Tom Galante serves Bayview

This article was first published in Bayview Footprints Local News print edition, Summer 2008. 

When Tom Galante landed a job back in 1970 as a teller at Bay View Federal Savings and Loan (now US Bank) on the corner of Third and Quesada, he didn't realize how it would shape his life.

Tom Galante was pictured (left) in the New Bayview News in 1985 when he managed the Bayview Federal Savings and Loan on 3rd and Quesada Avenue.

In 1973, Galante bought a house half a block away from the bank where he worked.  He became immersed in the neighborhood's community-building work, and retired from the bank in 1995 as Vice President and Community Banking Center Manager.

"So many people knew me by the time I retired that I grew a beard for awhile just so I could walk down the street without having a hundred conversations," he joked recently.

Galante joined the BMA in 1972, and served as the organization's president for five years. During his tenure, the scope of the BMA's activity expanded from a four block radius to most of the 94124. He was solely responsible for "temporarily" blocking off what is now known as Mendell Plaza, a contribution that lives on to this day.

Galante also served on Mayor Feinstein's Third Street Task Force, was a founder of the Network for Elders, joined the board of the South Bayshore Community Development Corporation, and was a commissioner of the Southeast Community Facility for four years.

Even before Bayview became the epicenter of Galante's busy universe, "service" was an important value to him. In fact, he served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, and was involved in the recovery of three Apollo space capsules.

Galante is a Co-Founder of Quesada Gardens Initiative, and serves on the organization's Board of Directors.  He is known as the "Ambassador of Quesada." It's a fitting title, and reminds newer Quesada and other Bayview residents how broad the shoulders are on which we all stand.

Tom Galante, Bayview hero, passes

Longtime Quesada Avenue resident, Tom Galante, passed away after a brief illness on Friday, October 9th.

Tom was a familiar face in Bayview.  He managed the Bay View Federal Savings and Loan on 3rd and Quesada, just half a block from his home.  He served as President of the Bayview Merchants Association, and as a Commissioner for the Southeast Community Facility Commission.

He was also a Co-Founder of Quesada Gardens Initiative, which blossomed on the block where he lived.  While he was a Board Member, Board Treasurer, and Chief Financial Officer for the group, he may be best remembered as the friendly guy who managed to feed a lot of volunteers for a few dollars. 

Tom had been a longtime volunteer with the San Francisco Ducal Court.  In his final months, he was cared for by his partner, Tony Tarket.

See more about Tom online now.

Please comment with a remembrance of Tom.

Family's journey flows through Quesada Gardens

Anthony Terrazas (in front of sign) poses with part of the semester's service learning group.  To his left are residents Tom Galante and John Davila.  Ava, Mia, Dylan and Zack get in on the fun.

As part of his service-learning experience at Quesada Gardens, and his university course work with Professor Rebecca Gordon, Anthony writes...

Good morning,

My name is Anthony Terrazas, and I have been with Quesada Gardens Initiative for almost three months now.

When I first heard about QGI, I have to admit I was a bit skeptical.  How can gardening possibly combat social issues such as marginalization, exploitation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence and gentrification?

I am a second generation migrant worker. My grandfather migrated from Mexico to the U.S. illegally in search of a life free of oppression and domination. Gaining employment as a farm worker, my grandfather would migrate from location to location searching for a place to develop and exercise his capacities.

Like my grandfather, I too have been searching for a place to develop my abilities and exercise my capacities. Although I do not follow crops as my grandfather did, I have had to migrate from city to city, following the job market’s need for entry level positions.

This willingness to flee communities in search of a land free of oppression and domination often creates neighborhoods of voiceless individuals. It creates the neighborhoods I grew up in where the motto was “Sal si puedes” (get out if you can). It creates isolation and accepts the biases within social institutions.

The late Iris Marion Young, one of the most important political philosophers of the past quarter-century, claimed that, “Justice requires that all be able to express their needs.”

I believe QGI helps to fulfill this societal need. Yes, QGI does plant flowers, herbs, and vegetables, but what it actually produces is “social cohesion” or “social capital.”

