Over 300 folks came to view the latest plans and model. If you missed it- you can view the model at the current Library vetrine.
Farmers Market on Mason Street
Every Sunday from 9AM- 1PM until October. Come and get some local goods and meet your neighbors!
Friday, April 30, 2010
5:30 – 7:30 PM
WHAT WILL IT TAKE to get a new, bigger North Beach Library and a greener, safer, more fun Joe DiMaggio Playground?YOUR SUPPORT!
YOUR SUPPORT MATTERS!
THERE ARE ONLY TWO MORE STEPS TO SUCCESS:
1. Adoption of the draft Environmental Impact Report (due out soon) that would allow the library project to move forward.
2. A successful application for the State grant that could fund the playground renovation.
Would you be happy with a mini-park on the triangle?
Is it OK with you if an expansion of the current library eliminates park functions?
If not, now is the time to speak up and let the City and State know YOU SUPPORT A NEW LIBRARY AND AN EXPANDED PLAYGROUND!
1. Please FORWARD THIS NOTICE to others interested in the project.
2. Can you help in some way with the event?
Email Lizzy at Lizzy@arcadia-garden.com to VOLUNTEER.
The Friends of Joe DiMaggio’s 2nd Annual Halloween Extravaganza was held on Saturday, October 31st to beautiful weather, wonderful friends and neighbors, and plenty of costumes - some cute, some scary. Hundres of families from North Beach joined in the festivities that included games, bouncy houses, a terrific hay bale maze, photo booth, pumpkin painting, balloons, fortune telling, halloween crafts, trick-or-trunk, as well as entertainment from the Bubble Lady and the music of Steel Jam. This year we also were treated to the amazing culinary duo of tacos (El Tanyanse) and hot dogs (Let’s Be Frank).
A special thank you goes out to our sponsors - San Francisco Recreation and Parks, San Francisco Parks Trust, Stan Tang, North Beach Kids, Destination Art, Tel-Hi Co-op, Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center, Snapple, BayCo Vending, North Beach Marine Canvas, North Beach Merchants, Bike-n-Roll, Michael Remery, and Supervisor Chiu.
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Fairy godmothers can turn pumpkins into coaches and mice into footmen, but it was City officials and devoted neighbors that turned Mason Street into Mason Green. Representatives of 4 City departments, Supervisor Chiu and aid Jamie Cantwell, and dozens of North Beach neighbors did a one day makeover of Mason Street on Saturday, August 1. The street is being closed for 2 months to study, in real time, the effects of that closure on area traffic. With North Beach lacking in parks and civic spaces, and the City’s Pavements to Parks project gaining such enthusiastic support, the idea of converting the street to a public plaza during the traffic study period gained momentum and was approved.
But, while other street conversions - like the recent one at Castro and 17th - have been months in the making, planning for Mason Green started only 3 weeks before the scheduled closure (in order for closure results to be done in time to be included in the ongoing EIR). City Departments pitched in, many staff members going above and beyond the call to pull all the needed parts together. Rebar, the local design collective that created the Park(ing) Day movement and that was responsible for turning Civic Center Plaza into a harvestable garden last year, developed a concept for the space.
It was especially gratifying to see City staffers from different departments pitching bark chips and hauling wattles and carting plants side-by-side. By late afternoon the space was filled with residents and visitors, as if it had always been there. It was gratifying to sit and watch people round the corner and react with widened eyes and huge smiles as the unexpected park came into view.
As befits a temporary installation, every component of the Mason Green will be reused or returned. The plants go into other parks or back to RecPark’s nursery. The straw wattles that line the flower beds will be used in a slope stabilization project up at Coit Tower later this year. The wooden planter barricades will be used for the Pavement to Parks projects as the City experiments with creating other impromptu piazzas. The decorative boulders came from the rubble dug out from beneath City Hall during its renovation.
Neighborhood-centered casual gatherings will take place through August and September - bocce tournaments, poetry readings, kids crafts. Neighbors are encouraged to come and visit. People who have ideas for low-key (non traffic-generating!) entertainment or celebrations or who want to steer clear of other gatherings should contact Donna Faure at donnafaure@yahoo.com to tap into the Mason Green calendar.
Our coach will turn back into a pumpkin on September 27. But, if the studies go as predicted, neighbors can look forward to a more beautiful - and permanent - park in the future.
Thank you
The Friends of Joe DiMaggio Playground would like to thank the many people who contributed to Mason Green’s success, in particular:
DPW
Ed Rieiskin
Mohammed Nuru
Rich Bridygham
RecPark
Karen Mauney-Brodek
Maggie Cleveland
Mark Tilley
Marianne Bertuccelli
Dennis Kern
Rebar
John Bela
Matthew Passmore
Friends of Joe DiMaggio Playground project volunteers
Lizzy Hirsch
Donna Faure
Tan Chow
Liz Diaz
Terry Grenchik
Lee Goodin
Julie Christensen
Why is Mason closed?
North Beach needs a bigger and safer library. Several years of study has provided strong evidence that it is not practical or cost efficient to try to add to the existing North Beach Library. The building ranks 3 in a 1-4 scale for earthquake safety - with 4 being the worst case. It cannot meet current accessibility codes. And many feel its placement on the neighborhood’s primary playground 50 years ago was a bad idea and that, if changes are to be made, the land should be returned to recreation and landscape use.
After 5 community meetings and 2 years of study, the City decided placing a new library on the triangle (at Lombard/Columbus/Mason, now owned by the City) had the most combined benefits for both the library and the Playground.
The neighborhood gets a new, bigger library with separate areas for adults, teens and kids. There will be a special room for story time and readings. The circulation desk will no longer stick into the reading space. And there will be room for special collections like the Beat poets and the neighborhood’s history.
