African American history: homegrown

Yesterday's Bayview History Day event at Washington Carver Elementary School was as much an historic event as an educational one. Shapers of history shared firsthand experiences about the neighborhood's unique and important past. Others celebrated the new library in the neighborhood's future.

The event was dedicated to Eloise Westbrook, a locally and globally recognized change-maker who passed away recently at age 94. A full program kicked-off with the screening of a short video about Mrs. Westbrook.

Shirley Jones, one of the women known as "The Big Five," was featured in the video. She told the story of Eloise Westbrook, speaking in her usual no-nonsense manner, to House Speaker Tip O'Neill.

"I don't call you Tip. You don't call me Eloise."

New political clout

While topics at the history event were wide-ranging, Bayview Hunters Point's role in important political struggles emerged powerfully.

John Templeton, writer, historian and expert on the 60-plus black-owned restaurants in San Francisco, made a few comments and then interviewed esteemed members of Bayview Hunters Point's African American community.

"Bayview is of national importance," Mr. Templeton pointed out.

Templeton noted that, in the 1960's, the Ford Foundation promoted Bayview as the country's best organized community. At that time, everyone knew everyone, and the neighborhood was organized down to the block level. When word needed to go out about something, it went out fast and wide.

Espanola Jackson was at the front of the fight to integrate public housing. "If they called it an annex, that meant it was for black folks," she said from the stage.

Housing justice. Affordable health care. Neighborhood health clinics. These movements began here according to expert testimony at the history event.

Developing new leaders

Espanola Jackson found herself in the thick of the welfare rights struggle of the 1960's. She knew she wanted to help change the inequality she, her family and friends were experiencing, but wasn't sure how to go about it. She had been told she should find her leader, and so she approached Mrs. Westbrook.

"I was scared," Jackson said about meeting Mrs. Westbrook. "I tried to look tough."

But Mrs. Westbrook was famous by that point, and a large woman with a reputation for talking loudly and using language Jackson did not use.

Westbrook message to young Espanola Jackson has well-served both Jackson and the issues she has championed ever since.  "You don't need me to lead you," she said. "You can be your own leader."

Westbrook made sure Jackson had help getting flyers out about a first meeting. By the second meeting, Jackson found herself Chair of the group.

Many elders at the event expressed how important new leadership and involvement is to the struggles they continue to work on.  For some, leadership was about having faith and getting busy.  Say "Yes I can," one participant said, "and you will be able to do it."

"No one gave us anything," Jackson said. "We fought for all of it."

Referencing the Block C Organization and George Earl, Essie Webb gave an example of a rent strike that was waged when the Housing Authority failed to maintain public housing.

Instead of paying rent, "twelve families put their rent money into a bank. And it worked. Does anyone remember the showers? We wanted better showers, and to pick our own contractors."

They got both.

Food and culture

In a brief on-stage interview, Mr. Templeton asked Rev. James Hall, an organizer for the annual Black Cuisine Festival, why he believes knowing about his culture's food is important.

"When your food goes, your culture goes with it," Rev. Hall said. He went on to say that this is why George Davis was inspired to start Black Cuisine which has been an important part of Bayview Hunters Point's cultural landscape in one form or another for 33 years.

Rev. Hall explained how food is connected to struggle, and how families had to get creative simply to survive. Over time, making do with free or low cost ingredients, such as the fruits and vegetables raised by families themselves, became customary.

"Let me tell you something about greens," Rev. Hall said of growing these hardy and productive plants. "Once you get that first batch going, you almost can't get rid of them."

In Butchertown (now known as Dogpatch), the slaughterhouse workers threw out scraps that were part of a food tradition that continues in new ways to this day.

"$5 a pound for ox tail?!" Espanola Jackson said of today's prices for an ingredient once considered worthless.

Mrs. Pickering shared how she gardened, raising food just like nearly every Bayview Hunters Point resident. "My husband didn't like gardening, but I did it year after year."

