinks.
While walking on Cortland on Saturday, I noticed that the door was open at 317 Cortland, just west of the 331 Cortland food marketplace. Inside I met Joe, who let me snap some photos of his new shop specializing in the sale of loose Chinese tea. Joe hopes to open for business in the next few weeks.
A little farther west on Cortland, Neighbors Alex and Alexei tell Bernalwood that Pinhole Coffee, a new coffee shop, is preparing to open at 231 Cortland, on the corner of Bonview near Avedano’s. Pinhole Coffee already has a thriving Facebook page, and this note is posted in the window:
PHOTOS: Top, 317 Cortland, by Telstar Logistics. Middle, Pinhole Coffee interior renovations, by Pinhole Coffee. Bottom, note by Alexei Oreskovic.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the McTigue family operated a harness manufacturing shop and livery stable for horses on Mission Street at the intersection of Precita, roughly on the site where El Rio stands today. We wrote about all this recently while dissecting an aerial photo of Bernal Heights taken during the 1920s.
Here’s what Mission Street at Precita looked like in May, 1923. Notice that there are several carriages parked in front of the McTigue Livery on the left:
When we zoom and enhance the image, we clearly see the McTigue name on the front of the livery stable building:
Here’s the same spot, in August, 1927, at which point McTigue Livery had been replaced by Mission Chevrolet (which is today home to O’Reilly Auto Parts):
La Lengua propagandist Burrito Justice located this entry from the 1908 City Directory:
This tells us that the McTigues also operated a harness making shop (at 3156 Mission), just south of the livery stable, on the very site where El Rio now makes the universe a happier place.
About a year ago, Bernal Neighbor Michael Nolan did a geek-out on the McTigues in a Bernalwood comment, and discovered the following:
Did some genealogical research on the McTigue family, the harness makers. Michael McTigue and Frances Acton were Irish immigrants born in 1830 and 1832 who started the business South of Market . In 1872, they were living at 273 Minna, In 1880 on 8 1/2 Moss. with children Augusta, Fanny, Joseph, Richard, John and Jennie. By 1896 they were living at 19 Alvarado with their harness factory at 3156 Mission Street. Joseph W. McTigue was born in 1866 and died in 1939. He married Mary Theresa Costello and they had a daughter, Marie. She married William Dabel and in the 1940 census they lived at 3182A Mission Street. They had a son William (1927-2006) and I”m trying to trace his descendants.
Neighbor Michael was spot-on, because last week Bernalwood received a note from one of those descendants: Greg Dabel, the great-great grandson of Joseph W. McTigue(!!!!), who had stumbled upon our story about the aerial photo from 1924. Mr. Dabel told us:
My great great grandfather had various locations along the 3000-3100 block of Mission Street for buildings, stables, holding corrals, etc. Known addresses were: 3088-98; 3156; 3180 Mission and 1665 Valencia.
Mr. Dabel also shared a family history of Joseph McTigue, along with several never-before-seen photos of his equine businesses on Mission Street.
This was Joseph W. McTigue:
And this was his story…
The Dabel Family
CHAPTER 15Joseph William McTIGUE
1865-1939
Your great, great grandfather on your father’s sideJoseph McTigue was the first son of Michael and Fanny (Acton) McTigue. The family lived in an apartment on Kearney Street in San Francisco, California. Joseph grew up helping his father in the livery business located in downtown San Francisco.
According to the family, when Joseph McTigue was about twenty years old he left San Francisco to work as a stagecoach driver in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was employed by the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike Company and drove the Mariposa-to-Yosemite Valley stage run. The company had daily passenger stage run.
When Joseph McTigue returned San Francisco he married Mary Theresa Costello at San Francisco’s St. John’s Catholic Church and he opened a new livery business in San Francisco’s Mission District. It is not clear whether he joined his father in moving the existing livery business from the downtown location or he started a new location. From photos of the business we know that his brother Richard ‘Dick’ McTigue was also part of the family business. In 1903 the San Francisco telephone book listed ‘Joseph W. McTigue – Saddle and Harness Maker – 3156 Mission Street. Phone number: ‘Church 2833.’
Joseph McTigue’s livery business thrived. He rented horses, wagons, and buggies. The local butcher and baker rented his wagons and horses to deliver their goods around the City. Others needing transport would rent a horse and buggy for the day.
‘Joe’ McTigue also had time and money to support racing horses. The family specialized in ‘harness-racing.’ Their prized trotter race horse named ‘Darby Mac’ won many weekend races held at Golden Gate Park and other Bay Area race tracks.
