If you’ve already picked out the outfit you’re planning to wear for tomorrow’s Summer Stroll (PRO TIPS: boas, seersucker, vintage Mork & Mindy rainbow suspenders), then here’s a perfect way to get in the strolling spirit …
This month’s Bernal History Project meeting is a joint presentation with the good folks at our Bernal branch library. It’s a special evening dedicated to sharing the history of Cortland Avenue. We’ll be showing a selection of photos, ads, and news articles about Bernal’s main shopping thoroughfare. (Sorry, Precita and North Bernal neighbors — we promise we’ll do a slideshow about you very soon!)
We invite you to attend and bring your own memories of shopping and living on Cortland. If you’d like to say a few words on the night, please drop us a line beforehand — maybe we can get a real live show-and-tell going. Audience participation is positively encouraged!We’ll have volunteers from SFPL on hand to record your Cortland-related stories and memories. If you’d like to bring photos and news clippings to share, we can get those scanned for our archives, too.
Oh, in case you’re having a hard time getting oriented to that photo up top, it’s a pitcture of Cortland avenue on October 11, 1909, looking east from Bocana. Here’s an annotated guide:
As you know, for tens of thousands of years, the ancient druids who once populated our lands gathered each year on Bernal Hill during the longest day of the year to celebrate the arrival of summer and the harvest of the seasonal foodstuffs that brought them joy and sustenance.
This year, for the first time in the history of the galaxy, this ancient Bernal ritual will begin a new chapter, as our two merchant tribes from Cortlandia and La Lengua will each hold a Solstice Celebration on the same night, and in the same spirit, at the same time — on two different streets.
Specifically, on Thursday night, June 18, the shamans from the Bernal Business Alliance will hold the 2015 Summer Solstice Stroll on glamorous Cortland Avenue. Simultaneously, the high priestesses from the Mission Bernal Merchants Association will hold their first-ever Summer Stroll along the bustling flatland sidewalks of Mission Street between Randall and Cesar Chavez.
The MBMA’s Mission Street Summer Stroll happens on Thursday from 4 to 7:30 pm:
Don’t miss this Thursday’s Mission Bernal Merchants Association SUMMER STROLL! Look for food specials, art events and other fun activities up and down the street. Participating businesses include Ichi Sushi, BEL, Secession Art and Design, The Blue Plate SF, Iron & Gold, Virgil’s Sea Room, The Front Porch, Cafe St. Jorge, The Rock Bar, Cole Hardware, The Knockout and more!
Food Specials:
— ICHI Kakiya – $1 Oysters; Happy Hour Food & Drink Specials
— ICHI Sushi – Izakaya Happy Hour
— Bel Happy Hour Belgian Food & Drink Specials
— The Blue Plate — 3 –course prix fixe meatloaf /Fried Chicken /Rose Flight
— Iron & Gold — Amelia Ray will be performing 5-7 pm.
– $6 Celery Chavez: Tequila, muddled mint, fresh lemon, simple syrup & celery bitters.
– $6 Manhattan: Bourbon, sweet vermouth & bitters.
– $3 beers on tap. $5 well drinks.
— Virgil’s Sea Room — $1 off draft beers and our $5 Mules, Margaritas and Micheladas until 8 PM
Art:
— Secession Art and Design — Live Painting/Drawing, TBD; discounting the 94110 shirts
— Avenue
– Jaewon Lee, a 10 year old graffiti artist,
– Painting a canvas outside space from 5 PM to 7 PM
– Little Green Cyclo truck in front of our space with a stroll special
– Josh and the Klipptones play from 5 PM to 7 PM
– Henna Tattoos
Fun Events:
— The Front Porch — hop scotch and free popcorn on the porch from 4 till 6:30. Fried chicken samples will go on till the end. .
— The Rock Bar— Drink Specials
— Cafe St. Jorge — Trivia Game
— The Knockout — Drunk Bingo Night
Community Info:
— Hospital Project by HerreroBoldt
— MUNI Forward
— Mission-Valencia Plaza Information
On Cortland, the Summer Stroll is on Thursday from 6 to 9 pm. Neighbor Ken from Succulence and Neighbor Darcy from Heartfelt share some of the 2015 highlights:
The Bernal Business Alliance’s annual Summer Stroll is happening Thursday evening, June 18th from 6-9pm. Many businesses up and down Cortland Ave will be taking part in this intimate neighborhood party. This year we are having a “Focus on Food” with yummy bites and drinks offered at many of your favorite shops along with some live music.