"Every major decision that was made in my family was made at the kitchen table," said Rev. Hall. "The women would call us in, and we would go."

Respected elders pass

The lights in Bayview Hunters Point have dimmed as the community mourns the loss of Eloise Westbrook and Leroy Looper.

Mrs. Westbrook's accomplishments are lasting and far reaching, and many in the community consider her an icon. more

Mr. Looper was respected for combining keen business sense with social responsibility. He told his own "bootstraps" life story in an autobiography that can be found online. Read the autobiography.

Quesada Gardens Initiative expresses deepest sympathy to the many family members and friends of Mrs. Westbrook and Mr. Looper.

pictured: Eloise Westbrook in November 2007 (credit, Richard Uchida)

It Came From Beneath the Sea...at the Shipyard

Even by today's standards, the cinematic trickery of "It Came From Beneath The Sea," which shows Hunters Point Shipyard and other sites on the San Francisco waterfront roughly handled by a gargantuan sea monster, is convincing.

Bayview Hunters Point residents and others with a fondness for the eastern waterfront, will find this four minute sampler of the science fiction classic fascinating.

See the sampler

The film documents as much by what is left out. Nearly 50 years after the Great Earthquake and Fire, old buildings are few and far between. The crowds filmed fleeing the beast include few women and people of color when, in fact, 1955 was the year that women accounted for 35% of the total workforce, and Dorothy Dandridge became the first African-American to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress.

See a great timeline of African-American's in film highlights.

Still, the film that once thrilled kids at the Chiller Dillers, a scary movie series at the single screen theater on the east side of 3rd between and Quesada and Palou, now serves as important visual documentation of life in our part of the Bay nearly 50 years ago.

One question remains: How did the Ferry Building clock tower get restored after the devastation wrought by giant tentacles?!

See a bit of the later colorized version of "It Came From Beneath the Sea" here. Ray Harryhausen, the creative genius behind the stop gap animation-fueled black and white original, helped create it.

- Jeffrey Betcher

Enjoy lots more about the history of BVHP.

Pieces of Overhoff sculpture preserved

When Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood residents were asked whether they wanted a new library in place of the older one, few said anything but "Yes!"

Fans of the old building, which held good memories for many, had mixed feelings from the start, but prioritized the new library. Now that the old building is rubble, along with the building next door to it, some neighbors, artists and policymakers are reflecting on the process.

A piece of art designed by internationally respected artist Jacques Overhoff, whose work can also be seen at Hilltop Park and Charles Drew Elementary School, was created in 1968 when the old library building was constructed. It was created in partnership with St. Paul of the Shipwreck Church, and with the involvement of many children in the community. The piece was a fixture of the old building ... literally ... as it was a sculptural part of the entryway wall.

The sculpture and the wall came down last Thursday as part of the overall demolition, emotionally tinging the excitement about the new, larger library. Though gone, the artwork may illuminate the community's relationship with pieces of public art, and the City's management of them.

In October of 2009, the San Francisco Arts Commission gave a thumbs-up to the San Francisco Public Library's request that the art piece be "de-accessioned," or removed from the City's list of protected artwork, so that the new building could go up on schedule. The recommendation enjoyed the support of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, the architects of the new building, and vocal Bayview Hunters Point residents. (See more.)

Recently, when the announcement came that the old library building would be demolished soon, Quesada Gardens Initiative organizers offered to incorporate the pieces of the Overhoff sculpture into something new, such as landscaping at a public gathering space that would include historical markers about the artwork and the old library building. The first Quesada Garden is just a block away from the library, and seemed an ideal place to preserve these pieces of the community's past.

Jacques Overhoff, speaking from Germany where he and his wife now live, was pleased that interest was being shown. Such interest had seemed to him sorely absent up until the latest proposal had been made. He felt that the cost of preserving a piece of public art should not be pushed back onto the artist when development puts that piece at risk, and that it was possible to design the new library in such a way as to preserve the sculpture.