Family oral history says that Joseph McTigue missed a lucrative business opportunity. As the story goes, in about 1898 he was approached by a salesman, perhaps the owner himself, of the newly-founded Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company made rubber horseshoe pads so it was natural for the salesman to call on the McTigue Brothers. In addition to horseshoe pads and tires for bicycles, Goodyear was also making tires for ‘horseless carriages’ (automobiles).
The McTigue brothers had a well-established business and a perfect location to sell these rubber tires. It is said Goodyear offered Joseph McTigue an exclusive San Francisco franchise rights to sell tires and rubber products. But Joseph McTigue, a ‘hostler’ through-and-through, turned down the opportunity. He was not keen on the ‘new-fangled’ automobile and refused to believe that autos would ever replace horses.
Eventually it was the automobile that brought an end to the McTigue livery business. The McTigue Harness and Saddler Shop closed its doors in 1940. Most horse collars and other equipment in stock were sold. What was not sold was stored in the basement or loaded into the remaining wagons and towed to a Bay landfill near Hunter’s Point, San Francisco. Joseph McTigue died in 1939. His Death Certificate listed his profession as ‘Harness-Maker for 50 years.’
Many thanks to Greg Dabel for so generously sharing his family history!
PHOTOS: McTigue family, courtesy of Greg Dabel
Sigh.
San Francisco Chronicle urban design critic John King has become the latest in a series of Baby Boomer journalists to lament how much more vibrant and exciting Bernal Heights was back in the wooly days before the Baby Boomers became… old. In a big column about Bernal that ran on B1 in yesterday’s newspaper, King writes:
Cortland Avenue, the commercial strip, doesn’t have the boutiques you might find on Fillmore Street. But the influx of affluent younger couples can be seen at VinoRosso, a wine bar that on Wednesdays holds a happy hour for parents and their babies.
Two blocks away, a shop specializing in electric bicycles opened last year next to Wild Side West, a lesbian-owned bar that’s been on Cortland since 1976.
The scene was far different when [D9 Supervisor David] Campos’ predecessor, Tom Ammiano, moved to the neighborhood in 1972.
“Cortland was not a warm and fuzzy place back then, especially for a gay man,” Ammiano said while sitting in Progressive Grounds, a coffee house where the only nod to the 21st century is the free Wi-Fi that’s heavily used. “I didn’t come over here for years.”
What attracted Ammiano and his boyfriend at the time wasn’t politics, but low prices: Their real estate agent said they’d be fools to pass up a $27,000 house with parking and a city view.
Pioneers by default, “Bernal grew on us,” Ammiano said. “The neighbors were always fine. The creep of gentrification came almost unnoticed.”
Now?
“It’s bittersweet,” Ammiano mused. “Bernal feels a lot safer, and people are engaged more. But I also know that most of the new wave doesn’t know the history. I’m a little worried it will get more and more generic – the whole city is facing it.”
The transitions are equally apparent to Rachel Ebora, executive director of the [Bernal Heights] neighborhood center.
The center today has 30 full- and part-time employees and a $2 million budget, much of it from government grants that go to specific programs, such as the subsidized elderly lunches that continue to be a mainstay. The center’s development corporation has helped build 445 units of low-income housing, with another 71 apartments under construction in the Ingleside neighborhood.
“I’m really proud to be a Bernal resident,” said Ebora, who moved to the neighborhood from Portland, Ore., in 2005 and worked as a taiko drummer before joining the center as a community organizer. “All the different groups here can be like factions, but they’re not afraid to be engaged about what’s happening.”
The question is what happens next.
Bernal is buffered from mass evictions by the fact that 58 percent of its homes are occupied by their owners, compared with a citywide rate of 38 percent. But each time an older house goes on the market, put there by the families of blue-collar parents no longer living, or aging children of the 1960s seeking an easier place to live, the economic diversity narrows a bit more.
And so on. As told by King, we are to understand that Cortland used to be a bleak and crime-ridden place, but now it has a vibrant wine bar and a thriving electric bicycle shop, which means… something that is left unsaid. Yet rather than celebrate this entrepreneurial transformation from the muck of urban squalor, King and his interlocutors would have us believe that Bernal is now a less interesting and close-knit place than it used to be.
Your Bernalwood editor wasn’t here in the 1970s or 1980s, so who knows if that’s true. And besides, who cares? What we know with absolute certainty is that Bernal is an interesting and close-knit place in 2013, and that Bernal residents — both new and old — are actively committed to making this the very best neighborhood it can be.