Although many of us got used to the idea of the triangle being a park, we can get more and better park space if the library moves out to the triangle. The old library would be removed and that land returned to RecPark. With the addition of Mason Street, there would be enough land to break the gridlock that has blocked playground improvement since the library was plunked down there a half-century ago. The park master plan calls for all the current ball courts - softball, tennis, basketball to remain; for the children’s play area to be moved closer to the Pool and RecCenter; for patios to be added near the Center; for trees and planted areas to be added in the new spaces.
When the City first considered closing Mason, it started by consulting with Police, Fire and Muni. None of the City’s emergency or transportation departments saw obvious problems related to the closure. The City’s internal computer models indicated closure would have minimal impact on traffic (it would not make any existing situations significantly worse) and might even improve pedestrian safety by aleviating some complicated intersections. As the library project moved forward, traffic engineers were hired to look deeper into the various scenarios. They reached the same conclusions. An Environmental Impact Review is currently underway. It will consider the negative effects of having a bigger new library and of removing the current library. It will also consider the effects of closing Mason. The street closure goes farther than is required by offering a real-life look at the effects. The EIR should be completed in early 2010. If the results are positive, construction of the new library could start in 2011 or early 2012. Several sources of funding for the playground renovation are being investigated. But paving (or unpaving) the way for future changes now, while these major alterations are taking place, makes a lot of sense. And interim plans are being developed that would make good - and green - use of the extra space until full park renovation could take place.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/surfacework/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebarartcollective/sets/72157621793069049/
Also, for articles and news regarding the proposed library and closure of Mason Street, please view the below links:
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/08/03/poof-san-franciscos-mason-street-has-become-a-temporary-park/
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7175
A Better Library
- Larger, with more space for books, computers and seating
- Separate spaces for children, teens and adults
- A community room for programs and meetings
- Seismically safe and ADA accessible
- Existing library can stay open during construction
A Better Park
- Bigger and better lay-out
- More trees and green areas
- A safer, central children’s play area
- All existing amenities improved
- A more welcoming environment for all ages
A Better Neighborhood Center
- Nice transition area between the library and playground
- The new library and park create a welcoming civic presence
- Safer traffic intersections and pedestrian crossings
Two community meetings designed to solicit neighborhood opinions and provide more in-depth explanations of the project’s opportunities and challenges were held on April 30 and May 28. A third community meeting, originally scheduled for June 25, has been postponed to August 18th at Sts. Peter & Paul’s Auditorium at 7:00. The study team decided to push the third meeting to a later point in the study in order to present a more comprehensive analysis of the short-listed options.
The first two community meetings on these topics have been a cause for pride in our neighborhood, in my opinion. The meetings have been well-attended and people have been thoughtful and articulate – and remarkably civil, even in cases where opinions were strong and divergent. So where are we so far?
Planning has to work around a few key, fixed elements. The new pool and clubhouse certainly aren’t going anywhere. And the large expanse of hardscape used for softball, roller hockey and the like will only fit in the Powell/Greenwich corner (though new, permeable and more attractive surfacing would be nice). There are very limited alternative options for locating the tennis courts.
But some pretty major shifts for other amenities have been discussed. Placing the children’s play area in the center of the park has been a very popular notion. This would make the play area easier to monitor, place kids farther away from the street and perhaps open up circulation through the center of the park now blocked by tennis. In this plan, the current children’s play would be partially or totally excavated and the tennis courts moved south towards Greenwich.
Working around the givens, the library’s studies of alternative locations, led by San Francisco architects Leddy Maytum Stacy, coalesced to 3 sites: the Greenwich/Mason corner (starting at the tot lot, shifted slightly south from the current location); an expanded triangle site (which includes a portion of Mason Street); and the Powell/Lombard corner. Both RecPark and the community gave thumbs down to the Powell/Lombard site, leading current studies to focus on Greenwich/Mason and the triangle.
By the second community meeting, attendees seemed to overwhelmingly favor the triangle as a potential library location. “Test fit” studies are being done prior to the next community meeting to see if that’s feasible, even with an encroachment onto Mason. The library believes the triangle’s limited size and configuration makes that solution unlikely, though, and the department favors the Greenwich/Mason site.
The other interesting outcome of the community meetings is what appears to be broad support for the Mason Street closure. Though some people do have strong concerns, in general attendees seemed ready to exchange the asphalt for more parkland. Recent traffic studies seem to support earlier assessments that closure would have no impact on emergency services and little impact on localized traffic. A full report on the methods and results of the traffic counts will be presented on August 18. But a lot more study, planning and legal steps remain before any decisions are made regarding closure.
And the rest of it? The studies are taking a hard look at how to make the park look welcoming and attractive from Columbus while still shielding the park from the traffic, soot and noise on its busy side. Alternative uses and arrangements are being considered for the triangle if it doesn’t house the library. And efforts are being made to accommodate all current uses and still find extra room for tai chi, shade and wind blocks, picnic tables, chess and trees, lots of trees, and greenery.
But all these hopes and visions depend on funding. And, while the library bond should cover reasonable costs for a new North Beach branch, RecPark has been frank from the beginning that, with another year of deep City budget cuts and with current parks bonds funds already committed, they can’t help with funding. The community has raised millions in private donations and governmental grants for neighborhood parks. Can we do it again – in this economy?
Neighbors interested in getting more involved with the Joe DiMaggio project are invited to join the volunteers of Friends of Joe DiMaggio Playground. Over the past 10 years the group has raised money, provided design services, organized community meetings and acquired grant funding for the pool and clubhouse renovation, the new bocce courts and for improvements to the children’s play area. This new phase is the biggest challenge yet and we’d love your help. To be notified of meetings and updates, email friends at DiMaggioPlayground dot org.
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