Mr. Overhoff hoped something could be accomplished so that the dedication of the piece to Medgar Evers, which had been part of his original intent, could still take place. He supported the idea of using pieces from his sculpture in a new community space, and shared an idea of his own: that a contractor he knows come to cut the sculpture from the building, intact, and move it to one of the Quesada Gardens Initiative's gardens and gathering spaces.

With permission from Mr. Overhoff, representatives from SF Department of Public Works and the SF Arts Commission worked with QGI to save as much of the sculpture as possible, short of postponing demolition. Sadly, the schedules of the contractor and the City did not allow for saving the piece in its entirety.

Ultimately, several medium- to small-sized chunks of the sculpture were set aside. Quesada Gardens volunteers quickly moved them to a new location so that all concerned would be able to participate in some process defining the future use of the pieces.

Whatever use is made of the pieces, serious questions about a community's willingness to protect its public art have emerged. It is fitting, perhaps, that those questions will be lasting because of new work that incorporates elements of something that did not survive development. Those elements will always be a reminder that a community's progress can carry a heavy cost to its history.

See much more about the Bayview branch library, the old building and the new one, and the people who care about them.

Bay View School 1951

Mary Grandin, an elementary school teacher in Bayview in the early 1950's, has sent pictures of herself and her students. This picture comes from Grandin's collection, and was particularly moving to Quesada Gardens Initiative members old enough to recall life at the time it was taken.

The QGI members recalled that the picture shows something rarely seen in other parts of the country 60 years ago: children holding hands across the racial divide while an adult takes a picture instead of telling them they should not be doing that. They reminisced that Bayview Hunters Point has always been ahead of the times when it comes to people who are different than one another getting along.

The Bay View School dates back to 1904, Grandin believes. The single-room building served younger and older students alike.

"Bay View was a wonderful old building," Grandin said. "High ceilings, double hung windows overlooking the bay and wide hallways."

Quesada Gardens members would love to know more. Anyone with more information about Bay View School is encouraged to call 415.822.0800 or email us.

1944 to 2011 perspective on Third

The Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood is undergoing rapid change, spurred by the economy, redevelopment, new arrivals to the area, and other forces.

These images, one taken in 1944 (from the SF Public Library website) and the other a week ago from a similar vantage point, show that change is not just a recent phenomenon.

 

The changes that pop from these pictures, book-ending a 77 year stretch of time, are ones that have to do with transportation and other aspects of the urban infrastructure - things over which those who live, work or play in the neighborhood have had limited control.

But a closer look reveals changes to the commercial landscape along Bayview's main drag. The first clue is in the greater number of signs and associated small businesses in 1944 when Bayview was enjoying a boom time, associated with the Shipyard and WWII, as compared with today's sleepier activity. These aspects of life in our neighborhood are ones over which neighbors and entrepreneurs can work (and are working!) to improve.

Local history buffs have told Footprints that the building (far right) that now houses a program of the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation for Community Improvement would become the location of Fuller's Pharmacy three years after the older photograph was taken. The building on the far left, with the Kaufman's sign, and the building next door to Bank of American have been torn down to make way for an empty lot and the newer building seen in the recent photograph. 

The single story structure on the corner of Third and Quesada, where Wendy's is now located (after a move from several doors down) at one time housed Rizzato Realty. Across the street, the 3-story structure made way for Bay View Federal Savings and Loan, and later for U.S. Bank.

Do you have memories or mementos of the neighborhood "back in the day?" We love to digitally copy photographs and films of place, people and life in Bayview Hunters Point, and invite you to email us or call 415.822.0800 with ideas.

Third Street may be renamed for Willie Brown

The Bayview Hunters Point community and its neighbors are just now hearing the news that Third Street, the major surface street that defines much of the Southeast Sector, may be renamed as part of Mayor Gavin Newsom's birthday gift to former Mayor and California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Jr.

Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that "Newsom and his staff have been working quietly behind the scenes to drum up support and got Supervisor Sophie Maxwell to carry the legislation."

