Undo: Two-Lane San Jose Ave. Freeway Exit Will Be Restored

/ Todd_Lappin / 19 Comments

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Well, the great San Jose Avenue Traffic Calming Experiment has officially been declared an abject failure. The effort to slow traffic along San Jose Avenue by reducing the exit to San Jose Avenue from I-280 northbound from two lanes to one instead succeeded mainly in causing epic traffic backups along I-280 and  more motor vehicle accidents. Oopsie!

In addition, the scheme created additional sadness and delay in South Bernal and St. Mary’s, so now the exit will return to its original two-lane configuration. The Glen Park Association reports:

The 280 freeway offramp to San Jose Avenue will return to a two-lane configuration, owing to a high number of accidents following an experiment to slow traffic by narrowing it.

Seven accidents were recorded on the offramp between June and November, 2015, after engineers reconfigured the two exit lanes to merge into one lane just before the Monterey Street underpass. The offramp reconfiguration was the second phase of the Northbound San Jose Avenue & I-280 Off-Ramp Road Diet Pilot Project, which was intended to slow traffic on San Jose Avenue south of Randall.

In Phase I of that project, San Jose Avenue itself was reduced from three lanes to two. When that measure did not slow traffic, Phase II was implemented, and the offramp was reduced from two lanes to two lanes merging to one.

Since Phase II also failed to reduce speeds and reduce traffic volumes but did increase the number of accidents, Caltrans has decided to return the offramp to its original state. The road is scheduled to be re-paved in May, then re-striped.

If the goal is to reduce speeds along San Jose Avenue, some armchair traffic engineers in Bernal-Glen have a few good ideas about how to accomplish that.

The Epicurean Trader Celebrates First Anniversary (And For You, Special Price)

/ Todd_Lappin / 7 Comments

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Oh, how the time flies. Neighbors Holly and Matt from The Epicurean Trader on Cortland are celebrating the first anniversary of their store, and to mark the occasion they’re offering a special deal to Bernal neighbors. Holly says:

We’re celebrating our first year as a Bernal merchant! We love this neighborhood. Mat and I have both lived in the neighborhood for years and all our employees live in Bernal Heights too.

The store has changed a lot since opening day – not our overall mission, but the assortment of products we sell. We’ve always wanted to be a neighborhood store, so we continually collect feedback from you about items you find difficult to buy locally. We stock as many as we can to make everyone’s lives a little easier.

We were also just named one of the Best Neighborhood Markets in San Francisco, and we’re now the highest-rated Specialty Market on Yelp (even ahead of Bi-Rite on 18th.) So now we’re even more excited to celebrate!

To thank the neighborhood for all their support, we will be extending a 10% discount off all purchases Monday thru Friday this week to Bernal Heights residents. Just ask for the discount when you check out. (Note: we may ask for some confirmation that you live in Bernal Heights.)

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

House Portrait: Peek Inside the Home of Succulence’s Ken and Amy Shelf

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

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Where do Bernal merchants retreat to rest and recharge after they hang the Closed sign in the windows of their Cortland storefronts? Our friends at the CurbedSF blog recently did a profile of the house that Amy and Ken Shelf from Succulence call home. It’s a colorful look behind the scenes at one of Cortland Avenue’s most unique shops — and the people who created it:

The Shelf family had been friendly with the owner of [Four Star Video] before he died. David Ayoob was often in front of his business, sweeping up and greeting the neighbors. “He was a community character. When I read that the business and building were up for sale, I thought ‘I could be that guy,'” says Ken.

Borrowing every penny (“Back then, you could do that,” notes Amy), the couple purchased the building at 420 Cortland Avenue. The days of video rentals at a brick and mortar store were waning, and from the beginning they were planning the next phase. When Darcy Lee, the owner of Heartfelt down the street, suggested they start selling succulent plants out back, a new business was born.

Amy came up with the name Succulence to honor the richness of life, and for this couple, it’s an idea they take home with them after the store closes. The store, the neighborhood, and their family are inextricably woven into the into the nearby Victorian cottage they own on a short street that’s quintessentially Bernal Heights; in other words, it’s on a narrow, hilly passage where each crest hosts a scenic city view.

Read the whole thing to learn more about Neighbors Amy and Ken Shelf and to see pictures of their colorful home.

