Have Faith: Cute Bernal Heights Home For Sale Cheap(er)

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

Here’s a handsome opportunity for wannabe Bernalwoodians. (Bernalwooders? Bernalwoodistas?) CurbedSF tells us this spiffy house at 137 Faith Street on Bernal’s east slope is for sale, and now at a lower price:

A few months ago we brought your attention to this cute little place in Bernal Heights. It’s a 2-bed, 1-bath house with a charming shack, er, bonus structure out back. We are suckers for anything painted yellow, so we know we’re biased, but why all the hate on this petite abode? A decently-renovated single-family home is rare in the city for under $600,000, certainly in neighborhoods to the East. The seller is clearly motivated, already taking a hit to the last sale price of $650,000 back in 2005.

This Old Tree Is Actually the Most Unpretentious Bernal Heights Native You’ll Ever Meet

/ Molly Samuel / 7 Comments

San Francisco natives like to talk about the fact that they were born here. It’s like they’re a rare species threatened by invasives on their little peninsula. If trees could talk, this blue elderberry (Sambucus mexicana) would probably give you an earful about it, too.

“The tree is believed to be a genetic remnant of San Francisco’s original flora, pre-(European) settlement,” explains Mei Ling Hui, the Urban Forest Coordinator from San Francisco’s Department of the Environment. “People think the seed it grew from was unearthed and sprouted after the road was cut around Bernal Hill as part of a WPA project.”

Okay, so it’s not a majestic-looking tree — it kind of looks like a big bush. But it’s an important one to the City. In fact, it’s one of San Francisco’s landmark trees. The Landmark Tree Program protects the city’s old, interesting, or special trees. We have lots of nice trees in San Francisco, but like many of our nice humans, most of them aren’t from here.

Bernal’s blue elderberry is like a time capsule. When you look up at it — it’s in the tangle of blackberries where Folsom dead-ends into Bernal Heights Blvd. on the north side of the hill — narrow your vision a little. Ignore the eucalyptus, and the radio tower, and the airplanes going by, and treat yourself to a glimpse of really old San Francisco.

Will the Next Mary Lou Retton Train on Bayshore Boulevard?

/ lizweil / 1 Comment

Did you notice that small blue sign across the street from the monster Lowe’s?

With luck, 2011 might be the year that our ratty-ass Bayshore Boulevard begins to clean up its act. Word on the street is that American Gymnastics Club plans to open a new facility at 390 Bayshore. (Let’s show ’em some of that Bernal love!) We have it on good sources that American Gymnastics is the best gymnastics school for kids in the city, from preschoolers on up. If they’re successful over here, maybe House of Air or Planet Granite will follow — and put some of those big, underused industrial building to better use.

Image: Inside the new American Gymnastics facility. Photo by American Gymnastics

SF Supervisors Consider New NIMBY Legislation to Make Sure Your Mobile Reception Stays Terrible

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

City Hall

History will record that the Great Bernal Hill Antenna War of 2010 was actually just one salvo of a larger conflict over our telecommunications infrastructure that is beginning to rage all over the City and County of San Francisco.

The next battle will take place in the lame-duck chambers of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where progressive Supervisor John Avalos will hold public hearings today on a piece of legislation he introduced (with backing from Bernal Heights Supervisor David Campos) to “regulate the placement of [mobile antennas] in order to prevent telecommunications providers from installing wireless antennas and associated equipment in the City’s rights-of-way either in manners or in locations that will diminish the City’s beauty.”

Now, to be clear: I’m pro-beauty. And I’m all for common-sense regulation designed to minimize the visual impact of wireless installations. But San Francisco already regulates antennas on aesthetic grounds, and Avalos’s proposal reads like it was written by a committee of NIMBY nitpickers. You can curl up with the full text (pdf download) of his plan, but the executive summary is that the new legislation would add lots of new red tape to new wireless antenna installations, effectively adding another layer of City bureaucracy to an antenna-permitting process that is already thick with City bureaucracy.

Supervisor Avalos will hold a hearing on his proposal today at 1 pm in front of the City’s Land Use Committee. If you can’t attend the meeting (because you have, you know, a job and a life) public comment can be submitted via Alisa Somera in the Clerk’s office at 415.554.4447 or Alisa.Somera@sfgov.org. (NOTE: Be kind to Alisa, please. The legislation isn’t her idea, nor her fault.)