The renaming will require the Board of Supervisor's support, and is sure to raise a host of questions. Many San Franciscan's recall the renaming of "Army Street" to "Cesar Chavez Blvd," which remains a contentious issue in some pockets of the city.

It wouldn't be the first time for the renaming of Bayview's main drag. According to the Bayview History Preservation Project, Third Street was once known as Railroad Avenue in reference to the street cars that connected the neighborhood to the City's downtown, and to the Southern Pacific Railroad which was a defining feature of the area until the 1950's. Before it was called "Railroad Avenue," the road was known as "Hunters Point Blvd."

Bayview was embroiled in controversy over the renaming of streets in the early part of the last century when Father O'Sullivan of All Hallows Parish protested naming a street for Revolutionary War-era patriot Thomas Paine who O'Sullivan considered to be an athiest and an "infidel."

BVHP's early years

Excerpt from the Bayview History Preservation Project's exhibit at the branch library on Third and Revere:

Has the main drag that runs through the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood always been called “Third Street?” Older residents will know the answer to that question, and many will remember when Third was called “Railroad Avenue” and, before that, “Hunters Point Boulevard.”

It’s not just the name that has changed.

At the turn of the century, the road was little more than a broad wagon trail, clay or mud depending on the season. It was graded in 1917 in a surge of investment following the 1916 flood that crept up the road from Innes Avenue. Until being discontinued in the 1950’s, Southern Pacific rail cars steamed along a rugged waterfront that was still wild between clumps of one- and two-story wooden commercial building. The train ran from Townsend and King Streets, criss-crossing what is now Third and running passengers directly through the neighborhood.

Whatever you call it, Third Street has always been a major artery for San Francisco.

Until the mid-1900’s, the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood was critical to San Francisco as the City’s food-shed: its pastures were filled with livestock and family farms, residents almost always had a backyard garden (if not cows and chickens) to supply their own tables, and Chinese fishermen and others actively harvested the bay. The docks included a thriving open-air market that many residents still remember as the best place to buy shrimp. “Truck farms” used Third Street to transport the wealth of food to San Francisco’s wholesale market.

Light industry speckled the area, including a concentration of breweries servicing the still untamed City. Lucky Lager Brewery, one of the best known, was also the last brewery in the neighborhood to be torn down or go out-of-business. After the U.S. Civil War, the Hunters Point Drydocks began keeping trade afloat, and in 1916 built what was then the largest drydock in the world. The military, already ensconced in the Presidio, took notice and began negotiations to acquire the commercial facility.

As food and beer trucked north on Third, new residents traveled south to take up residence in the growing neighborhood. Working class immigrants - Chinese, Italian, Maltese, Irish and German – gravitated to the area because it was less expensive and reminded them of the rural areas they came from. The work was hard, but life was in many ways idyllic given the bay-front beauty of the land and the determination of the diverse populations to build a cohesive, peaceful community.

A notable surge of new residents followed the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Much of the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood was built on bedrock, and the fire stopped far short of its border. If you had relatives or friends in the Bayview when the disaster occurred, you were lucky indeed.

Wise Bayview resident talks about election

by Jeffrey Betcher

Bayview Resident

The day after Senator Obama became President-Elect Obama, Edward Allen’s thoughts went to his military days, a past president, and a time when the country was in peril beyond what we’re experiencing now.

“You can’t touch it,” Mr. Allen said of the Great Depression, World War II, and the generation of Americans that came together to turn things around. He ought to know. He’s lived through most of it.

I wanted to take a walk around my neighborhood, San Francisco’s maligned and challenged Bayview Hunters Point, to soak up the community reaction to the prior day’s election. I said “hello” to Mr. Allen, who was sitting about a minute’s walk from my front door, next to Wendy’s Bakery, looking out onto the unique urban beauty of the Quesada Garden.

Almost daily, weather permitting, Mr. Allen walks by my house carrying a folding stool, and takes position where folks have been gathering for the ten years I can speak to, and probably since the corner emerged from a dirt road and open space. Allen and other locals know that the corner has always been favored by the sun.