These crucial commodities help create a community where the motto is not to get out if you can, but to reinvest in yourself and the next generation rather than succumbing to defeatism and gentrification.

QGI helps to decentralize urban decision making and creates a small autonomous community capable of voicing its needs. It offers community members the opportunity to not only define and create their physical surroundings, but to cultivate a place where one is capable of developing his or her abilities and exercise his or her capacities.

Thank you all for joining us here today and I look forward to seeing you in all in the garden.

Bridgeview Garden grows, community celebrates

About fifty Bayview neighbors and their friends gathered on Saturday April 16th to celebrate progress on the new gathering space and entryway to the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden.

Annette Smith, Quesada Gardens Initiative’s co-founding gardener and the organization’s board of directors Chair Emeritus, began the event with an invocation. She thanked all those who support the Quesada Gardens Initiative, the grassroots group that coordinates what has become a network of gardens, gathering spaces and public art projects in Bayview.

Annette and Jeffrey Betcher, Quesada Gardens Initiative organizer, presented Professor Seth Wachtel, from University of San Francisco, the Karl Paige and Annette Smith Community Leadership Award.

“I feel like I should be giving you an award,” Seth said to the group. “USF students learn about designing public spaces by beginning with the people who live nearby. They just don’t experience that approach anywhere else.”

Seth was the first faculty from the university to make contact with the Quesada Gardens Initiative, through a since-graduated student, Dionisia Montanez, who returned to the project she had worked so hard on in prior years so that she could applaud her former professor. Many current USF students helped with the event, including service-learning student liaison Brandon Oldham who talked about how meaningful their months of service in the community had been.

Joel and Mary McClure, Bridgeview Drive residents who have led the Bridgeview project for many years, and who sit on Quesada Gardens Initiative’s board of directors, talked about how their project got started when they saw what was happening a block away on Quesada and asked neighbors for help.

“Quesada Gardens is our mooring,” Joel said. “It’s been a lot of work to create this garden and gathering space, but these things can’t happen without the support of organized neighbors.”

Ralph Schardt, Executive Director of the Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, the group that footed the largest part of the materials bill for the Bridgeview Garden, spoke at the event.

“The Quesada Gardens Initiative is a good investment,” he said. “Communities have an important role to play in defining their own environments. Groups like this accomplish just that for pennies on the dollar.”

Organizers who contributed to the event include Corine Pettus who made two of her famous pies, sweet potato and buttermilk, Tony Tarket who shared garden education materials, Jacob Watta who promoted the group’s volunteer program, and Tom Galante who organized the food and lemonade tables.

Jim Ansbro, a leader with the Latona Garden group, contributed Easter gifts for young visitors. Irene Molinari and Bob Grover, also from Latona, attended.

Balboa High School student Hean He, who volunteered with the Bridgeview Project many times, passed out brochures. Will Campos, a young photographer in the neighborhood and frequent volunteer on Quesada, took pictures.

Bayview contractor, Vidal Perez, who built the new gathering space with his team, also attended the event.

Bayview resident writes about bitter-sweet move from Quesada

Martha, shown here on her wedding day in the 1950's, passed away several years ago in the house at 1751 Quesada where she had lived for most of her life. Mr. Woody Young, also mentioned in Deboran's story, contributed the photograph to the digital history archives when the house he shared with "Ms. Martha" was being cleared. The Harrison family lives in the house now.

Deboran Everist still has a house on the 1700 block of Quesada Avenue, and lived on the block many years...long before the Quesada Gardens Initiative was dreamed of. She contributes recollections from when she moved from her Quesada house that will interest all those familiar with the heart of the Bayview neighborhood.

The Move
by Deboran Everist

The mild, foggy morning has again given way to a warm cloudless day here in the Bay Area. I don’t believe the weather makes the day, but it sure can set the mood.

Sometimes the atmosphere of life seems to have a way of occupying time to a point whereby the weather is just an added nuisance or delight. I needed the momentous break from office work to student life to appreciate this world around me. However, I have just reached a state of terminal struggle with another paper for class, and while there still remains the formidable task of writing up the material, the reading is over and done, the notes are made and the clock tells me I still have time before the class cut-off date.