PHOTOS: CurbedSF

Isabel Caudillo’s El Buen Comer Restaurant Opening Soon on Mission

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

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A few months back, we told you about the crowdfunding campaign to support El Buen Comer, a new restaurant that will open at 3435 Mission Street (at Kingston) in Bernal Heights.

Well, the grand opening will (finally) happen soon, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jonathan Kauffman is so excited he wrote a big profile about Isabel Caudillo, the founder of El Buen Comer. Kauffman writes:

Isabel Caudillo’s first restaurant, El Buen Comer, opens in Bernal Heights next month with 45 seats, gorgeous terra-cotta bowls imported from Mexico, a beer and wine license, and waiters. But her true first restaurant opened in 2001. It was called her living room. […]

It has taken far longer than anyone thought for the restaurant to be ready. The delays have given Caudillo time to apply for loans from the Mission Economic Development Agency, launch a Kickstarter campaign — one donor contributed $15,000, which still floors her — and, most importantly, to feel ready. Her sisters call from Mexico, offering encouragement. Craig and Annie Stoll of Delfina continue to mentor her. So do colleagues in La Cocina who have already opened restaurants of their own.

Much like Caudillo’s living-room restaurant, El Buen Comer’s short dinner menu will center around comida corrida: four daily guisados with soup, beans, rice and tortillas, served family-style. Caudillo is cooking the food she grew up with, the food she knows in her bones, but the zeitgeist has inadvertently joined up with her: More non-Mexicans are searching out guisados, mostly in the form of tacos de guisado, tortillas topped with a few spoonfuls of stew.

Get to know Isabel Caudillo by reading Jonathan Kauffman’s complete profile of her, and start counting the days until El Buen Comer opens. Guisados! Guisados!

PHOTO: Isabel Caudillo by Gabrielle Lurie for The San Francisco Chronicle

Play Ball! Neighbor Matt Nathanson Sang the National Anthem at Yesterday’s Giants Season Opener

/ Todd_Lappin / 1 Comment

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Yesterday was Opening Day for the 2016 San Francisco Giants season, and Bernal neighbor and rockstar-in-residence Matt Nathanson was there to sing the national anthem. You can watch it here.

A few hours later, the Giants went on to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 12-6, with help from a Hunter Pence grand slam. So to recap: Neighbor Matt sang the national anthem, and the Giants crushed the Dodgers. Coincidence? Hold that thought.

Neighbor Matt got a pretty swell souvenir out of the deal:

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Neighbor Matt sang the national anthem at a Giants season opener. Historians will note he also sang it in 2010, and we all know how that turned out. Coincidence?

We think not.

PHOTO: Top, via Jason Snell. Hat Tip: kc!

Aerial Love Story: Watch as Bernal Neighbor Proposes to Sweetie on Bernal Hill

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

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Yesterday, Neighbor Tim proposed to Renee atop Bernal Hill. She said Yes!

HURRAH! Congratulations!!!

This being 2016, the proposal was documented from above by Bernalwood pal and ace aerial videographer Eddie Codel. Eddie says:

Long time Bernal resident Tim Lang proposed to his girlfriend Renee Carano yesterday atop Bernal Hill, on what was probably the warmest day of the year. The special moment was captured by drone, of course!

The video is lovely, sweet and deep, in a way that only an aerial camera could convey. Kleenex Alert: You may experience feelings. Watch:

A Barroom History of the Odd Mural in The Lucky Horseshoe

/ Todd_Lappin / 6 Comments

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Last week, the humble but delightful Lucky Horseshoe bar on Cortland celebrated its fifth anniversary. Hooray! That’s a big deal, because it means that The Lucky Horseshoe can now lay claim to its proud own era at 453 Cortland, a barroom space that has been home to several previous eras of Bernal dive-bar legend.

For decades after World War II, 453 Cortland was known as The Cherokee. (More about that in a moment.) Then the space became Skip’s Tavern, a bar nearby neighbors remember for being rough around the edges and loud at night. Yet Skip’s was also home to some rather incredible blues music and a vibrant culture of its own.

Since then, Lucky Horseshoe has established its own funky vibe, and it retains a commitment to music. It’s friendly and well-maintained, but it’s still the kind of dive a neighborhood can be proud of.  CONGRATS Team Lucky Horseshoe!