“December 7th, 1941,” Allen said. “The whole country came together in about a week.” He blew a gust of military and national history in my direction, complete with dates, names and events. De Gaulle…Churchill…Montgomery…Roosevelt…

Allen served from 1952 to 1954, during the Korean War, spending a good bit of time in Germany where he witnessed the stunning rubble that called itself “Berlin.” The Korean War was the beginning of the United States’ slow left turn into conflicts that should have been avoided, Allen believes. Vietnam and Iraq are on the same list.

“It’s not people like Bush who have to fight,” he said. “Poor folks do that part.”

Allen was drafted away from a job he had held at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for five years, and there was nothing to do but put on a uniform. The Shipyard, a rare hub of job opportunities for working people, was no protection from the draft.

Allen, I already knew, was the son of a farmer. Usually quiet, he was walking by one of the community gardens in the area a few months be ago, on his way to Quesada Avenue and Third Street. He pointed out that the corn in the Bridgeview Garden needed more water than we were giving it. It was obvious that he knew what he was talking about.

Born in 1931, Allen was raised in Louisiana. With the exception of his overseas service, Bayview Hunters Point has been his home since he arrived as a teenager in 1947. When he returned from the service, in 1954, he looked for a job outside the Shipyard. “Working with longshoremen, there was a lot of hard living, drinking and that kind of thing. I ended up working for Best Foods on Bryant, and was there for thirty years.”

The Best Foods job was fortunate for Allen as the Shipyard began its postwar decline, and the neighborhood began to suffer from the evaporation of employment opportunities. But he remains proud of his military service, and his time at the Shipyard.

The election of Barak Obama stirred both that pride and his concern about how far we, as a country, have drifted from the generation of leadership that sent soldiers into harm’s way only when absolutely necessary.

“Where’s Osama bin Laden?” he asked, and then shrugged his shoulders. “And look at all we need here at home.”

The view we had, from the corner of Quesada and Third, supported Allen’s opinions. This is the kind of neighborhood that disproportionally bears the human burden when leaders call upon the military. It’s the kind of neighborhood that most needs the economic vitality that bringing resources home could create.

Allen grew up understanding the struggle to survive, and came of age in an era of unity generated by the demands of World War II, which, he believes, remains the best example of when the United States should fight. He remembers how, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, everything changed and ultimately got better.

Allen understood the comparisons of Obama to FDR. For him, the fact that a black man was elected president is meaningful. But what is more important is that a new president might unite everyone, and cut a path to the future that we all can find and travel together.

As we talked, passers-by -- each different than the last when it comes to race, class, and other things that usually separate us -- all smiled and shared in the excitement of the day. “From the outhouse to the White House,” one said.

If a sunny corner in Bayview and a conversation between neighbors are any indication, Allen’s vision for the country under an Obama presidency seems especially focused, and as close to becoming reality as the people walking by.

Whether we see sudden “change” or a long slow climb, we can find Edward Allen on most sunny days somewhere between the Quesada Garden and Wendy’s Bakery, making sense of the day’s events by remembering the past.

Bayview landscape "then and now"

Our community is growing dramatically...again! Large format versions of these photographs can be seen at our branch library on Third and Revere, behind the circulation desk.

Thanks go to Bert Graziano who took the older photograph around 1920, and Margot Bors who did photo restoration and then took the newer picture in 2003: footings to an eighty year span of local history.

The Bayview History Preservation Project, a co-founding Footprints member group, is located at the library, and houses many images and other treasures from our past.

Karl Paige in NEN Hall of Fame

Karl Paige is fondly remembered in Bayview Hunters Point as the Co-Founder of the Quesada Gardens Initiative. He and Annette Smith started planting on an urban median strip which soon became an elaborate community garden that ignited community change.

Mr. Karl, as he was known here, passed away in August of 2007, but will live on in the Neighborhood Empowerment Network's Hall of Fame. His daughter, Rachelle Paige, was introduced by Quesada Gardens Initiative Board Member Joel McClure in a sometimes tearful moment of remembrance.

