Imagine the coolest science classroom youve ever known merged with Doc Ricketts Monterey Bay lab, and youll have the new Field Station. Their approach? Photos: Streetsblog/Rudick By Roger Rudick The completion of Battery Bluff, a new six-acre park in the Presidio, was celebrated Friday morning during an event with Mayor London Breed and other lawmakers and dignitaries. You get the picture: This is space for children in the citys most densely populated neighborhood, rather than a tourist destination. Each bioswale is sliced by an angled boardwalk that extends to a perch above the creek. Be sure to include your contact info, so we can ping you if we select your idea to investigate. Now Open Free to be Connect with your family, friends, and community at Presidio Tunnel Tops, a new attraction within the Presidio national park site. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Then an artistic gate not far on your right, just before the sidewalk bulb-out that includes a dog relieving station. Another beautiful historic building will become the Tunnel Tops restaurant. The Presidio Tunnel Top Park is 14 acres and connects the national park to San Franciscos Waterfront. At north edge of SF's Presidio, a new park to connect people to the bay Check below for our latest voting round. Italy Is Introducing Stricter Dress Codes for Tourists What to Know, 21 New Watches That Should Be on Your Radar, The Sierra Grand Traverse Is a Brilliant New Hiking Trail Through California, The 6 Best Places to Watch SFs FireworksThat Arent Pier 39, Everything to Do in San Francisco, According to a Pro Concierge, Aaron Rodgers Just Cant Quit the Packers, How Nick Bare Pioneered the Hybrid Athlete Revolution, Products of the Week: Chefs Knives, CBD Sleep and Martine Rose. Sign up now for more from the Bay Area. Employees enjoyed the views from the 43rd floor and the convenience of being downtown. Though it may be a stretch to call this sophisticated structure, designed by local landscape architecture firm Page, a natural habitat, studies show that publicly accessible green spaces can improve air quality, reduce the urban heat island effect, and provide shaded areas place to recreate. The new open space, located across from the Korean War memorial, includes picnic tables and benches, native plants, and newly restored historic artillery emplacements. Brand-new public park opens in the historic Presidio Its tucked behind Third Street in Dogpatch, a neighborhood that itself was long off the map, and it gives city residents their very own beguiling beach along the bay, where kids can play in the sand while their parents lounge on the grass. On Friday morning, dozens, including Mayor London Breed and Supervisors Rafael Mandelman and Catherine Stefani, gathered under partly cloudy skies on a grassy knoll overlooking the Bay as Norman Greenbaums Spirit in the Sky blared from speakers. Because a city this offbeat deserves a newsletter with some The mid-block space along an alley off Sacramento Street isnt new. Along with a casual caf that will be opening inside the neighboring Presidio Transit Center in late 2022, Tunnel Tops hosts a rotating variety of mobile food trucks, carts and tents daily, serving up everything from Singaporean satay with peanut sauce to Ukrainian dumplings and borscht. New S.F. landmark Presidio Tunnel Tops park opens to public The Presidio has long attracted non-profit organizations and entertainment firms. Sculptural benches milled from cypress trees line the walkway of an artificial bluff that hides six lanes of traffic. Perhaps as a result, Francisco Parks design isnt particularly distinctive. The network includes sites that are already up and running, such as New York Citys hugely successful High Line, a 1.45-mile-long elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail with sections opening from 2009 to 2019, completely transforming a former railway line in Manhattans West Side, as well as those currently in the works, like Destination Crenshaw, a 1.3 mile redesign of L.A.s north-south Crenshaw Boulevard. We felt like it wasn't going to be a burden for our founders to come here. In the case of the citys newest park, Tunnel Tops, this meant making rather exciting use of the land above the Presidio Parkway tunnels,installed in 2015 to replace the seismically unsound Doyle Drive. Not every city dweller can get to Yosemite or Yellowstone, which is why so much of Tunnel Tops emulates the traditional national park experience. As detailed above, the paths and meadows of Tunnel Tops will be host to carts from food trucks scattered throughout the site, seven days a week. While many national parks expressly forbid dogs, Tunnel Tops welcomes leashed pups. This New San Francisco Park Sits Above Six Lanes of Traffic The 14-acre Presidio Tunnel Tops is the latest infrastructure reuse project to transform a city James Corner Field Operations,. Now it's time to party. And the nearby transportation center will offer a glass-enclosed space to eat if the hilltop is too blustery. In other words, the design by landscape architects in San Francisco Public Works stuck to the basics. Your email address will be used to confirm your account. This lineup represents the first rotation of more than two dozen food and drink vendors that will appear regularly in the park, showcasing the breadth of the Bay Area's culinary wonders. . He died in 2018 after battling cancer. Opening Friday, June 30. After nearly 30 years of planning, the Presidios massive new Tunnel Tops will open this Sunday. The Presidio Trust is actively seeking a Senior Contract Specialist. Grand new spaces attract wide attention, while snug nooks have been refurbished to improve the lives of their neighbors. Bring your kids, bring your dogs or come for a solo stroll. SF's Newest Park "Battery Bluff" Opens April 23 New park to be built on highway tunnels near