Through all this, presiding over all these eras of boozy history at 453 Cortland, is the big, weird mural painted above the front door. It’s a faded, vintage scene of cowboys, Indians, and rolling Western landscapes, and it’s obviously been there for a long time:

Lucky-Horseshoe-interior-slide-3 copy

What’s the backstory on the mural?

Lucky for all of us, Neighbor Vicky Walker from the Bernal Heights History Project is on the case. Neighbor Vicky tells Bernalwood:

Here’s what we know about the mural inside 453 Cortland!

The mural was painted by Harold Vick (1915-?). Here he is as a young man:

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Later, Harold Vick worked at the Sommer and Kaufmann shoe store on Market Street as a card writer, sometimes listed as an artist. (LOOK at that store. Amazing!)

Harold got married in 1940 and moved to 19 Roscoe in South Bernal. His brother, Melvin, took over The Cherokee and ran it with his wife, Barbara, from 1943 to 1946.

The Cherokee in 1973, from the Max Kirkeberg Collection

The Cherokee in 1973, from the Max Kirkeberg Collection

Harold probably served in World War II. There’s another Harold Vick listed as a survivor of the Bataan Death March, but I haven’t been able to confirm that it’s him yet. In any case, Harold Vick is absent from the city directories from 1942 onward, although his wife, Patricia (Patti/Patsy) is still listed at 19 Roscoe in 1946. And Harold Vick never appears in S.F. directories again.

All that means we can probably assume that Harold Vick painted the Cherokee mural right around the time it was first owned by Melvin Vick.

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The story is told that the Harold Vick painted for beer money. The drunker he got, the odder the mural in the Cherokee became:

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The mural in the Cherokee wasn’t Harold Vick’s only barroom masterpiece.  We know he also painted “After Cassino” which hung at 309 Cortland in Duval’s Studio Club.

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Duval’s Studio Club became Charlie’s, which was a dive bar. That became the Stray Bar, which is now Holy Water.

The mural there was from 1944. My pal Jenner Davis is a former bartender at Charlie’s, and the daughter of Anita Davis, who was Regi Harvey’s partner, who sang all the time at Skip’s. She says: “The scene depicted in ‘After Cassino’ was taken from an original sketch Harold Vick found, singed and burned, in a field as he was crossing it with his platoon during World War II.  Nearby were the remains of the artist who created the sketch, and his unsuspecting female subject, who had blown them both to bits when her plow hit a land mine.”

Here’s a detail from Harold Vick’s ‘After Cassino’:

Charlie's-Club-After-Cassino-slide-12 copy

We’re told that After Cassino’ now lives in the private dining room at Avedano’s.

IMAGE: Hanging the new sign at the Lucky Horseshoe in 2011

Study Underway to Untangle Alemany’s Spaghetti Bowl for Cyclists and Pedestrians

/ Todd_Lappin / 21 Comments

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Alemany Faded Labels.bwood

First, they gave Cesar Chavez Boulevard a fashionable makeover. Then, they added a red carpet to Mission Street. Next, local transportation officials are considering plans to give the 101-280 Spaghetti Bowl in southeast Bernal a pedestrian-friendly rethink.

Actually, the focus isn’t on the Spaghetti Bowl per se. Instead, our local planners and infrastructuralists seek to make improvements for people on foot or on bikes traveling beneath the Spaghetti Bowl. The goal is to better unite the people of Bernal Heights with our colleagues in The Portola by making it simpler and safer to bike or walk between the Alemany Famer’s Market and Portola’s San Bruno Avenue shopping street.

Today, of course, Bernal Heights is  separated from The Portola by the daunting I-280 viaduct. So here’s how the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is thinking about strengthening  connections the between Bernalese and The Portolans:

The Alemany Interchange, where U.S. 101, I-280, Alemany Boulevard, Bayshore Boulevard, San Bruno Avenue, and several other local streets intersect, presents major challenges to pedestrian and bicycle safety and accessibility. Together with hilly topography, the freeways act as barriers between the surrounding neighborhoods with few locations where they can be crossed. The interchange has the potential to provide critical connections between the adjacent communities of Bernal Heights, the Portola, Silver Terrace, and the Bayview, as well as destinations beyond. However, pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders seeking to reach these communities must navigate a circuitous maze of high-speed streets and ramps.