Karl and Annette both won Jefferson Awards for their contribution. The Quesada Gardens Initiative has won numerous prestigious awards including the Robert C. Friese Award for Neighborhood Conservation and the Crissy Field Center/Golden Gate Parks Conservancy Community Heroes Award.

The Quesada Gardens Initiative is still a feisty and independent group of residents who are creating change where they live. Residents recently dedicated a memorial to the founders, Karl and Annette, and to the community that gathered around them to take back their neighborhood.

Mayor Gavin Newsom donated a beautiful bronze plaque for the memorial. And Flora Grubb Nursery donated a bench and planters that now contain "ornamental edibles." The memorial is a sitting area at the crest of the Quesada hill overlooking the garden and the San Francisco Bay.

Longtime Bayview resident's perspective on election

The day after Senator Obama became President-Elect Obama, Edward Allen’s thoughts went to his military days, a past president, and a time when the country was in peril beyond what we’re experiencing now.

“You can’t touch it,” Mr. Allen said of the Great Depression, World War II, and the generation of Americans that came together to turn things around.

He ought to know. He’s lived through most of it.

Read the entire "1st person" profile of Mr. Allen.

photo credit: Betcher

Bayview business featured in new publication

Mazzei's Hardware is the oldest business in continuous operation in Bayview.

The recent edition of Bayview Footprints News is devoted to business in the community. Emphasizing socially-responsible and community-involved businesses, the publication takes a look at informal businesses, the Bayview Merchants Association, and the rich history of commerce in the neighborhood.

Sarah Ross in pictures

Memories of our recently departed neighbor are surfacing at the Ross home in the wake of Sarah Ross' passing. James Ross shares these images of his aunt's rich life.

Sarah Ross passes at age 99

Quesada Gardens Initiative members gather around our dear friends, the Ross family, as they celebrate the life of their dearest Aunt Sarah L (Shaffer) Ross who went to her reward Saturday afternoon, September 5th, 2008 at ninety-nine years of age.

Ross was born in Oklahoma City on April 14, 1909. She and Jerry Ross (who preceded her in death in 1985) were married in 1943 in Kentucky where they lived.

Sarah and Jerry Ross moved to San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood in 1946. They purchased their home at 1783 Quesada in 1961. Thomas Shaffer, Sarah's brother, lived in the house with Sarah for 20 years, until his death in May of 2003.

Sarah Ross worked for the San Francisco Post Office for 35 years, retiring in 1981. She was a longtime member of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco.

Ross loved reading her Bible while sitting at the kitchen table of her Quesada home, enjoying the view of the Bay. She also loved to travel, and went on a cruise to Hawaii and Jamaica. She and her brother Thomas went to Africa and Jerusalem. She had a great fondness for music, loved to dance, and was featured in style shows in the 1960's.

Until she passed, Ross was alert and engaged with life. She was the subject of a recorded oral history with the Bayview History Preservation Project just two years ago. Ross is survived by her nephew James Ross, his wife Lisa, and their children Isaiah, Apollos, Dannielle, Tracy, and Ashley. Other family members include Horace Ross Jr., Allie Ross, Rose Marie, Paulette Ross, Ajay Ross, Louis Ross, Stephanie Ross, Chris Ross and many others in Lexington, Danville and Louisville, Kentucky, and Washington DC.

In recent years, Sarah Ross had been cared for in her home by her family. Her image is a part of the Quesada Gardens Initiative community mural across the street from the Ross home. She was enthusiastic about the Quesada Gardens Initiative's work, especially the effort to feed low-income and long-term Bayview residents through a backyard gardening project. Her weekend nurse would often pick flowers from the Quesada Garden for a vase by Ross' bed.