Events like the Summer Stroll and December’s Holiday Stroll are part of what makes Bernal Heights such a throwback community, with a strong emphasis on community. These nights are a great opportunity to support your local businesses while being feted by them in a show of gratitude and celebration.
Come stroll along Cortland on the 18th. Taste some treats, sip some beverages, do some summer shopping and say hello to all your favorite neighbors and store peeps as we toss our worries aside for the evening and focus on the bounty of luck that brought us to Bernal Heights in the first place.
12 Small Things
12 Small Things is having a sidewalk summer sale of handmade artisan products at 436 Cortland Ave
Bernal Homeopathy
Bernal Homeopathy and East-West Integrative Clinic will be under one roof starting July 1st at 406 Cortland Avenue, in East-West Bernal! For the stroll Bernal Homeopathy will be at 406 Cortland maybe with one or two other folks who will work at EWB, on the front porch. They will also have appetizers from Little Nepal.
Bernal Star, Vega, and Vinorosso
Bernal Star & Vega will offer “Bernal Stroll Specials”
Vinorosso will have Summer Stroll happy hour until 9pm ($4 prosecco and Lambrusco!)
Epicurean Trader
Main Event: EPICurean Sandwich Tasting
(taste and vote for our new prepared sandwich range from local Bernal Employee/Chef)
Other Events:
– Llano Seco heirloom beans and sustainably farmed meats tasting event
– Miyoko’s Kitchen Vegan Cheese tasting event
Promo: Win A $50 Gift Voucher raffle!
Heartfelt
Local one-man band cajun musician Brian Belknap will play. Mark will be making a refreshment. The Grommet is hosting a party at the store the same night. And Laura is doing free Tarot readings
Micheal Minson
Climb will have the famous Airstream parked in front of New Wheel with the bluegrass band Windy Bluegrass.
Pinhole Coffee
We have the delicious Burr Eatery on board to serve that night (burritos made in the style of Sonora, Mexico) and treats from Eatwell Farm’s Icebox. Our coffee bar will be open for purchases, too!
Red Hill Station
Red Hill is having an oyster extravaganza!
Sandy Owens Massage and Healing
Sandy Owens Massage and Healing will be at her new location at the Cutting Edge from 6:30-7:30! Eileen Claytor of the Cutting Edge will be there too serving light snacks from 6-9pm, 1000 Cortland Ave.
Neighbor Mary visited the Planned Parenthood clinic on Valencia last week, and the scene outside was very unpleasant. She tells Bernalwood:
I have been lucky to not encounter anti-abortion protesters since my college days in Boston. I never saw anything like what I saw today.
Planned Parenthood Valencia has served me, a native of Bernal SF, for years. I have Uterine Fibroids and have been taking oral contraceptives since I was nineteen.
I work in SOMA. Swing shift, so I missed refilling my prescription. Planned Parenthood’s online patient portal came to the rescue. On Thursday, I decided to head to work earlier and hit up the clinic to grab my three-month supply and jet to work. Outside Planned Parenthood I encountered the most hideous, aggressive, protester.
She was cloaked in a fake lab coat and wheelchair. As she approached, she seemed mentally-ill. I’m compassionate, because I have a mother with mental illness and I’ve worked with the disabled population. She immediately asked if I was there for an abortion. I politely told her my reasons for being at Planned Parenthood were none of her business.
She then continued to share a laundry list of ridiculous inaccuracies about Planned Parenthood and it’s services. I was floored by her lack of boundaries.
She may be anti-abortion, but I’m anti-aggression, and she’s just lucky I don’t enjoy engaging with law enforcement. She was ripe for concrete-to-middle-of-the-street counseling. I should be able to pick up my anti-baby pills in peace!
The incident left me nervous and freaked out. The staff at Planned Parenthood were so sweet, and they got me out of there ASAP. I was afraid to leave — so were many of us that morning. Would love to hear more about what can be done about the harassment. I would never be allowed to harass people like that outside of a church or even a bar!
Last time we warned you about this, it turned out to be a false alarm. But for reals this time, the Highland Street Bridge across the Bernal Cut is closed for repairs. Bill Hamilton writes:
The Highland Avenue bridge has been completely closed off for the foreseeable future … so please plan or alter routes accordingly. No vehicular OR pedestrian thru-traffic between Mission and Arlington at this time. The Bernal Cut Path, of course, remains open, and you can cross Highland, you just can’t get to Arlington. Should be a nice little nightmare for those of us in the immediate area!
If the infrastructure gods look favorably upon the project, the Highland Bridge should reopen toward the end of the year, at which point the Citizens of Bernalwood look forward to renewing our ties with our ancestral kin from Glen-Bernal.