Safety is a significant issue in the interchange area, with several severe-injury or fatal collisions having occurred on the streets in and near the interchange in recent years. The Alemany Boulevard, San Bruno Avenue, and Bayshore Boulevard corridors, which converge at the Alemany Interchange, have all been designated by the City’s Vision Zero initiativeas Pedestrian High Injury Corridors. Please see the project Allocation Request Form for more information.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND BENEFITS

Neighboring communities, led by the Portola Neighborhood Association (PNA), developed two specific proposals that would improve multimodal connectivity and safety by providing pedestrian and bicycle connections through the interchange:

  • New north-south pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists, connecting San Bruno Avenue to the Alemany Farmer’s Market.
  • New bicycle lanes along Alemany Boulevard between Putnam Street and Bayshore Boulevard.

Kicking off in winter 2016, this planning study will further develop the proposed pedestrian and bicycle improvement concepts, perform a traffic and initial feasibility assessment, and prepare the projects for consideration by the public and decision-makers.

That’s where things now stand. There were a few information sessions about the  Alemany Improvement project last month.  Right now a lot of traffic analysis is taking place. There will be another round of community outreach in June, in parallel with project design and cost estimating. The final report for the Alemany Interchange Improvement Project study is set for delivery in November.

You can read more about the project in this dandy-dandy overview, and Bernalwood will share more detail about this grand Spaghetti Bowl detangling effort in the months ahead.  In the meantime, you can also sign up for the project newsletter, or contact Rachel Hiatt, Acting Deputy Director for Planning, at rachel.hiatt@sfcta.org or 415.522.4809.

PHOTO: Top, Spaghetti Bowl,  as seen from Bernal Heights by Winni Wintermeyer

Finally! Clear, Up-Close Portraits of a Bernal Coyote

/ Todd_Lappin / 21 Comments

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We’ve known for some time that coyotes have settled in Bernal Heights and become our new neighbors. Yet while coyote sightings are now a frequent occurrence, so far many of the photos of the coyotes that we’ve seen have suffered from the Bigfoot Problem — the images have been distant and somewhat grainy.

Over the weekend Bernal neighbor and ace photographer Cristiano Valli tackled that by capturing some of the most stunning and intimate portraits of our coyote-neighbors that we’ve seen thus far. He says:

“[This coyote] lives in the backyard of the cool house on Stoneman at Shotwell. He’s terrified most of the time. Aggressive if cornered. Cute like hell.”

Here are a few more of Neighbor Cristiano’s portraits of our coyote neighbors.

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PHOTOS: Cristiano Valli on Instagram

Bernal Watercolorist Laurie Wigham Captures Changing Landscapes of San Francisco

/ Todd_Lappin / 6 Comments

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Bernal neighbor Laurie Wigham is an artist who leads our local watercolor tribe. She often paints pictures of scenes captured around Bernal Heights, but this month she is displaying work that shows other parts of Our Faire City.

Neighbor Laurie explains:

I’m showing some of my work at a gallery in the Spark Arts Gallery (4229 18th St.) in the Castro. The show is “The Changing City: Painting San Francisco’s Changing Identity,” and it will be on display until April 28. The opening reception happens on Thursday, April 7 from 7-8:30 pm.

Throughout its history San Francisco has always been reimagining itself and trying on new identities. But right now there is a lot of bitterness and anger at how the influx of new tech wealth is rapidly remaking the city and displacing so many of the long-term residents (including the artists).

I thought it would be interesting to organize a series of sketching meetups in the areas which are changing most rapidly and to see if the process of sitting down to sketch the changes would make it possible for us to think more clearly about what’s happening. So far I don’t feel that I’ve had any great insights, but it’s been a good thing to be still and think while I draw. Here are a few of the sketches I’ve done.

Mission Bay: Until recently this old industrial waterfront area was mostly fields of weeds and rubble around scattered old warehouses. Overnight it seems to have filled up with blocks of gleaming medical research facilities, high tech businesses and luxury condos.

MissionBayConstruction

The Mission: This flat area in the southeast part of the city has traditionally been working class—Latino for the last half century, Irish before that. Many blocks like this one are still full of taquerias, murals and graffiti in colors that came from some warmer tropical place. But the Mission is turning into hipster central, and I did this sketch sitting in a new cafe and sipping a $5 single-source pour-over coffee.

