Mission Mission

Check out this sweet new parklet that just popped up in front of Fabric8, designed by Erik Otto. Built with recycled materials, it features planter boxes full of flowers, a color-changing light house, and four bean bag chairs. When completed, the parklet will serve as a neighborhood gallery of kid-friendly public art. Proposal sketches and more information are available here.

Fine by me. I’m just happy there aren’t any new staircases bisecting the shelf.

Dolores Park Works gets into more detail:

The road system remains essentially as sketched early on in the process. One spur connects the corner of 18th and Church with Dolores, hugging south side of the tennis courts. The main route picks up near the new maintenance building, in the  north-west corner and cuts across almost the entire park to the new playground and picnic areas.  The designers have narrowed much of the road from a proposed 14 feet to 12 and where it crosses the North Field, 10 feet.

Read on for details on bathrooms and stuff.

Well, it looks like Godzilla may have come through after all.

This morning around 9:15 a fire hydrant at 20th and Folsom showered El Faro. It has since been fixed.

(thanks, Chris!)

Then a tree came down onto a parked car on Valencia between 19th and 20th.

(thanks, Russell!)

And below, some pics by Rob and his eyewitness account. (which curiously does not mention Godzilla)

“It happened sometime around 11:40… during the scheduled construction at the Mission Playground facility… Somehow, no one was hurt, despite its smashing a parked car and falling into the south bound lane. Construction workers looked pretty pissed and nervous, although, appearing to be just as confused as to what caused it.”

(thanks Rob!)

UPDATE: Just realizing this may have less to do with Godzilla, and more to do with the aliens that crash landed behind Borderlands a few months ago.

(file photo by me)

Mission Local reports from last night’s pivotal (and controversial) meeting of the Dolores Park Rehabilitation Project:

“We should build a pissoir so there are more bathrooms for women,” asked a woman.

“Our pissoir subcommittee will look at that,” promised [landscape architect Steve] Cancian.

Sounds like the event was a real laugh riot! Read on.

[Photo by Mission Local]

Got an email from the rehab team last week:

I wanted to remind you that our next workshop is this Thursday, August 4th at 6:30. Please be sure to note that we have a new location: the Everett Middle School Cafeteria at 450 Church St. (enter on 17th St. through the parking lot, signs will point the way on Thursday night).

Please be sure to attend this critical session because Thursday night we will start making decisions about the location and character of key elements of the park–the bathrooms, the pathways, the central promenade, the entrances, the picnic areas and more.

As you can see in the above image (from Uptown Almanac’s big report published earlier this afternoon), it looks as though, among other things, we’re talking about running a pair of staircases right through the upper quadrant of the park. That’s a drastic change, folks. Lots more drastic changes are afoot as well. Be advised.

From Bryant to South Van Ness. Avoid at all costs. Lots of cross streets too. Just stay in the park. (Can’t wait to glide along the smooth new surface though.)

A first for La Lengua. Bernalwood has the story:

Finishing touches and plants will be installed on the 30th when the Tiffany Avenue neighbors are celebrating theer one year anniversary of planting of the sidewalk gardens.  Then it will just be a matter of when the city installs the bike corral in the space close to the corner!

Read on for more background and more pictures.

What gives? Christine, who snapped the above snap, wants to know.

UPDATE: I guess it was just spillover from the BART protest after all. Nothing to see here.

Seriously, I saw three in a row, and then three more in a row. Careful on your home, everybody!

(Also, this particular job might be over with by now, but there seems to be a lot of road construction happening all over, so keep your eyes peeled and be extra vigilant if you see a backhoe anywhere.)

After all that lively debate about which company most deserved the space, a victor has arisen – Fresh & Easy is coming to the Mission! The Chronicle dropped this bombshell as a throwaway one-liner in a piece about another Fresh & Easy opening elsewhere in the city:

And, we learned on Tuesday, Fresh & Easy just signed a lease for the shuttered DeLano’s Market on South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission District.

Read on.