Why Is Bernal Missing from Google Street View?

/ Todd_Lappin / 25 Comments

This may well be a good thing, but… why doesn’t Google Street View include coverage of Bernal Heights? Our status is conspicuous when you look at the city as a whole, because in a sea of Street View blue, Bernal Heights is an island of invisibility.

Arguably, given Bernal’s history as “a village within the city,” our absence from Street View is probably in keeping with local tradition. Yet it’s also odd, given the comprehensiveness of Google’s coverage elsewhere.

Since we know that a few Google employees live in the ‘hood, perhaps someone can explain why Bernal Heights remains Street View terra incognita?

Fundraiser to Benefit Victims of the Mission/Valencia Fire

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

This is such a good thing to see: A fundraiser has been organized to benefit the 12 now-homeless victims of the three-alarm fire that tore through two buildings on Mission Street last night. The benefit will take place at El Rio tomorrow, on Friday, April 8 from 8pm-2am, or you can donate via PayPal to mission3212@gmail.com.

Here’s the fundraiser announcement:

Many of you saw or heard about the devastating fire that happened on Mission and Valencia last night. The house that took the brunt of the damage was actually a house full of amazing friends who many of you may know and love. It looks as though the fire destroyed most or all of their possessions and made the house uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

Currently the residents are without homes, clothes, and other basic necessities and could really use assistance getting back on their feet. The four people who lost their home are all amazing people who have been active vibrant parts of our queer community in San Francisco and have always shown their strongest support for the needs of others. Now its our turn to show our support and bring together the generosity and might of our community to support them in this time of need.

El Rio has generously allowed us to take over their front room on Friday night for an emergency benefit to raise funds for these four amazing folks to purchase the basics they need to stay afloat. Please please please spread the word about this event on facebook and elsewhere and come out, dig deep and share your $$ with folks who really need it right now. At the door there will be someone collecting cash to be distributed directly to the victims of the fire, so just make sure that person gets your donation, come in, have some drinks hangout on the patio and dance a bit if you like.

Also, El Rio will also be donating 100% of their bar proceeds from 8-9pm directly to the four folks affected so come early, donate and drink.

Brown Amy & I are going to be DJ’ing & anyone else who would like to be involved by DJ’ing, speaking, whatever please contact me and let me know. ttemprano@gmail.com

*** If you are unable to attend you can make your donations via Paypal to mission3212@gmail.com ***

PHOTO: The day after, by Burrito Justice

An Update on the Effort to Save Our Historic Coca-Cola Mural

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

Vintage Coke Sign

I drove by Bernal’s historic and controversial Coke mural last week to see how it was doing. I was happy to see that a) it hasn’t been temporarily covered up, and b) the unsightly violation notice from the City Planning Department had disappeared too. Later, I asked homeowner Richard Modolo for an update on the sign, and the legislative effort by Supervisor David Campos to save it.  Here’s what Richard had to say:

To bring you up to date, the permit to temporarily cover the Coke sign is on hold with the Planning Department, and I’m told that this is a good thing. Supervisor Campos “CC’d” me on a very nice letter he sent to the Zoning Department, requesting they hold off on any penalties or fines while this works its way through the legislative process. That process is currently with the City Attorney’s office. They are going to come up with the correct wording to preserve the sign and see that it is attached to the recorded property information/deed.

As for the violation notice from the Planning Department, it was either torn off of or the rain got to it, so for now only the tape marks remain. My plan it to restore the sign once we have the “OK” to preserve it. The wheels grind slowly, but I hear they are moving a little every day.

PHOTO: Bernal Coke sign in situ, on April 1, 2011 by Telstar Logistics

Your April 2011 Bernalwood Real Estate Report

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

Coso Square

Danielle Lazier is a realtor with Zephyr Real Estate, the author of SFHotlist, and Bernalwood’s unofficial real estate analyst. Here’s her latest update on the residential real estate market in Bernal Heights:

Maybe, just maybe, the worst is behind us for the local San Francisco real estate market. Since January here in Bernal Heights, real estate sales have picked up speed with no sign of a slowdown. On the other hand, the housing market is cyclical so just like other markets, it’ll continue to go “up and down” and “up and down” and “up” again.

Most of my “evidence” of an improvement in the Bernal Heights real estate market is anecdotal. Along with being cyclical, markets are also driven by psychology — what we believe will be, will be. Home buyers are feeling more optimistic with a greater sense of urgency this year than I’ve seen since pre-2008. They tell me they are motivated to buy while interest rates are still low, and they believe that prices are starting to slowly head up. They are frustrated by the lack of inventory, meaning there are not enough homes on the market to satisfy the number of qualified buyers ready to buy.

All this sounds like realtor BS, doesn’t it? Believe me or don’t, but realtors are seeing strong demand for the nice, quality homes. (More on that in a moment.)

Here’s a little bit of analysis: We’ve had 28 single family home sales in Bernal since January, with a median sales price of $761,818.00 and the average listing selling for 2.14% over the asking price. Last year, January through March 2010, there were 32 sales, but the median price was $719,000.00 and sales averaged 0.83% over the list price.