I decided to appreciate the day and the weather by heading for the beach. I have found walking on the beach a perfect transitional zone between one phase of life and another. The glorious solitude of the early morning with just the waves lapping on a long beach of sand and boulders, cliffs and coves was just what I needed to sort out my thoughts and hear myself think. The seagulls seem to drift in the air with their voices embellishing the easy-going sound of the waves with a note of high-pitched expectancy.

My mind drifted back eight years to the day we moved into the Victorian on Quesada Avenue. I remember the friends, laughter, trucks and carloads full of boxes, furniture and miscellaneous necessities that we felt we couldn’t do without. Even though the boxes were marked kitchen, upstairs bedroom and garage, they all seemed to end up in the living and dining rooms just inside the front door.

It seemed like each carload needing unloading brought another neighbor out of doors. Somehow, with armloads of paraphernalia, introductions and handshakes were made.

Banker Tom lived up the street in the Mediterranean style house. He generously handed us brochures on savings, checking and investment accounts along with advice on financial services in the area. Every morning at a quarter to eight and every evening at 5:15, Tom walks by in his distinguished blue suit and narrow blue tie with a smile, hello and the latest interest rates. But through the years he has gained a dividend of a middle age paunch causing him to wobble as he walks up and down the block.

Down the street lived Phil and Martha. Phil has passed on now. But, oh, how I remember the biscuits that he could make from scratch. Phil was the local baker and he would always bring us breads and cakes hot out of the oven. The day we moved in our Doberman casually walked down the street and took a loaf of bread out of his van. Phil thought it was his dog, Casey, until he heard me reprimand my 120-pound puppy, which was supposed to be a watchdog.

Phil, Martha and I would always start our conversations with how to make biscuits from flour, baking powder, and water, leisurely drifting into the details of the latest veterinarian visit for our menagerie. Phil had two dogs and we had three. I added two cats to our household, and along with the neighbors, left food out for all the strays.

Further down the street lived “Pop” and his wife Helen. He always wore faded, shabby overalls on his six-foot plus frame and a ragged, red baseball cap on his balding head with “POP” embroidered across the brim. It seems like all the neighbors were raised by him. He would reprimand the young ones, give advice to their parents, and with a hardy handshake and a look of steel stare into your eyes with the scrutiny of a prosecuting attorney. Yet he would always leave baskets of cherry tomatoes on everyone’s front steps during the summer and would deny this fact. However, he was the only one with a front yard overgrown with tomato vines.

Next door to us lived Woody. He sported a personality that was one part charm, one part wise old sage and one part hellbender. That day we moved in, Woody was right there with a handshake and a grin. My husband had worked with him years before. While they reminisced, Woody set up his barbecue pit in the driveway, and the sound of beer cans popping permeated the activities. Woody had a way of saying “If you need anything I’m right next door.” Initially I was skeptical considering he enticed the men with beer while the women carried in boxes.

Nevertheless, as the sun left the sky a yellow orange the move was completed and the neighbors brought chicken, steaks, ribs, potatoes and ears of corn for the barbecue. I remember the clear blue night with a gentle breeze, which rustled the palm trees that run down the middle of our block. The eyes of our new neighbors coincidentally twinkled like the constellations, which were visible that night.

Around midnight the welcoming committee dispersed and with our bellies full, muscles stretched tired, the mattresses on the floor in the living room, and the bedding somewhere in box number 143, we fell fast asleep in our new dwelling.

As I now watch the waves gently caress the sands, I think of all the changes since that day eight years ago. Besides Phil’s death, there was my husband, and “Pop” down the street, along with the dogs and cats and numerous friends. There have been divorces between the friends that moved us in that day including Woody and his wife, Annie. But through it all there has always been Woody’s voice saying “If you need anything I’m right next door.” Woody moved in with Martha, so he’s still on the block one house over. Woody has watched me paint, clean, and pack for my approaching move. And even though the weather can turn crazy with one day like summer, the next winter, the next rain, there is always another high-pressure system in the weather forecast to bring a balmy, cloudless day.

Do you have recollections about Bayview Hunters Point you would like to share? We'd love to hear from you.