Meanwhile, I tried to call Supervisor David Campos on Sunday night, to learn more about his apparent support for the Avalos proposal. I placed the call from my home on Bernalwood’s north slope.

Alas, I didn’t get very far…

Calling My Supervisor
Images by Telstar Logistics

A Theory to Explain Why We Don’t Have Many Hipsters In Bernalwood

/ Todd_Lappin / 15 Comments

It’s a question that’s no doubt top-of-mind for every armchair sociologist in the neighborhood: Given our proximity to the Mission, to say nothing of our spiritual and aesthetic affinity to same, why doesn’t Bernal Heights have a higher concentration of hipsters?

My analysis suggests the answer lies squarely at the intersection of Fashion Boulevard and Topography Way. Specifically, the relative dearth of hipsters in Bernalwood can only be explained by the fact that riding around here on a fixie just plain sucks. In the hipster’s obligatory skinny jeans, it may even be impossible. Ergo, few hipsters.

Fixed Gear Bike Poseur - DoneYet in the spirit of good relations, this is ripe fodder for a trans-neighborhood collaboration with our friends at MissionMission or Uptown Almanac.

My proposal is simple: Come springtime, let’s organize the first-ever Bernal Heights Hipster Hillclimb. Fixies and skinny jeans required. Come as you are: No pre-race urine testing to screen for ingestion of 4Loko. Racers start on Folsom at the corner of Cesar Chavez Boulevard. On your mark, get set, GO up up up up Folsom.

Halfway to the finish line on the Folsom Street Hipster Deterrent Barrier

First one to reach the gate at Bernal Heights Park wins a case of PBR.

Who’s in??

Photos: Top: Greg Speck. Bottom: Telstar Logistics. Illustration: Jesse Kulenski

Close To You: Daily Life and the Essence of Neighborliness

/ David Gallagher / 4 Comments
Among Friends

Among friends some things are ok. David Gallagher/Flickr

In Bernal Heights, we’re forced to look our neighbors in the eye, to make sure we’re taking care of them. It’s the way the neighborhood was built, with small lots and narrow streets. When driving, you have to look a block ahead, see who’s coming, and what you can do to get both of you by. If somebody pulls over or waits for you, you learn to thank them.

On my street, we know every car, we know whose driveway you can block, whose you can’t, and how to park our cars to make the most out of what we have. We may not talk, but we look out for each other.

The week we moved into our house, the neighbor came over and welcomed us. He also said he need our permission to connect his house to ours, to keep the rain out.  We agreed and thanked him for thinking of both of us.

Our Connection

Our Connection David Gallagher/Flickr

Our closeness is part of living on the hill, and one of the things that makes this place special.

Bernalwood Goes for a Holiday Stroll on Cortland

/ Todd_Lappin / 10 Comments

Holiday Stroll

Holiday Stroll

Holiday Stroll

So we strolled.

Last night the Bernalwood Glam Squad did a promenade up and down Cortland Avenue for the first evar Holiday Stroll. Cortland’s merchants and proprietors opened their doors, poured grog, offered yummy treats, and chatted readily. Neighbors showed up, and they strolled too, giving Bernalwood’s main drag a bustling Main Street buzz. Lovely.

Hope this happens again next year.

Images: Telstar Logistics

Gorgeous Typographic Map of San Francisco Includes Beautiful Typographic Bernal Heights

/ Todd_Lappin

The designers at Axis Maps just released a very nifty Typographic Map of San Francisco, and since Bernalwood is part of San Francisco, we’re included too. (“They like us! They really like us!”)

One of Axis’s preview images even shows a detail of the southeast corner of Bernal Heights, around the site of Holly Park and the Alemany Farmer’s Market:

Nifty! Copies of the map are available in various sizes from Zazzle.

Hat tip: Laughing Squid

Apartment Therapy *Hearts* This Bernalwood Home

/ Todd_Lappin

As if we needed any further validation of Bernalwood’s glam and panache, two of our own have a newly published House Tour that’s now up on the decor-obsessed website Apartment Therapy:

Name: Laura and Zev
Location: Bernal Heights — San Francisco, California
Size: 1,000 square feet
Years lived in: 2 — owned

Becoming a homeowner changes your perspective on the space you call home — at least it has for Laura and Zev. When they moved into their new home in Bernal Heights from the Mission two years ago they began to see their home as a true reflection of themselves. They strayed from the loud, flashy colors they painted on the walls of their previous rental and opted for a simpler, cozier way to express their love for color.

Read the entire House Tour here.