Recently, when Bernalwood mentioned a proposal to add streetscape trees to our southern stretch of Mission Street around College Hill, we mentioned in passing that it wasn’t all that long ago when most San Francisco streets and open spaces were barren and treeless.
Take a close look at the view from Bernal Hill 1969, for example, and you’ll notice that Folsom Street is missing the graceful, willowy trees that now do so much to define its character. Likewise, the photo shown above is a view of Bernal Hill taken at about the same time, and it allows us to visualize how awkward our hill looked before all the trees were planted around Sutrito Tower.
The scene in today’s photo is a special day in August, 1970 when Mission District neighbors were invited to take a sneak peek at the just-completed, but not-yet-open 24th Street BART station. The long lines reflect the intense curiosity that surrounded the opening of BART after many unpleasant years of cut-and-cover construction chaos and disruption along Mission Street.
Ah-HA! Upon closer inspection, it looks as if the big trees that now pair so gracefully with Sutrito Tower were actually present at the time, though just-planted. So in this photo we see the genesis of today’s glamorous Bernal Hill beautification, at the very moment when the trees were just taking root. Hurrah!
We’re sure a few Bernalwood readers had a hand in that tree-planting, so hopefully they’ll tell us more about how that happened in the comments.
In the meantime — and far more strangely — this photo also reveals that there was a fad for footwear-inspired cuisine on Mission Street in the dawning years of the 1970s:
The Shoe Cafeteria?? Shoes??? As food??? Presumably served in a wide range of styles, with various a-la-carte sauces? Ugh. Goddamn hipsters, ruining the Mission — even back then.
That footage was captured with a Phantom 3 drone, and it caught the attention of Neighbor Keith Karamanos from Montcalm, another Phantom 3 jockey who has also captured some gorgeous footage above Bernal Heights. Yet instead of hovering steadily in one place, Keith took his drone for a cruise across northeast Bernal Heights, and the result is some of the most stunning footage of our neighborhood we’ve ever seen.
Sure, it’s fun to pretend to “fly” over Bernal using newfangled tools like Google Earth. But thanks to today’s even more newfangled drones, it’s now possible for all of us to see the real thing in high resolution from perspectives that have never before been feasible (unless you happened to be, say, a crow or a red-tailed hawk).
So go fullscreen to watch Keith’s gorgeous new video, sit back, and take a moment to appreciate the fact that we now have the opportunity to see this place in ways that few humans ever have, ever before:
San Francisco is getting 4,500 new shared bikes in the next couple years. Currently, Bernal’s closest station is at 7th and Townsend in SOMA, and I think we should change that.
They’re now accepting proposals for new locations and there’s currently about 13 proposed locations in Bernal up for vote.
As a resident of Santana Rancho, I’m partial to the the two proposed on Precita Park (east end, west end), but there are plenty of great options on Mission and in Cortlandia as well.
During a recent constitutional in Cortlandia, your Bernalwood editor met Neighbor Miles Epstein as he was preparing to photograph his new artwork: a topographically accurate cross-section of Cortland Avenue, created entirely from sheets of cardboard. Neighbor Miles writes:
3D Surface Modeling – The Cortland Map Project
Inspired by finishing an extraordinarily flat cork tabletop, I fell into this idea of modeling our local commercial street. Cortland Avenue runs east/west for 0.9miles. Branching off Mission St at 140 feet above sea level Cortland crests at 240 feet before descending sharply to Bayshore Ave, resting flat at just 20 feet above the waves.
Turns out, Neighbor Miles is friendly with the folks at New Wheel on Cortland, and his 3-D map was assembled from scrap cardboard collected from the store.
He mapped it out based on the amazing 5′ topo map of Bernal Heights created by the legendary Eric Fisher (and shared on Bernalwood a few years ago). Then Neighbor Miles reproduced the contours of Bernal by gluing custom-cut pieces of cardboard together to create the entire length of Cortland from Mission to Bayshore. Take a closer took:
Neighbor Miles tells Bernalwood he was directly inspired by the work of Neighbor Gregory Gavin, and on his website, Neighbor Miles reveals that he even built a version of his Cardboard Cortland that uses the streets as structural ribs. Check this out:
Woa. Mind blown! Amazing! Geektastic! Brilliant! Inspiring!
Well done, Neighbor Miles.
Now… A CARDBOARD CONTOUR OF ALL OF BERNAL HEIGHTS, PLEASE?
PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics (above) and Miles Epstein (below)
Bernalwood has friends in high places, including Jedi drone pilot and videographer Eddie Codel, who recently shot this time-lapse drone footage of Karl the Fog from atop Bernal Hill.