24thStreetFromHausCafe

The corner building below is still boarded up after a fire last January which killed one man and left 58 homeless. It was ruled an accidental fire, but there have been so many fires in the Mission this year, each one displacing more long-term low income residents and opening up valuable real estate for developers to build more luxury condos. The new condo building next to it, in bright yellows and oranges, seems to have been thoughtfully developed in many ways, and the New Mission movie theater next to it has been restored and reopened after decades sitting derelict, so maybe not all the change is bad. But every time I sit down to sketch in that area, people stop to tell me their stories about they or someone they’re close to has had to move.

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Here’s the detail on the show:

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IMAGES: All watercolors by Laurie Wigwam. Top, “Green Glass Forest”, somewhere aroung the Millennium Towers.

Behold, Renderings of the New Housing Proposed for Bernal’s Northern Frontier

/ Todd_Lappin / 38 Comments

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We’ve known for some time that lots of new housing is coming to the block of Cesar Chavez between South Van Ness and Shotwell — an area that sits right at the foot of Bernal Heights, on a plot of land that’s rather high-profile to anyone who looks down upon it from homes on Bernal’s north slope.

On the site of the garage workshops at 1296 Shotwell, a nine-story affordable housing development for senior citizens is in the works. Meanwhile, on the adjacent property at 1515 South Van Ness, the former site of McMIllan Electric (which was, before that, the the glamorous showroom for Lesher-Muirhead Oldsmobile) is set to become a 157 unit mixed-income apartment building. This week, firm renderings were published for both projects.

This is good, because our economy is booming and our population is growing, but  housing costs are batshit crazy because we haven’t built nearly enough new housing to accommodate all 864,816 of our fellow San Franciscans. Some high-density, mixed-income housing is just the thing to address that problem, but both these projects will have hurdles to overcome.

Let’s start with 1296 Shotwell. Here’s how the site looked yesterday:

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Fashionable! Replacing all this, 1296 Shotwell will become a nine-tory development with 96 affordable units for seniors. SocketSite says it will also be home to 5,000 square feet of community and office space and 5,500 square feet of outdoor space. Here’s how it’ll look on the building’s Bernal-facing south side:

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And here’s the proposed site plan:

1296-Shotwell-Site-Plan

But about that whole nine-story thing…

1296 Shotwell will be 85 feet tall. For seasoned north-slopers, it’s not too difficult to visualize what a nine-story building will look like on that site; it’ll be just a little taller than the landmark 1940s-era Telco Building on 25th and Capp:

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The Telco Building is eight stories, so 1296 Shotwell will be one taller.  And what would that look like?

Here’s a crude mockup of a nine-story, 85-foot version of the Telco Building, transposed on the site of 1296 Shotwell. The proposed building would look thinner and more contemporary, but the height of the building rise on the horizon roughly like this:

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That’s where things get sticky. SocketSite explains:

As noted in the City’s preliminary review of the project plans, which were drafted by Herman Coliver Locus Architecture, [1296 Shotwell] is currently only zoned for development up to 65 feet in height.

As such, the 1296 Shotwell Street parcel will either have to be legislatively upzoned or the City’s proposed Affordable Housing Bonus Program (AHBP) will need to be passed in order for the development to proceed. Once approved and permitted, it will take another two years to build.

Urp. The Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) is one of the nonprofits leading the effort to develop 1296 Shotwell, and MEDA has become synonymous with the Mission District’s progressive political machine. That should help 1296 Shotwell quell some of the usual anti-housing protest antics, but the height issue will be more complicated. Here too, however, MEDA probably has the political connections to secure the variances 1296 Shotwell requires. And with luck, one hopes the mural on the Bernal-facing side of the building will be easy on the eyes.

Meanwhile, the computer-rendering gods have also given us a picture of what is envisioned for 1515 South Van Ness, on the northwest corner of the block. Here’s how it snuggles in alongside 1296 Shotwell:

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1515 South Van Ness will be a six-story, 157-unit market-rate development, and the current plans show it looking like this, as envisioned on the corner of Shotwell and 26th Street, looking southwest:

1515-South-Van-Ness-Rendering-2016-Shotwell

The renderings for 1515 South Van Ness don’t include the nine-stories of 1296 Shotwell, so  remember that 1296 Shotwell will rise nine-stories above this near the left side of the image. Also remember: This is what this location looks like today (and wave hello to Bernal Hil)l:

shotwell26th

SocketSite has additional details about 1515 South Van Ness:

As designed by BDE Architecture, the proposed development will rise to a height of 65-feet along South Van Ness, stepping down to five stories and 55-feet in height at the corner of 26th and Shotwell.

