Sunday Streets Excelsior #2
October 20, 2019 | 11:00am – 4:00pm
On October 20, Sunday Streets closes out a season of open streets with a return to the Excelsior’s main corridor. From Silver to Geneva Avenue, enjoy a car-free Mission Street, filled with exhibits, live music activities and open space from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
With a route over a mile long, a car-dominated roadway transforms into a temporary park, providing plenty of space for residents to roll, walk, bike, exercise or simply hang out. Open streets increase community engagement and foot traffic, showcasing the area for visitors and giving locals a chance to see it in a whole new, walkable light.
Visit Activity Hubs at Cotter, France and the Persia Triangle, where residents can experience a pop-up community park hosted by the Excelsior Action Group and Friends of the Persia Triangle, who are working to make the park a permanent neighborhood fixture. Enjoy live music, activities and more – plus, bring your pet for the Rose Ann Harris Pet Parade starting at 1pm, honoring the neighborhood activist and animal lover.
Funded through a community action grant from the Excelsior Collaborative, pedicabs will offer free rides for seniors and people with disabilities to tour the open streets.
Along the car-free route, the SF Public Library’s Excelsior Branch will hold their Tricycle Music Fest featuring The Alphabet Rockers and Flying Angels Chinese dance troupe. At the southern end, dance in the streets to live music onstage from the Excelsior Outer Mission Merchants Association’s (EOMM).
At France Street, enjoy a Market Square and Picnic Grounds, and pick up a Common Cents Passport at a Sunday Streets Info Booth to get stamped (and win prizes from!) local businesses. And don’t forget to pick up the Explore Local Guide for a fun map of the ‘hood you can use all year long.
“The E” boasts the city’s highest number of families and young people and is also San Francisco’s most diverse. Catch the 14, 49, 29, 44 or 52 bus or walk from Balboa Park or Glen Park BART stations to local eateries, ranging from Mexican, Thai and Korean cuisine to old-school Italian. Take in colorful murals, shop at fresh vegetable markets or check out seasonally-themed windows at neighborhood landmark Central Drug Store. Bring the kids for story time at the library branch or explore nearby McLaren Park.
TRANSIT & LIVABILITY
A high percentage of school-aged youth and multiple schools make Muni the schoolbus for many families and youth in this neighborhood, and traffic creates busy – and sometimes dangerous – intersections, with both Mission and Geneva Streets identified as Vision Zero high-injury corridors.
At Sunday Streets, the Persia Triangle Pop-Up Park hosted by EAG gives residents a feel for what the proposed mini park might look like in a neighborhood with few public plazas and open spaces, while car-free streets help envision a safer way for residents to get around. Check out SFMTA’s Mission Street Excelsior Safety Project and Excelsior Neighborhood Traffic Calming Projects for upcoming meetings and feedback sessions.
DID YOU KNOW?
- On April 15, 1869, the Excelsior Homestead was filed at City Hall. Up to the 1906 earthquake it was a farming neighborhood, populated by Swiss, Irish, Italian Ligurian immigrants, and considered a village.
- Along with his daughter Jeanette, Emanuel Lewis – one of the original housing developers in the neighborhood – named many of the area’s avenues after countries, and its streets after countries’ capital cities.
- The Grateful Dead singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia was born and raised in the Excelsior. In 2016, two commemorative plaques were installed on Mission Street at Amazon and at Harrington to honor his musical and family history.
For info on Sunday Streets Excelsior’s spring event, click here.