The footage is so perfect you’ll hardly think it’s a time-lapse — until you notice all the cars zipping along at impossible speeds in La Lengua. Adjust video settings to HD, go full screen, and this is what it would look like if you had a penthouse suite in a Bernal Hill skyscraper.
There’s been a lot of thinking about flag design lately: What are the elements of a good flag? What’s wrong with bad flags? How great a really great flag can be, and how sad and useless a bad flag is.
Much of the current thinking about flag design traces back to celebrity audio person and design aficionado Roman Mars, who recently introduced us to the very geeky subculture of vexillology (the study of the history, symbolism, and usage of flags) in a very geeky episode of his 99% Invisible podcast. You can check it out here.
The key lesson from Roman’s crash-course in Vexillology 101 is that good flag design follows five basic rules:
1. Keep it simple
2. Use meaningful symbolism
3. Use two to three basic colors
4. No lettering or seals of any kind
5. Be distinctive
That kicked off a national conversation about flag design; a conversation that grew even more urgent when Roman Mars was invited to give a TED Talk on the subject:
The crux of his TED Talk was that the flags of American cities are generally rather terrible, and San Francisco is a clear case in point. Very few people are familiar with San Francisco’s flag, because San Francisco’s flag is a hot steaming mess that breaks all the rules of vexillological good taste. It looks like this:
In the spirit of civic improvement, Roman Mars has kicked off a new effort to redesign San Francisco’s flag. But in the meantime, that got your Bernalwood editor thinking: What about a flag for Bernal Heights? Don’t we deserve a flag too?
Of course we do.
So after internalizing the design rules recommended by vexillologists, I took the liberty of developing a flag for Bernal Heights. I hope you might entertain the idea of rallying around it. Fellow citizens, I propose that all Bernalese should live in peace under this banner, the (Proposed) Great Flag of the Dominion of Bernal Heights:
Rather sporty, eh? Dynamic! Bold! Distinctive! Let’s walk through its symbolism:
The diagonal fields of green and yellow represent the two annual phases of Bernal Hill: green (winter wet) and golden yellow (summer dry).
The four sides of the red border represent the four roads that define the boundaries of our Bernal territory: I-280, San Jose Avenue, Cesar Chavez Boulevard, and US 101.
The star at the center is of course Bernal Hill, shown as a compass rose to represent the 360-degree views of San Francisco visible from the summit. The red color symbolizes both the beloved chert which stabilizes us, and the long tradition of social activism which is an important part of our neighborhood history.
That’s my proposal. I think it’s not too shabby, at least as a first stab at a flag for Bernal Heights. Plus, it would do the trick if you wanted to quietly represent Bernal in your workplace or favorite coffee shop:
This design travels well too. No matter where you go, or whatever distant lands you conquer, you can take your Bernal Heights pride with you:
That said, there are some other designs to consider. Bernalwood’s Cub Reporter rose to the challenge, beginning with some small-scale drawings (which are recommended as a starting place to simulate the view of a flag from a distance):
Bernalwood’s Cub Reporter developed two designs. The first is a simplified view of Bernal Hill and Sutrito Tower, with tiny houses nestled along the slopes:
Her second concept is more bold. It’s a colorful interpretation of a perspective she loves; the view looking toward the sunset as you stroll west along the north side of Bernal Heights Boulevard toward Folsom in the evening:
Always game for a goofy graphic design problem, Burrito Justice, rebel spokesblogger for the La Lenguan separatists, also rallied to embrace the Bernal flag design challenge. Picking up on some of the themes in my design, he came up with a clever interactive concept:
The symbolic logic? Burrito Justice explains:
Green hill, yellow hill, chert background… You turn the flag over depending on the season.
Nice! To bring some further innovation to the idea, Burrito Justice then proposed the world’s first animated GIF flag:
Burrito Justice calls it “a flag for all seasons.”
Your Bernalwood editor called it “hard to sew.”
Burrito Justice explained, “Yeah but imagine the sales, people would need a new one every two weeks!” (Which is actually rather diabolical and brilliant.)
But of course, he couldn’t stop there. Next, Burrito Justice created a few more versions of his flag to celebrate Bernal’s most iconic residents:
Sigh.
Bet hey, maybe you have a better idea for a Bernal flag?
If so, send it to us here at the Bernalwood Office of Vexillological Research or drop it in the comments, and we’ll share any additional ideas for Bernal Heights flags with the Citizens of Bernalwood soon.
IMAGES: Bernalwood Office of Vexillological Research
Famous creators of the videogame industry dine at Red Hill Station… just like us!