Family, friends and neighbors mourn her passing as they celebrate her life. James Ross has created an online remembrance of his Aunt

Neighbors and historians rush to save landmark

Neighbors worry that a charming symbol of the shipbuilding industry and the working class heroes who shaped San Francisco’s India Basin will be lost in the shuffle of advancing development. They have urged making the Hunters Point Shipwright’s House at 900 Innes Avenue a city landmark.

On Tuesday, March 31st at 1pm, the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use Committee will hold a hearing about the issue. The issue is more urgent given a major developer’s sudden donation of land on which the Shipwright House sits to a nonprofit organization.

The Shipwright’s House remains unchanged since it was built around 1870 when wooden boat-building flourished along the southern waterfront. The house is all that remains of a cluster of structures, including a blacksmith shop and water tower, that once formed the heart of union and trade activity.

“The Shipwright’s House should be saved,” stated Kristine Enea, “for its historic value, as a symbol of the neighborhood’s working class roots, and for the useful role it can play in the area’s future. Enea lives near the cottage, and is Chair of the India Basin Neighborhood Association which works to preserve what is unique about their vibrant mixed-use neighborhood.

900 Innes is near the Bay Trail, which is planned to run through India Basin, and less than half a mile from the gate to Hunters Point Shipyard. Residents envision the cottage as a tourist and recreational resource in an area preparing for a population boom and a steady stream of visitors.

In 1998, the Recreation and Parks Department listed 900 Innes as a desired acquisition for a maritime recreation center. In 2004, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell asked the Board of Supervisors to declare it “worthy of historic preservation.” In 2005, the Landmark Advisory Board and Planning Department staff recommended designation of the property as Landmark #250.

900 Innes is an Italianate cottage which housed shipbuilders known as “shipwrights.” Shipwrighting traces its roots to before recorded history. The Alma, now a tourist attraction at the National maritime Museum, was built at Hunters Point, as was Jack London’s adventure boat, the Snark.

End and beginning of an era for Bayview media

When the first flowers began blooming at the Quesada Garden in 2002, we sent word of the miracle to media outlets all over town. The San Francisco Bay View Newspaper was the first to break the story of Karl, Annette and their amazing contribution to uncovering Bayview's beauty through urban gardening.

Earlier this month, after the Quesada Kids took fruit they had just harvested from backyard trees to Third Street, word got to the Ratcliff's who wanted to share the story with the community. That story appeared on July 2nd, the last print version of the newspaper.

The publishing of the kids' story proved to be an honor to those of us on Quesada Avenue who had been neighbors, just half a block away, from the newspaper's offices on Third Street. Well, we're still neighbors...but the newspaper has undergone some major remodeling!

The San Francisco Bay View Newspaper has been a labor of love for publishers Willie and Mary Ratcliff and the many talented people drawn to their work over the past 16 years. A victim of rising materials and production costs, and other trends that make independent journalism and responsible major media endangered species, the Bay View has transitioned to the web.

A national and international newspaper, a Black newspaper (one of the top 10), and a community newspaper all rolled into one, the San Francisco Bay View was a unique hybrid. It was a one-of-a-kind vehicle for news not reported elsewhere, perspectives that seemed bewilderingly off-the-mark one moment and refreshingly accurate the next, and content that served groups - like the prison population and the faith community - that didn't get attention elsewhere.

Whether you loved what you read, or didn't, the San Francisco Bayview Newspaper represented independence and courage to those who understood what an against-all-the-odds miracle each print issue was. On Quesada, the paper and those behind it were good neighbors and friends.

We'll miss the slender rolls of newsprint with the green banner that arrived like magic on our doorsteps. But we're glad to know that the Ratcliff's and friends aren't going anywhere. In fact, they intend to reach an even wider audience with their expanded website. Visit them at www.sfbayview.com.

Dewey Crumpler helps rededicate his Bayview mural

Young Quesada Gardens Initiative member, Sabrina, poses in front of the Joseph P. Lee Recreation Center during the reopening celebration.

When the Joseph P. Lee Recreation Center reopened in October of last year, Quesada Gardens Initiative members went to see the transformed building and playground, and were thrilled by what they saw. The comments from other visitors where uniformly positive...with one exception.