Moreover, a lot of these newer and highly engaged Bernal Heights neighbors are tired of being told that they are nowhere near as righteous or as committed or as interesting as the dewy-eyed Baby Boomers who colonized Bernal during the 197os and 1980s.
Neighbor Robert read King’s article in the Chronicle yesterday, and in an email to Bernalwood, he had this say about it:
They’re right, things are changing, with the rich yuppies moving in. But that started 16 years ago when the first dotcommers (us!) bought in. That’s when houses that had been $200K started selling for $300-500K, which was massive for Bernal at that time. And it happened in the 1960s, because at that point they stopped rejecting multi-ethnic families [under the previous redlining rules]. So all this has been going on for as long as this patch of City has been here.
I have a hard time with folks who want to hang on to a neighborhood’s particular ethos at the time they lived there. That’s as disrespectful to the folks who came before them as it is to the newer folks who are changing the neighborhood today. Basically, as politely as I can say it: They’re kind of hypocritical. And the fact that they don’t get that causes me to lose some respect for them. They’re smart folks. But if they don’t see all this, then maybe they’re not that smart. Sorry if I come off obnoxiously on this.
Here’s what another Bernal neighbor wrote to say after reading King’s piece:
Paraphrasing the Buddha, all is impermanent.
Neighborhoods change. Many of the people who have lived here a long time pushed someone out when they arrived. There are early gentrifiers, and there are late gentrifiers, and it seems that you always disdain the people who come after you.
For those who have tired of the new Bernal, the “next Bernal Heights” exists: it’s the Excelsior. Diverse community, engaged & organized neighborhood groups, good proximity to transit, decent weather, views, good parks, up-and-coming schools, etc., with relatively affordable (for SF) houses. You could take your Bernal profits now and move there and repeat the process, if that’s what you really want.
But when push comes to shove, many people don’t really want to move back in time to a neighborhood that’s still somewhat dangerous and scruffy, where there are some poorly maintained houses and not very many sidewalk trees.
Nostalgia for the old Bernal Heights leaves those details out. Obviously, these folks are also attached to the neighborhood, which is still pretty awesome. SF has a serious dearth of housing, and until there’s a lot more infill of one form or another, there’s going to be someone offering you a lot of cash when it comes time to sell your place. (By the way, there’s no rule that says you have to accept the highest, all-cash offer, but people seem to forget that when it comes to accept an offer.)
So if John King (or any other journalist of his generation) would like to come back to do another article about what’s really happening here on Bernal Hill in 2013, Bernalwood will be happy to assist. We will gladly introduce dozens of Bernal residents from younger generations who are neither politicians nor professional activists. He will meet people who are extremely well-versed in Bernal Heights history and who are actively engaged in the daily task of making this a better, more close-knit, and more beautiful place — regardless of whatever kind of work they happen to do during the day to pay the mortgage.
They’re here.
This is happening.
Get fucking used to it.
Fa-la-la-la-la / la-la-la-la, and ho-ho-ho, and keep an eye on any packages you get delivered to your home in the weeks ahead, because the holidays are prime hunting season for parcel thieves.
Neighbor Chris shares this story from last weekend:
On Saturday I had an attempted theft from my house. Around 1-2pm, a woman wearing a black hoodie and a colorful backpack was spotted by my downstairs tenant trying to steal a package through my security gate. This took place on Heyman Ave.
She had a long piece of metal she had put through the bars and was trying to scoop out the package through the bars of the gate. Luckily my tenant came outside and she ran off.
Currently, I only have a security grill behind the lock for my gate. After this happened, I realized that it would be quite easy for a thief to extract small packages from elsewhere in the gate. I’ll be welding on some more security grill to fix this vulnerability.
If you regularly get any packages or mail delivered behind a security gate/door, go make sure they are truly secure. Bring a metal pole and see if you can fish anything out through the gates.
Stay safe, Bernal!
Barring that (no pun intended), you might also consider having parcels delivered to your workplace, rather than to your home.
IMAGE: FreakingNews.com
Bernal Heights is an interesting place to spend time, in no small part because the neighborhood rewards sustained attention in both micro and macro modes. That is, there’s a lot to notice both when you zoom in on street-level details here, or when you go big to take in the panoramic vistas.
Case in point: There’s a new mural emerging on the horizon to the east of Bernal Hill. It’s taking shape on the side of that giant, derelict grain silo near the bay, and as you can see above, Bernalwood contributor Joe Thomas has been tracking its progress from his high-altitude observation post on Bernal’s east slope.