Neighbor Robert was on paparazzi patrol last week, and he filed this star-studded report:
It was very cool to see Nolan Bushnell, Atari founder and godfather of video games (shout-out to Pong!), at Red Hill Station last Friday night. He was in town for the Google I/O conference, and while in town he decided to dine at Red Hill Station.
Turns out his wife, Nancy, is a major LA foodie and visited Red Hill Station for dinner recently with her brother, a longtime Bernal resident. Nancy was so taken with the restaurant she made sure he paid a visit.
Nolan loved the food, the staff, the whole Bernal vibe, and when introduced to the chef, Taylor Pedersen’s eyes widened and he said he owed Bushnell a huge debt of gratitude. As a child of six, Taylor used to sing for quarters just for the chance to play Atari classics like Asteroids and Battlezone one more time.
And now, a quick update on Ingleside Precinct crime patterns, courtesy of Neighbor Sarah, our valiant SFPD liaison:
Ingleside SFPD Community Meeting and Crime Update
Meeting: May 19, 2015
Elder Abuse – People are pretending to be contractors or utility employees to gain access to houses, and they are targeting older residents. Help spread the word. Have had four of these incidents in Ingleside, and more have happened in the Richmond and Bayview. Call police to check out any suspicious activity or confirm a worker is legit – 553-0123 (or 911 if they actually get in and you realize they’re not legit).
Burglaries picking up in same spot where there were burglaries in Nov/Dec in Miraloma Park area. They think the current crew is related to the people who were arrested in Nov/Dec and are still in jail. Daytime burglaries – same MO as last time: ring bell, kick in door.
Robberies on Mission corridor (Mission/Geneva area especially, but also Mission/Kingston) Police think it’s related to gambling shacks. Many victims uncooperative, not wanting to give information. Increasing patrols late at night. Not just one crew. Robbers look for easy marks – people walking alone, people coming out of bars alone, etc. Some guns and knives; others strong-arm. Report activity (people always hanging out at a particular spot, etc) and be specific when you see it. Even minor details can be very important (like broken taillights). Tell officers to take a report and that the captain said to do it. It takes them a while to shut down gambling shacks, and they need lots of evidence. Working with City Attorney and DA. Can’t say much yet. “Our lucky breaks are you.” Police reports are critical – don’t just send in an email to the station. Call right away when you see activity.
Increase in gang activity on Mission Corridor near Crocker-Amazon. Nortenos of Daly City trying to make a comeback. Recent robbery, retaliatory shooting. Also fights, stabbings. All happening later in night.
Naples & Persia “sideshows” – Cars doing donuts and burnouts, etc — report immediately. Get plates. Hard to catch in the act unless neighbors call it in. Getting a license plate is the key.
Car break-ins still high across city. Stolen property usually sold within half an hour of the theft (on Market/7th).
Parents in the audience brought up pedestrian/traffic issues at Aptos school. Numerous incidents. Working with complex web of constituencies, supervisors, and police because they’re in two supervisory districts and two police districts.
Also, one thing I forgot from my last set of notes: Upper Noe has seen succulent thefts again lately (as have some areas of Bernal). Some people found the thieves on video surveillance. It appears to take place around 3-4am, and the thieves have carts covered with blankets. They put the cuttings inside and replace the blanket. So if you see anyone doing this, call it in. Thieves get ~$7 for them at Flower Market because drought-tolerant landscaping is on the rise.
SAVE THE DATE: The Ingleside Police District’s National Night Out BBQ will be held in Bernal Heights this year – Tuesday, August 4, 5-8pm at the Bernal Heights Recreation Center and Bernal Heights Library. Please save the date for free food and lots of family activities, including the Rec & Park climbing wall, bouncy houses, games, and giveaways. Meet your neighbors and enjoy a summer evening out!
Doesn’t matter if you eat-in at Paxti’s on 24th Street or get some of their deep-dish yum delivered to your Bernal Heights glampad — 10% of tonight’s receipts will benefit BHNC.
Rachel Ebora, BHNC’s executive director, explains what they do with the money:
BHNC has been serving the community for over 37 years, providing programs and services to over 2200 youth, seniors, and families in Bernal and surrounding neighborhoods every year through our youth and senior programs, community engagement, employment development and affordable housing work. We celebrate our neighborhood by working closely with local businesses, city agencies, and neighbors to build a strong sense of community that cares for and nurtures everyone. Plus, we throw a pretty good Fiesta on the Hill every October. As a non-profit organization, we rely on multiple sources of revenue to run programs, provide family sustaining jobs, and manage and maintain hundreds of units of affordable housing throughout the city. Every dollar counts!
Bernalwood 