An older African-American man was disappointed to discover that part of the mural on the side of the building was gone. He said that he knew some of the people who had been pictured. And he talked about how, like the missing part of the mural, "his" community was getting lost in all the changes happening.

It didn't make a difference to this man that the missing part of the mural had been photographed for representation inside the building. His heart was connected to the real thing.

The Fire Next Time II, the massive mural on the west side of the community center, was created by Dewey Crumpler in 1984. At that time, Crumpler painted murals focusing on African American social and political issues, and drew from the compositions of artists he studied in Mexico City: Pablo O'Higgins and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Crumpler is now a Professor of Art and Art History at San Francisco Art Institute where he has taught since 1990.

On Thursday, August 14th from 11:30am to 3pm at the Joseph P. Lee Recreation Center (1395 Mendell Street between Newcomb and Oakdale), Dewey Crumpler will rededicate his mural, and talk about "Reframing the Context of Mural Art for the 21st Century."

Panelists include Timothy Drescher, Art historian/Author; Katy Untch, Senior Conservator - ARG Conservation Services/Fellow of AIC; Malik Seneferu, Artist/Art Educator

Those interested in attending should RSVP by Monday, August 11th to Ave Montague at 415.346.0199.

African American Swim Team Inspires "Pride"

Blue Dolphins Make History

Reposted from April 2007

The Blue Dolphin Swim Team has been a part of history since 2002 when it first splashed its way into the Bayview’s Martin Luther King Jr. pool as an outside-of-school program. The team is part of an Oakland-based league called the Black Star Line All-Star Swim Team that broke the color barrier in the sport, and is the inspiration for a major new movie: “Pride” starring Terrence Howard and Bernie Mac.

Before groups like Black Star and Blue Dolphin formed, African American youth faced a closed door when it came to competitive swimming. The community did not embrace the sport, historically, and the existing associations were inhospitable.

Now these community-based, volunteer efforts encourage all children who want to learn competitive swimming to jump in. Coached by founder Don Lane, The Blue Dolphin Swim Team involves 75 youth from the BVHP neighborhood.

“You can see the self-confidence and pride these young people develop by swimming with the team,” said James Ross. Ross is a Quesada Gardens Initiative co-founder, parent of two Blue Dolphin swimmers, and volunteer president of the Blue Dolphin organization. “I feel great that we’re making such a difference in their lives.”

In May, eight Blue Dolphin swimmers want to go to the 5th annual Black Heritage Swim Meet, a national competition in North Carolina, to pursue the sport of swimming at the highest level. $11,000 is needed to cover expenses, and donations are critically needed. If you can help, call James Ross at 415.822.7703 or Don Lang at 415.822.2315.

The traveling team needs your help!

Landmark tree tour busses to Bayview

Mark your calendar for the Landmark Tree Tour starting at noon on Saturday July 12th. SF Environment is partnering with Friends of the Urban Forest and the Teacher with the Bus for this unique event. RSVP to Nancy Strahan (nancy@fuf.net or 415-561-6890 x108).

If you "miss the bus," you can catch up with the group at the last stop: Quesada Gardens on the 1700 block of Quesada just west of Third Street. Quesada neighbors will help host snacks and tales of the 13 landmark Canary Island Date Palm trees that grace the block.

Tour guides Mike Boss and Mei Ling Hui will be leading a group to visit some of San Francisco's most extraordinary trees in a bio-diesel bus driven by Jens-Peter Jungclaussen.

Mike is a regular tree tour host and former FUF board member. He's currently a member of the Urban Forestry Council for the city of San Francisco, and is the Chair of the Landmark Tree Committee.

Mei Ling is a FUF volunteer and former staff member. As the Urban Forest Coordinator for the Department of the Environment she provides staffing support for the Urban Forestry Council, including administering the Landmark Tree program.

A $5 suggested donation will go directly to Friends of the Urban Forest.

Photo courtesy of ttdigital/Tom Kennedy