Big mural! But how? And why?
The silos themselves were built in 1918, but they’ve been dormant since the 1989 earthquake. The Port of San Francisco offers this rendering of how the finished mural will look:
The Port also provides a terrific project description:
Bayview Rise, an illuminated mural for Port Pier 92, weaves together iconic imagery reflecting the Bayview neighborhood’s changing economy, ecology, and community. Its large-scale graphics will make its primary images visible from a distance, while views up close will reveal the abstract patterns from which those images are composed. The artwork is conceived as a gateway into Bayview Hunters Point and will be visible and changing from day to night.
The mural is designed by artists Laura Hadadd and Tom Drugan. The mural’s graphic imagery is rooted in the Bayview’s historic and future conditions, but with an emphasis on elements that float, fly, and rise. The composition creates a spatial illusion in which elements appear to rise up and out from a horizon where water meets land and sky.
Grounding the image is a bottom layer of water, representing both the San Francisco Bay and the past marshlands of Islais Creek. Submerged in the water, as a symbol of the neighborhood’s past, is a reference to historic Butchertown. The primary icon rising from the horizon line is a soaring heron, which ties to nearby Heron’s Head Park, a successful environmental restoration by the Port. Other imagery represented in the artwork include native cherry plants, shorebirds, and a reference to a quote by community activist Essie Webb who likened Hunters Point to a balloon waiting to be re-inflated. Because so many individual Bayview heroes came to light in the research process, it was impossible to represent just a few and seemed more appropriate to honor all of them with a concept they might all believe in, that of “rise.” The images within the mural have been combined, overlapped, and juxtaposed in a triangular matrix so there appear to be metamorphoses between cherries and balloons, water and birds, land and leaves.
At night colored lights will cycle through the colors red, green, and blue, on both the façade and the adjacent silos. Every night the lighting schedule will vary, so that the art is dynamic and always changing its appearance. The lights will cause the mural imagery to change its appearance with changing light colors. An individual light color will cause parts of the mural of that same color to be highlighted while other colors recede into the dark background. As the light colors shift, images will appear to float in and out of the scene. This striking effect will result in the appearance of an animated graphic abstractly representing a neighborhood in transformation, Bayview Rising.
Impressive! Oh, and that bit about using illumination to highlight or hide various colors in the mural at night? Here’s how that’s going to look:
Badass! Happily, Bernal will enjoy a superb view.
PHOTOS: Top, Joe Thomas. Below, Port of San Francisco. Special thanks to Norman Weinfield for the tip.
Your Bernalwood editor recently received some troubling reports that the venerable and much-loved Deli Pub sandwich shop on Cortland at Bocana had closed down. We heard rumors of a violent robbery at the Deli Pub, but our sources on Cortland were unable to confirm any details.
Bernal neighbor and celebrity journalist Tim Redmond heard those rumors too, and he graciously offered to investigate the story… and share his fond memories of a Bernal Heights institution. Tim writes:
I got a little nervous two weeks ago when I walked past the Deli Pub, my favorite sandwich shop ever, and saw that the doors were closed. That was odd: Imad, the proprietor and sandwich maker, was always there: Seven days a week, pretty much 365 days a year, he’s hanging out in the shop, chatting with his friends, serving Middle Eastern Plates and Turkey on a baguette to the small but loyal stream of customers.
My kids grew up at Imad’s, much as they grew up at the Bernal Playground and Progressive Grounds; these were the places we hung out. Michael and Vivian played Imad’s piano, and sometimes, when he wasn’t too busy (well, much of the time – he was never too busy) he’d pull down his drums and play along.
The Deli Pub couldn’t be closed, I figured. He must be taking a vacation.
But no – as the days passed, and I walked by the door, I started to see dead leaves on the table tops, and I realized something was very wrong.
Imad loved his plants. When I first discovered the place 18 years ago, the ficus trees were fairly small; by this summer, they covered every window and much of the interior space and were threatening to squeeze the customers out. But they never got cut back, and the forest-like atmosphere was part of the charm.
So if the trees were dying, the Deli Pub was in trouble.
And, indeed, word on the street is that Imad has retired. I haven’t been able to reach him, but I’m told he decided to call it a day (or a quarter-century) after a frightening robbery in October.