The market remains “Darwinian,” with the nicest (fittest) homes selling super quickly while homes “in need of a make-over” take longer. Plus, buyers remain price-sensitive, so it’s important to price your home based on today’s market and recent, relevant homes sales. The property needs to feel like good value for the money for buyers to go for it. (Crazy! Wouldn’t you want value for your money too?) I, for one, hope this very rational behavior continues through the next “up” cycle.

But I do think the worst is behind us. so it’s a good time to look back and assess. Just how much did the Great Recession affect Bernal home values?

(Quick refresher: Lehman Brothers “fell” in the Fall of 2008. Many use this as the apex of when the bleep hit the fan although the real estate downturn began earlier.)

Using the San Francisco Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for the data, I charted the median sales price of a single family house listing in Bernal Heights from the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2011.

Q1 2008 = $785,000
Q1 2011 = $760,000
% Change = -3.2%

Granted, this data is for all single family homes, and we know that there is a huge variation of property in Bernal. Yet this is pretty interesting, isn’t it? I would say that a 3.2% decline over the course of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression is pretty freaking good. (For context, using the same scope of data, our neighbors in the Excelsior had a 25.3% drop in their median home sales price.)

When was the “bottom” of the market, you ask? My opinion is that San Francisco-wide, the bottom of this housing downturn too place during 2009. Here in Bernal, it was the first half of ’09:

Q1 2009 = $730,000
Q2 2009 = $715,000

So where does this leave us? On the one hand, Spring is the air and the mood is dramatically better than last year. On the other hand, the economic recovery is tenuous, and banks remain a bureaucratic mess. Maybe it’s too soon to pop the bubbly, but believe me when I say that what you believe will be.  See you next month!

PHOTO: sftajan

Major Fire on Mission Street at Valencia

/ Todd_Lappin / 17 Comments

3208-3216 Mission Street

Mission Street Fire

Major fire and lots of sirens tonight on Mission Street at Valencia in the West Bernal/La Lengua Liminal Zone.  One of the buildings between Blue Plate and Royal Cuckoo caught fire and spread to the adjacent structure. Will update as we learn more.

Here’s a video:

UPDATE: April 7, 2011, 10:18 AM

The real journalists at MissionLoc@l bring more detail:

Fire Department officials believe the blaze started at 3212 Mission, a white Victorian building with blue trim.

But smoke was pouring from the space between that building and the one next door, which houses the Vietnamese restaurant Lotus Garden. At around 9:30 p.m. it appeared that firefighters were tearing down walls between the two buildings.

Restaurant owner Kathy Tang said great amounts of smoke and fire filled her kitchen in the back before she left with her kids. She saw firefighters breaking walls and ripping them down, and she’s fearful about what will be left of her restaurant.

California Beat adds that one firefighter was injured while battling the blaze:

One firefighter suffered minor injuries and was transported to San Francisco General Hospital for treatment, according to San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White.

Finally, in the comments to this post, reader Rusty adds his own perspective:

I walked over there, I’m impressed with the large SFFD response. 4 Aerial Trucks (ladders), at least 4 or 5 engines, support vehicles, etc. The Red Cross was on scene as well, they had provide blankets (to act as jackets) to the people who were displaced form the building. I saw at least 10 people who were displaced, feel terrible for them :-(

The fire seemed to affect mostly the rear of the buildings in question, the fronts of them looked fine, but I’m sure there is a lot of water damage. The buildings go deep so who knows how much damage was done to the rears.

Considering the high winds when the fire broke out, SFFD knocked most of the fire out really quickly.

Burrito Justice has a sad photo of the day after; it all looks surprisingly normal from street level, as the worst of the fire struck the back of the building(s). Let the rebuilding begin:

Special thanks to our neighbors at MissionMission for their great coverage.

Photos: From top, Bob Horowitz, Jeffrey Rueppel, MissionMission, Faye Harris, Burrito Justice.

Science Experiment: My Dinner at Caffe Cozzolino

/ Todd_Lappin / 67 Comments

Restaurant of Mystery

The news that the mysterious old Old Clam House has been transformed into the mysterious new Old Clam House prompted a discussion in the comments about another timeless (and mysterious) Bernal Heights restaurant: Caffe Cozzolino on Folsom Street, at the southwest corner of Precita Park.

Caffe Cozzolino is a spacioius Italian restaurant blessed with an unbelievably ideal location, but the place is never, ever crowded. In fact, it usually looks empty. And since it is always empty and suffers from horrific word-of-mouth, one part of the mystery is this: How does Caffe Cozzolino stay in business?

I live around the corner from Cozzolino. I’ve walked by it hundreds of times. But I’ve never dared to eat there. Someday, however, someone might swoop in to purchase Caffe Cozzolino and transform the space into the dining hotspot that the location so wants to become. In the name of science and inquiry, I felt obliged to sample the current cuisine, so that I might have a first-hand opinion to express if that scenario ever comes to pass.