In addition to a corner 1,100 square foot retail space at Van Ness, the latest plans include six small “trade shop” spaces along 26th Street (and an underground garage for 81 cars and 150 bikes).

And if approved, the development will take roughly two years to build, and 12 percent of the 157 apartments will be offered at below market rates.

The developer behind 1515 South Van Ness is Lennar Urban, the urban-housing arm of  megadeveloper Lennar Corporation. By way of comparison, Lennar is the opposite of MEDA is just about every way, because Lennar is a big, nationwide, publicly-traded firm focused on market-rate housing development. That said, Lennar Urban may have what it takes to deal with the Mission’s notorious aversion to housing development and the professional activists who will inevitably find things to dislike in the current proposal.

Lennar is also building housing at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and on Treasure Island – feats which required successfully navigating US Navy bureaucracy, multiple administrations in San Francisco’s City Hall, a  nasty mix of toxics left behind by the Navy’s Cold War nuclear-test programs, and Aaron Peskin. Ultimately, Lennar was not deterred by the radioactive swamps of Hunter’s Point or the USS Pandemonium on Treasure Island, so it will be interesting to see how they fare when confronted with the theatrics of the those who prefer to deal with our housing shortage by opposing the creation of more housing.

IMAGES: Renderings and site plans, via the incomparable SocketSite

 

What Is the Bernal Business Alliance and How Can You Get Involved?

/ Todd_Lappin

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Neighbor Darcy from Heartfelt on Cortland extends an invitation for all sorts of Bernal businessfolk to get involved with the Bernal Business Alliance. She also extends an invitation to join the BBA’s next meeting on April 13, as well as a call for artists to help create a vintage-style map of Bernal Heights.

Darcy writes:

The BBA (Bernal Business Alliance) has gone through ups and downs over the years that I have been involved. It used to be the Cortland Merchants Association. and after our leader, David Ayoob passed away suddenly, different merchants have taken turns leading the organization. We have tried to bring more energy and life by also including home-based business, contractors, chefs, writers etc. We also welcome business folks who live in Bernal but whose businesses are actually in other neighborhoods in the city.

Right now we are in one of those phases where there’s a surge of interest and energy, so please consider joining and adding your voice to the working neighborhood.

Our meetings are held the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 10 am in the library community room, and I will be running the next meeting on April 13th. The theme is safety, and Captain McFadden from SFPD Ingleside is sending a representative. How can the business community make Bernal safer for all residents? What are your concerns?

On top of all that, are publishing a retro-style map in the next few months, (the image above is an example of the style we are going for), and we are looking for an artist-in=residence for 2016. This would involve designing posters for the strolls, a vintage style Bernal map, and even working on a new logo for the BBA. If you’re interested please contact us at bba@bernalbusiness.org.

P.S. BBA Membership is only $50 for the year and you can join here.

Bernal Home Yields Spooky Artifact and Nautical Mystery

/ Todd_Lappin / 19 Comments

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Neighbor Joshua has been living with a nautical artifact that was discovered in the soil beneath his Elsie Street home. It may (or may not) be haunted, but either way, he’s hoping to learn more about it. Neighbor Joshua writes:

I was hoping that Bernalwood could help me out. Several years ago when I moved into my home in Bernal, I found a rather strange object in the back of the garage.

Apparently, while they were excavating in order to to build the garage, they came across a large rudder buried in the ground (see attached pics.) The rudder is approx. 5 ft. by 5 ft. and made of wood and metal. I think it weight at least 400 lbs. if not more as it took four to five moving men to move it.

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The previous owner said that after discovering the rudder, strange things began to happen in the home. He brought in a medium who claimed that the home once belonged to a sea captain whose spirit still lived in the house, and that the rudder should never be removed from the premises. In addition, the medium recommended that a toy ship be placed in the garage to appease the sea captain. I should mention that after we moved in, for some time, the back door which was securely locked, would be wide open in the morning — but I digress.

I’ve done an extensive history on my home which dates back to 1906 and there is no evidence of a captain ever living here. All that being said, I would be curious if any Bernalwood readers had thoughts about the age of the rudder. Even better if there’s a maritime expert in the ‘hood who could offer additional info.

Any insights? Please share them in the comments.

PHOTOS: Mystery rudder discovered in Neighbor Joshua’s home. Courtesy of Neighbor Joshua.