Susan Cervantes has made a new home for two of the 126 ficuses that once lined 24th Street.
As of May, two stumps that spent nearly 40 years growing on 24th between Harrison and Alabama streets, trees that saw generations of Mission kids pass under their shade, live permanently as exquisitely tiled seats on the corner of 24th and Harrison streets near Mercy Housing’s Casa de la Misión, affordable housing for seniors.
“They’re a curiosity piece,” said Cervantes, cofounder of Precita Eyes, a community mural organization on 24th directly across from where the two ficuses once lived.
“They’ll ask, ‘Why is this here? Where did it come from?’ People should learn about the story behind this.”
Cervantes founded Precita Eyes in 1977 with her husband, Luis Cervantes, who died in 2005. She has called the Mission home for more than 60 years, spending much of that time establishing the mural organization as an internationally known hub for artists that celebrates Latinx culture and influences art throughout the Mission.
“Ficus trees have always been a nice greenway for the community. They provide shade, clean air,” said Cervantes. Now, she said, they can provide a place for people to rest.
Of the original 126 trees, there are now only 32. The city has planted a number of gingko and maple trees in their place.
“The ginkgos don’t have any foliage through the winter,” she said. Cervantes thought an evergreen, on the other hand, would be prettier for the neighborhood.
Cervantes ran her hand along the tiles, which are arranged in a circular gradient on each stump — one the colors of sunlight, the other of wood.
Cervantes, a prolific artist and former member of the ‘70s all-women mural collective Las Mujeres Muralistas, designed the mosaics, and her son, muralist Suaro Cervantes, completed the installation. A team of volunteers did the tiling.
“That’s the spirit of the tree,” she said, pointing to the rings of tiles, which mimic growth rings in a tree. One stump features a bird resting on a branch, a hybrid of a pigeon and thrasher. The second stump features a yellow butterfly native to the area.
The creatures are “all the life I used to see in the trees,” said Cervantes.
In 2021, when the ficuses were cut down, Cervantes salvaged the two stumps “from the city’s buzzsaws,” keeping them by the doorway of Precita Eyes, where they sat for a year while she worked out a plan.
“They were so heavy,” she said with a chuckle.
Next, Cervantes wants to figure out how to place a dedication on or near the stumps. “The ficus trees were our green canopy,” she said, and that, too, should be remembered.
Awesome save and beautiful!
Lovely that some tree stumps have been recycled into beautified resting places. BTW those ficus trees broke up the sidewalk and made 24th street a cold, dark corridor. Seasonally changing Ginkgos seem a better choice.
What is Latinx ?
Lovely. Thank you Susan. And Thank you for your many years of service making the Mission beautiful.