Thus with an open mind and a spirit of adventure, I took my 3.5 year-old daughter on a date to Caffe Cozzolino. My simple hope was that the restaurant would serve up solid Italian-American cuisine. That means Italian food that’s less Mario Batali and more Tony Soprano. (I grew up in New Jersey, so I think I have a fair palette for that kind of grub.) Joe’s of Westlake does this well. Pasta Pomodoro franchised a totally acceptable version of it. Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack elevated it to a form of street art.

But Caffe Cozzolino doesn’t come close to pulling it off. I kept it simple by ordering spaghetti and meatballs. Spaghetti and meatballs! A staple! Here’s how it looked:

Spaghetti Cozzolino

Lovely parsley. So how did it taste? Frankly, rather ungood. I’m convinced the sauce came from a can — and a very cheap can. I’ve had better spaghetti and meatballs at truck stops, sad to say.

My daughter ordered a pizza from the kid’s menu:

Pizza Cozzolino

It was okay. No real complaints. But no inspiration either.

Put simply, the food at Caffe Cozzolino is unlikely to generate many wails of Proustian nostalgia if the restaurant were to close. That part of the mystery is now resolved. But the mystery of how Caffe Cozzolino remains in business endures.

Two Bernal Luxury Apartments Repackaged as One $3.5 Million Mini-MegaMansion

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

California Home and Design takes a look at a new home that was recently completed in Bernalwood at 3119 Harrison Street, between Precita Park and Cesar Chavez:

The Basics: A two-unit building, offering a total of six bedrooms, more or less, six baths, plus a lot of parking, for $3.49M, sort of in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, barely, and almost in the Mission.

Not So Basic: New construction in a very current design, it’s now offered as a single property with “Luxury Compound can be modified by builders to meet your every need!” prominent in the listing text. It had originally appeared on the market in 2009 as two units for $2.37M each, then as two units at $1.695M and $1.895M respectively (one is a tad larger) and now again as one for a total of $1.25M less. Their rationale is probably that more expensive properties have sold well in San Francisco, and so the developers are offering to rework it as one luxury property for someone who’s rich, young and relatively fearless.

Lots more pictures here.

This Bernal Resident Ate a Mouse For Lunch

/ Todd_Lappin / 8 Comments

I have a mouse and you don't

While we’re on the subject of birds, Dyche captured some fantastic photos of a Bernal Heights resident enjoying a free-range protein snack last weekend. Hearty!

Let’s zoom in:

UPDATE: There’s been some debate within the Ornithologist Committee over the question of whether this hungry bird is a Sparrow Hawk or an American Kestrel. The answer, apparently, is: Yes.  Reader Jeff explains:

The American Ornithologists Union has officially recognized American Kestrel as the name instead of American Sparrow Hawk since 1983. In reality, the Kestrel got its colloquial name because it hunts sparrows; the bird itself is actually from the falcon family.

PHOTOS: Dyche


The Best Thing About Bernal Heights Cannot Be Seen in Maps or Statistics

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

IMG_6737
Blogger Eleven Twenty-Nine lives on the west side of Bernal Heights, and she recently experienced one of those flushes of Bernal-love that transcends the physical charm of our village on a hill — because it’s rooted in a deep appreciation for the people who make the neighborhood feel so much like home. She writes:

Besides the obvious beauty of our neighborhood — we are lucky to overlook the whole city from the top of the hill — we are so lucky to have a great community. Whether it’s right next door or half a mile away, there are people we trust, who care about us and our home, and who we’ll go out of our way for when they need it.

We’ve often thought about how much we value this aspect of our neighborhood and whether, if we’d known about it, we would have paid a premium to live here. When looking for a new place to live there are so many things to factor in: walk scores, school zones, proximity to shops and restaurants, parks, etc. But what about having friendly neighbors and a sense of belonging and safety?

In a city like San Francisco, where everyone seems to be too busy to really connect with other people, the surprise of building a community with our neighbors has been invaluable.

PHOTO: Benadamx

A Roadmap for the Skies Above Bernal Heights

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

Bernal Heights is prime territory for those who enjoy scanning the skies to watch for avian life. It also happens to be a great location for aviation enthusiasts, if you prefer your birds with aluminum wings. Just as bird watchers are keenly attuned to the patterns and territories of local wildlife, planespotters in the neighborhood can tell at a glance where a plane is going, or where it has come from.

Indeed, the local flight patterns are pretty easy to follow, once you familiarize yourself with this map, which reveals the invisible thoroughfares commercial aircraft use when coming and going from SFO and OAK.

Let’s take a closer look at the airspace above Bernal Heights:

As you can see, Bernal sits at the intersection of several different flight paths, which provides an interesting mix of traffic. From ground level, here’s what all this looks like:

Low-Flying Aircraft on the North Side of Bernal, Headed Toward Sutro Tower Departures from Oakland Airport, eventually headed south. Usually twinjets; often Southwest Airlines.

Low-Flying Aircraft Turning in a Southward Arc Above Bernal Hill Departures from SFO, headed south. Usually midsize twinjets that departed from SFO runways 1L or 1R.

High-Flying Aircraft Heading South Above West Bernal or La Lengua Aircraft inbound from the Pacific or Northwest, on approach for landing at SFO. (Often larger jets, including 747s. Many contrails.)