San Francisco - Parks & Nature

Announced on Earth Day last week, SF Parks Alliance — San Francisco’s only citywide nonprofit dedicated to the municipality’s parks — relaunched its Heart Your Parks campaign that first debuted in 2020 to celebrate and show appreciation for SF’s 220 parks and open spaces.

The saga of the falcons that live on top of the Campanile on the campus of UC Berkeley is about to add a new chapter.

The Giants’ ballpark area will soon have a statue to the first woman who played for the SF Sea Lions in the Negro Baseball Leagues, plus four other new “street room” installations at the Mission Rock development.

Brickyard Cove became the newest public space inside the 1,833-acre McLaughlin Eastshore State Park over the weekend, adding a list of amenities — picnic tables, walking paths, bike racks, and more — to the area, as well as easier access to the SF Bay Trail.

After a $10 million upgrade four years ago, the Helen Diller Civic Center Playgrounds are now apparently crawling with rats.

A new baseball diamond and bleachers, exercise equipment, and 29 new trees are the centerpieces of the new and improved K.C. Jones Playground on Third Street in the Bayview.

A makeshift, community-built park in the Sunset is set to be bulldozed in May, but at least will be replaced with 135 units of affordable teacher housing.

The SF Planning Commission approved a plan Thursday to beautify Chinatown’s Portsmouth Square, and the most popular part of the plan is getting rid of that ugly pedestrian bridge above Kearny Street.

In a theatrical performance at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Connie Chan made hay over her car-free JFK Drive proposal, and the mayor called Chan’s comments ”not a responsible way” to decide the matter.

Something called the Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaptation Project could render nearly a mile of the Great Highway car-free, regardless of what happens in the broader car-free Great Highway debate.

The China Beach bathhouse may not be an inviting destination now, but this summer it's getting its first-ever renovation since opening in 1957.

For the first time since 2019, nearly 600 bird watchers will take to Bay Area parks, shorelines, and their backyards over the next two weeks for the Golden Gate Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC).

A 93-foot ground mural is slated to be painted on the park’s Sixth Avenue Skatin’ Place, thanks to community efforts by none other than the Church of 8 Wheels.

A pilot program is bringing food trucks to the northbound lanes of the Great Highway on it’s car-free weekends, and they’ll be out this Saturday and Sunday.

Twitter employee Courtney Brousseau was shot and killed after tweeting about his burrito from Dolores Park. The bench he sat on now bears his memorial plaque.

Stern Grove Festival organizers said they needed $4 million to clean up the mess from a late August water main explosion. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors gave it to them.

The dock at Lake Merced received $1.68 million in upgrades and is now much safer, and completely accessible for people who have disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If you’re anxious to get your fall tan going, or get the dog out for some splashing, these Bay Area beaches (starting north to south) will offer you easy parking, smaller crowds, and a bigger sense of adventure while you soak up the sun and the warmth. 

The fabulous but consistently underused outdoor theater has been spiffed up with new bike racks, ADA access, and food truck areas, and Mayor Breed was awfully careful about keeping her mask on at Saturdays ribbon-cutting.

Juri Commons, a tiny park connecting Guerrero Street and San Jose Avenue, reopened in a Monday ribbon-cutting with new plants, play spaces, and exercise gear.

The aftermath of a 700,000-gallon water spill at the Stern Grove outdoor concert facility didn’t just cancel one show, it may cancel the entire Stern Grove 2022 concert season.

Public Works just installed new cherry blossom trees on Sutter Street in Japantown, and they should be blooming by next spring’s Cherry Blossom Festival.

Clearly unqualified in the first place, conservative commentator and Trump appointee Michael Savage is gone from the Presidio board as Biden cleans house.

This weekend marks the second anniversary of the launch of the Crosstown Trail, a 17-mile route across San Francisco that connects Candlestick Point to Lands End, and there are events to celebrate.

The 200 block of Turk Street will be home to the Tenderloin’s newest park after a community-led initiative identified the space as a key location to provide additional outdoor play and exercise areas for residents.