We had the opportunity to have a week’s stay in San Francisco, Ca. and really had a feel of the place unlike our usual day-long or two-nights visit where, because of the limited time, we would pick just any two or three of the more popular places such as the Golden Gate Bridge (esp. to watch the sunset); Alcatraz Island (The Rock) for a half day tour of the prison facilities; Fisherman’s Wharf (Pier 39) to have seafood lunch or dinner with clam chowder, and also watch the Sea Lions; the Ferry Building; The Twin Peaks where one could have a panoramic view of downtown San Francisco; the Palace of Fine Arts; The Chinatown; a Cable Car ride; and The Lombard Street known as the “crookedest street in the world”, among many other interesting attractions that would make you leave your heart in this City by the bay high on a hill above the blue and windy sea.
Joseph Pimentel, a dear “barkada” who retired from a lucrative job in the financial districts of New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, hosted my weeklong stay in San Francisco and drove me around the City including the neighbouring Daly City and Union City where our kababayans were everywhere, mainly as residents there.
Joseph fetched me in the wine producing Napa Valley where our family joined the Hamada families for a celebration of the 80th birthday of Manang Emy. We first drove to the residence of our high-school classmate Jesus Zulueta at Blackhawk Meadow Drive, Danville, where Jesus, wife Alexis and another Baguio “barkada” Mario Ojascastro met us. The temperature outside was at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, so we stayed in the living room of their big house where we refreshed ourselves with some red, white and rose wines, while reminiscing our youthful adventures in Baguio when it was still a pristine and fresh city. We would later go and have dinner at Haps Steak House in Pleasanton City, where they served an inch and a half thick of either 12lbs or 16lbs angus beef steak.
Having said our thanks and goodbyes to Jesus, Alexis and Mario after dinner, Joseph and I continued our ride to Portola – San Francisco’s Garden District, which was to be our residence for a week.
I soon learned that the Portola neighbourhood is San Francisco’s Garden District which is a name that honours a history of urban farming of this southeastern side of the City way back in the early 1900s. The land was home to the indigenous Ohlone tribe before Spanish conquerors settled the area. Later, homesteaders built farms and nurseries and the neighbourhood consisted of 20 functioning commercial farms and greenhouses. Today, the dilapidated greenhouses sitting on a 2.2 acre agricultural site, may still be seen with rose and blackberry bushes growing wild over the broken glass and woodwork framework, and sprawl out where neat agricultural rows of roses and dahlias, and snapdragons once bloomed.
In late 2017, a small dedicated group was formed and soon spawned another with a shared goal to preserve the greenhouses and the history of the neighbourhood. Soon a Greenhouse Project and Friends of 770 Woolsey were formed which conducted community meetings that attracted more than a hundred people. Soon, the group sought assistance from City Hall requesting for a new site, which the government granted. The two groups won a legal right to purchase the property as non-profit organizations. Soon, the garden has grown and keeps growing. An amphitheatre, a propagation station and a large workplace that expanded to other blocks, alleyways, and parallel streets are witnesses to the fact that volunteerism among the residents in this most expensive City in the USA, allows for essentially a free and buildable land.
Higher up above the Portola is a Bernal Heights Park that provides the visitors a 360 degree panorama of San Francisco Bay, Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco downtown and financial district, as well as the Bay Bridge. There is available parking for cars but visitors have to trek up a steep loose gravel path to reach the summit and enjoy the breathtaking view of San Francisco on a much wider and beautiful perspective than the very popular Twin Peaks. Again, the residents in that area are pooling their resources and gradually improving the area in order to provide a much safer way to reach the summit and enjoy the view.
I would not have discovered this other side of the City, were it not for this opportunity of a longer stay in San Francisco.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
