Neighborhood Notes: Dolores Park updates and more

As sun shines on Dolores, safety and trash still a concern

We’ve come a long way since the Aug. 3 daylight shooting in Dolores Park, most participants agreed at a small Thursday night meeting hosted by the Dolores Park Ambassadors and aimed at the park’s cleanliness and safety.

“It felt pretty grim at the end of August,” said District 8 Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, whose district includes the park.

But “it seems like all the pieces are pulled together and working well,” he added. “It’s kind of nice, we’re talking about glass bottles and smoke instead of (the shooting).”

Those pieces include one ranger who patrols the park seven days a week, with two patrols on the weekend, said Park Ranger Marcus Santiago. The rangers have a fixed presence at the park from 12 to 8 p.m., with intermittent patrols in the morning.

Additionally, he said, 11 cameras have been installed on the 18th Street side of the park, monitoring the courts and bathrooms. In April, more will be installed to monitor the 19th Street bridge and the wide center path. And in June, yet more cameras will be installed near the bathrooms and playground on the southern end.

Officer Malek Jisrawi, the foot-beat officer for the Castro, said SFPD mostly patrols the areas around the park when the rangers are on duty, while still keeping a close eye on the park.

He said patrol cars drive through the park when it is closed. “But there’s no sense in having a bunch of entities in the park,” he said, referring to the daylight hours the rangers are on patrol. “The rangers are handling it the way they have, and they’re continuing to do a great job.”

However, much of the conversation revolved around how to keep the park clean, especially as summer approaches — and, with it, a weekend scene that resembles a music-free Woodstock.

Last Saturday, the first truly nice one of the year, denizens left the park upside down, according to Dolores Park services manager Michelle Pallavicini.

“It’s pretty standard operating for the first hot weekend every year,” she said. “It’s almost like coming back from school, and you’ve forgotten your history. Everyone’s forgotten what to do.”

It was nothing she and her team couldn’t handle, she said: they had the park spotless again by 9:30 Sunday morning.

“By 10 a.m., no one would know what happened,” she said.

Sam Mogannam, owner of Bi-Rite Market, often a pit stop for park-goers, said the market is carrying more canned beer and wine, and is encouraging folks to not take glass into the park.

Additionally, the fences on the 18th Street side of the park are coming down on Feb. 27 and 28, Pallavicini said.

2918 Mission St. project delayed for historical review

A 75-unit project that would replace a laundromat at 2918 Mission St. has been delayed another five months. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted to allow a four-to-five-month review to determine whether the laundromat’s building is a “historic resource.”

This comes after neighborhood groups appealed the project following a 4-2 vote by the Planning Commission to let the project move forward. The project was particularly controversial because only eight of its units, or 11 percent of the total count, are affordable.

“Chop Shop” premieres at Brava

“Chop Shop,” a documentary that captures a dialogue between law enforcement agencies and people of color in San Francisco, will premiere at Brava Theater for Women In the Arts (2781 24th St.) on Friday, Feb. 16, at 6 p.m.

David Ireland House now a historic site

The David Ireland House, at 500 Capp St., is been admitted to the Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios (HAHS) program.

Ireland was a conceptual artist who purchased the house in the mid-70s and used it as a studio and his art project. He died in 2009. The house has been a gallery and museum since 2016, when it opened after being restored.

It joins other national sites of well-known American artists, including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Thomas Cole, Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, Donald Judd and Andrew Wythe.