These bumpy concrete slides with shallow chutes are the oldest and well-known in San Francisco. Golden Gate Park is your go-to place in San Francisco for all things fun and relax – with kids or on a kid-free day. Garden shot featuring cactus from wider west, July 2008.Slideseeing: The city’s steep terrain has to have some advantages besides vistas. The slides were said to be inspired by one from Playland at the Beach which closed down in 1972. The concrete slides were designed by a 14-year-old girl named Kim Clark who lived on Seward Street and won a "Design the Park" competition that was put on by artist Ruth Asawa. Seward Street Mini-Park on opening day, May 21, 1973. The famous cement slide in Seward Street Mini-Park in the 2000s. from the sign at the top of the Community Garden Thank you for proving that individuals working together can make a profound difference. We pay tribute to all those whose efforts saved this hillside, helped build Seward Street Mini-Park, and nurtured the Corwin Street Community Garden. At seven years old, the garden is really coming into its own. That fall, with the help of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) and several very dedicated City staff, they began the task of creating the California native plant garden at the upper end of this community treasure. In the summer of 1995, area residents held a community meeting and decided that a showcase for California's diverse plant life would be more appropriate on this steep hillside than having individually-gardened plots. The upper part of the land, though, remained a weed-choked vacant lot until quite recently, when a new generation decided to take matters in hand. The Seward Street Mini-Park has drawn children (and adults!) to its slide for nearly thirty years. Again, after years of letter writing and petitioning, and after having garnered the support of Mayor Joe Alioto, the Board of Supervisors, and Senator George Moscone, the Eureka Valley Mini-Park Task Force successfully negotiated the local and federal bureaucracy. On March 6, 1966, residents gathered to celebrate their victory and begin the next round: an effort to turn the newly-saved open space into an asset for the whole community, this time campaigning for the Department of Recreation and Parks to locate a proposed Eureka Valley mini-park on the site. The outcome of this struggle permanently changed development in the City and led to legislation requiring a minimum amount of neighborhood open space. As the bulldozers arrived to begin work, neighbors started a sit-in on this site, forcing developers to abandon their plans. It all came to a head on January 12, 1966, the last day for the developer to begin work before expiration of the permit. Shamon Schwarzschild, the Seward Street Mini-Park Committee, and the Eureka Valley Promotion Associat5ion were instrumental in this effort. Along with dedicated residents too numerous to mention, B. Fearing loss of crucial open space, residents and Eureka Valley neighbors began a campaign of petitions and letters to city, state and federal officials, followed by years of public hearings, Planning Commission battles, Board of Permit Appeals meetings and audiences with the mayor. It wouldn't last for long, though: a 105-unit building was planned to stretch all the way from Corwin Street down to a garage entrance on Seward Street (including the sites of both the current garden and mini-park). Soon, only one space remained connecting Seward Street and Corwin Street. Housing was rapidly being built to accommodate this growth, and empty lots were quickly being turned into apartment dwellings. In 1963, this neighborhood was full of young families with children, the "baby boom" in full swing. What makes this lot any different? The answer is a ten-year struggle by dedicated neighbors, a struggle which changed the course of development in the whole city. California buckeyes line the path in the native plant garden.Ĭorwin Street and Seward Street are lined with houses and apartments.
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