Golden Gate Bridge Get the latest Travel & Culture stories in your inbox. Transferred from the Army to the National Park Service in 1994, the Presidio offers forests, creeks, trails, views, architVisitors keep discovering the pleasures of this historic peninsula. "I feel like I'm just like a little kid again," said 8-year-old Lucy Norris. Behind the visitor center, a large communal bonfire will warm chilly evenings and offer a spot for nightly ranger talks you would find around other national park campfires. Limited street parking will be available in the Main Post area. All Rights Reserved. You Should Buy Them All. CNN Space is a precious commodity in San Francisco. The Presidio Tunnel Tops is designated as a National Park and organizers hope it will become a cultural gathering place with art, music, poetry readings and local history talks by park rangers. There will be 10 food carts, trucks and tents located around the Tunnel Tops on opening day, serving everything from poke to empanadas to curry to cookies. Painter, also a board member at SPUR, a local non-profit focused on regional planning and public policy, was sorely missed at Fridays ribbon-cutting event. It's free. No flourishes here, just a space thats more accessible and inviting than before. Date opened: July 2022 Presidio Tunnel Tops The most obvious example of the recent wave is Presidio Tunnel Tops, which has earned attention everywhere from People magazine and the Daily Beast. The park site sits within the 1,500-acre Presidio operated by the Presidio Trust, whichis part of the larger Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a 114-square-mile collection of associated parklands that includes Muir Woods, Alcatraz and Fort Mason formed by theNational Park Service in 1972. We have one Presidio now.. Cruise and Waymo could soon charge for robo-taxi rides. So we created the Bay Area Bucket List, a project that asks our readers to help us find the best activities. We had to make sure the plants would grow in this fairly shallow soil and that the drainage was good.. In honor of the parks 14-acre size, here are 14 facts about San Franciscos newest park. Receive our newspaper electronically with the e-edition email. Invalid password or account does not exist. In this case, that growth has happened over a freeway, thanks in large part to the projects visionary, Michael Painter, a landscape architect who dreamed up the plan for Battery Bluff. Fort Point is bringing these beers to San Francisco's newest park Fort Point will operate the pop-up through at least the end of the year, starting Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The six-acre space features picnic tables, 60,000 plants, historic gun batteries that havent been publicly accessible since the 1930s and sightlines rumored to be spectacular. Its a 10-minute walk along Lincoln Boulevard from the Presidio Transit Center. I mean, it's a spectacular park to go to," added 10-year-old Sajan Patel. I think its fantastic. An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account. She added that such public spaces are essential for mental health. And look out for the large oak tree that was found fallen in the Presidio that kids can play on in the outpost now every child can know what it feels like to climb a tree. The campfire circle is the most evocative example of this ethos, and a perfect place to enjoy San Franciscos classic summer fog. Even after Sundays party subsides, there will be a lot to love at Tunnel Tops. Next to an out-of-commission drydock. Instead, the linear terrain feels like some stylized remnant of the tidal marshes that existed here before 19th century San Francisco exploded in waves of reckless and propulsive growth. Now, with the roadway tunneling beneath, the lawns and paths above it allow visitors free access to the historic Army base. Picnic benches, the campfire, barbecue pits, the outpost, the field station all of it is free for everybody. By SFist - Published on July 04, 2023. Choose wisely! Fort Point will operate the pop-up through at least the end of the year, starting Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. From benches shaped like driftwood to climbing structures resembling the nests of the hooded oriole, every facet of Tunnel Tops has been inspired by the environment that surrounds it. The view from San Franciscos newest park. Converted from a former military base, the Presidio is located at the tip of San Francisco's peninsula, several miles west of the financial district. The executives considered building an office on a boat or moving to a residential house. Perhaps. Tags Once you do something to beautify it, people take pride. Open meadows invite lounging, a wind-sheltered campfire circle will eventually host evening ranger talks, and a huge playground accommodates kids of varying ages with elements like a pear-shaped play nest inspired by an orioles own roost and an enormous 250-year-old reclaimed oak tree, sanded down and sculpted so that kids can climb both on it and through it. Teams are hard at work restoring Presidio Forest in San Francisco with a diverse catalog of plant life. 2 reason residents enjoy living in the city. Privacy Statement SF's park revival is here. Here are 7 of the best newcomers Copy and paste multiple symbols separated by spaces. San Francisco's New Presidio Tunnel Tops Park Plans Spring Opening Presidio of San Francisco. It opened in the 1930s and was redone at least once before the remake that premiered in 2021. For a project this visible, thats how things should work. Shouldn't this be a story about a park built over an ongoing transit extension that would one day lead to Marin? They ultimately selected James Corner Field Operations, the San Francisco branch of the New York-based firm that designed the High Line. Over the 27 years, the Presidio has been a national park site, weve championed