According to SFPD Public Affairs Officer Wilson Ng, three suspects entered the Deli Pub Oct. 10, at 7:42 pm. One of them told Imad he had a gun, and forced my old friend and neighborhood icon to lie on the floor while the looted the register. There was nobody else in the shop, but witnesses on the street described one Asian man and two of unknown race leaving the scene. There have been no arrests.
Imad (of course) had no security cameras. He barely had a stove – the burner he used to head his sandwiches and make his hot peanuts looked like it had been through several wars. But he managed to make great food, and he was always happy to share; when my kids and I came for lunch, he’d offer us whatever specialty he was working on that day. When Michael was born, he sent me home with a big plate of humus, tomatoes, and olives for Jean; he did the same thing later when Vivian joined the family.
So now, apparently, the Deli Pub – a part of us, a part of our community – is gone. I will miss it, terribly. And Imad, if you’re out there reading this, please hold a goodbye party; everyone I know will come.
PHOTOS: Leonard Znao via Google+
Miss Darcy from Heartfelt on Cortland wrote Bernalwood to give us the scoop on Heartfelt’s new online store and the eco-sexy bicycle delivery service that will support it around town:
Heartfelt is proud to announce the launch of their online store and accompanying bike delivery service within San Francisco. Our goal is to offer folks an alternative to the sometimes bland online shopping experience of larger companies. We offer a unique selection of gifts with a personal flair. [Unsure what to get an acquaintance or even a close friend? Email Darcy Lee at darcysheartfeltpix*at*gmail.com and she will personally send you 3-4 recommendations to choose from.]
We think of this launch as a Bernal collaboration of local business. The bike itself was purchased at the electric bike shop The New Wheel, and Heartfelt will be offering gift boxes from fellow Bernal vendors such as Succulence, Little Bee Bakery, Paulie’ s Pickling, and Anda Piroshki.
Wave if you see us delivering around town!
PHOTO: via Heartfelt
Hopefully you brushed your sidewalks and flossed your expansion joints recently, because several neighbors spotted the Google Street View car in Bernal Heights over the weekend, presumably to update our visual data to reflect our look in late 2013.
Fortunately, Neighbor Mark did his part to ensure we present a clean, well-groomed appearance to cyber-tourists and future historians:
PHOTO: Street View car on Alabama at Precita on Saturday, by Don Derheim.
We all know that life in Bernal Heights is mighty sweet.
But honey from Bernal Heights is even sweeter. Neighbor Emily wrote Bernalwood recently to say: “I know a Bernal family that is making our own Bernal honey! I just got a jar the other day, and it’s a very nice, smooth honey. It doesn’t taste like I-280 at all!”
Locavore honey? Yum! Soon we received an email from Neighbor Samantha, who explained:
My husband Darren is in one of the photos, shown working a hive at the Alemany Farm.
He works with Karen Peteros of the San Francisco Bee-Cause. The jarred honey in the photos comes from the San Francisco Bee Farms, with hives located in Bernal, Visitation Valley, The Mission, and Potrero Hill.
This honey can be purchased directly from us for $13.00 per jar. To make a purchase, please contact Darren and Samantha Des Roches at we3desroches*at*yahoo.com or 415-648-4991. Proceeds benefit the San Francisco Bee Cause: Helping Bees Helping People.
PHOTOS: San Francisco Bee Cause
Neighbor Rachel is a Bernal resident who works for SF Village, a nonprofit membership organization that’s hosting a an open house for older Bernalese at the Bernal Library tomorrow, on Saturday, November 16. She writes:
San Francisco Village, a citywide network empowering older San Franciscans, is coming to Bernal on November 16! This membership organization focuses on active aging for SF residents over 60, providing expert guidance, support, and community. Nearby Noe Valley and Glen Park already have neighborhood circles, and now it’s Bernal’s turn to organize a local Village chapter.
“San Francisco Village has become a trusted advocate in helping hundreds of older San Franciscans navigate the transitions of getting older,” says Kate Hoepke, San Francisco Village’s executive director. “We’re excited to begin organizing in the Bernal Heights neighborhood and look forward to cultivating new relationships as we work to enrich and enhance the experience of aging in San Francisco.”
While the Village actively serves San Franciscans 60 and older, there are also many volunteer opportunities available for residents younger than 60. The open house will feature an overview of the organization and the “Village Model,” benefits of membership, as well as testimonials from current San Francisco Village members and volunteers.
The free informational open house will be held at the Bernal Heights Library on Saturday November 16, from 1:30 – 3:30. For more information: http://www.sfvillage.org or contact SFV at info@sfvillage.org or 415-387-1375.
Bernalwood 