landscaping and habitat restoration projects that encourage biodiversity of plants and animals, said Michael Boland, chief park officer with the Presidio Trust. This included a six-lane, 1.6-mile raised stretch of Highway 101 known as Doyle Drive, which connected the citys downtown with its Golden Gate Bridge, cutting through what was then the Presidio military base. "It's just tragic to see what's happening," she added. Following the natural disaster, city officials declared the roadway seismically unsafe. But donors werent calling the shots: The design team of James Corner Field Operations and EHDD tested out their ideas at meetings open to the general public. If Francisco Park and Presidio Tunnel Tops were the sum total of the new wave, they could be downplayed as fresh examples of San Franciscos sometimes Dickensian extremes playgrounds for the rich, visiting rights for everyone else. Advertising Notice The scene reflects how the threat of war transformed the landscape and how The City has brought it back. Everything put up there cant be too heavy, it cant exceed the loading capacities of the freeway, Boland says. Battery Bluff: San Francisco's New Park This week's ExTech&AInewsletter takes a look at Meta's bold bid to challenge Twitter -- and why experts aren't too excited about Zuck's Threads. Battery Bluff is the first of two Presidio parks to open this year, with the long-anticipated Tunnel Tops project slated to welcome visitors later this summer. As these seven COVID-era newcomers demonstrate, the best way to appreciate San Franciscos evolving public landscape is simple go see for yourself. Sign up for NBC Bay Areas Housing Deconstructed newsletter. K in 2003," said Rafael Mandelman, Chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Board. These in particular were built between 1899 and 1902 by the U.S. Army and languished after the 1930s, because freeway construction partly buried them and cut them off from the public. As guests move from the Presidio Plaza down towards the waterfront, the plants become entirely species native to the Presidio 180 of them, to be exact. Another dozen are under construction or in advanced stages of planning. Employees in Presidio also hoped for downtown's recovery - but said for now they were happy they no longer needed to commute there. And Muni still hasn't restored pre-pandemic, 43 Masonic service into the Presidio, so it's impractical to reach the park without a car or bike from most parts of the city. Several historic buildings remain, like a circa-1900 guardhouse that now houses the Presidio Visitor Center. A comprehensive rundown Designed by the firm that created New Yorks High Line, Tunnel Tops creates another next-level urban nature destination in the Presidio. People on Sunday enjoyed the iconic views from Alcatraz all the way across the Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge. "That can help them feel like 'Oh, they're thinking about me. Instead of swings and jungle gyms, kids climb on -- and through -- giant hollow trees. First published on July 17, 2022 / 7:39 PM. Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in. Outsmart the market with Smart Portfolio analytical tools powered by TipRanks. But we need more, quality parks in low-income neighborhoods. And because there are limits in terms of the soil depth, we had to make sure that we designed a park that would thrive for literally centuries. Located in the Montgomery Street Barracks on the Presidio's Main Post, Dalida is an Eastern Mediterranean restaurant with a full bar, bay views, and great food. Copyright 2023 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. Which brings Streetsblog to the elephant in the room: for $1.2 billion, wasn't the Presidio Parkway underneath the Bluff an opportunity to build space for BART (or SMART) tracks that would one day lead to the bridge? I will be more welcome when I go. But most visitors are neighborhood residents walking their dogs hence the bulb-out thats part of the project pausing to enjoy a respite from the glassy young towers on all sides. The idea is to make everyong feel welcome and San Francisco native Horatio Jung said he puts the park at the top of his list of recent attractions for San Francisco. Heading up from the playground area on Mason Street, the park expands to cover its namesake tunnel tops. "To watch all of this, I mean, the grandeur and everything just all came back. Most exciting of all? A new tourist attraction in San Francisco called Presidio Tunnel Tops will officially open July 17, 2022 with 14 acres of parkland, stunning views of the city and the Golden Gate Bridge, picnic . It understands that parks arent only amenities, they are essential services., That aspect of the revival is emphasized by Phil Ginsburg, who since 2009 has led Rec and Park. On Thursday Nov. 7, 2019, crews will break ground on a project to create a new 14-acre public park called Tunnel Tops, shown here in an artist's rendition, at the Presidio near the Golden. San Francisco's new Tunnel Tops park is now open to the public - SFGATE New 6-acre San Francisco park, Battery Bluff, opens today - SFGATE If Shoreview Park has been vandalized in the past year, Barr hasnt seen the evidence. Try Aleppo half . Though there have been no confirmed reports of visitors starving during a day on the Presidios trails, the area has long been a BYO nourishment zone. The Presidio Tunnel Top Park is 14 acres and connects the national park to San Francisco's Waterfront.. Space is hard to come by in San Francisco. Newpark Resort - Tripadvisor In the patio outside, Oakland artist Favianna Rodriguez was helping children make butterfly wings. PRESS RELEASE OPENING DATE ANNOUNCED! The park now sits on rolling hills with 5,800 evergreen and deciduous trees, 16 acres of meadows, and a three-acre pond, says Julio Badin, Gathering Places executive director. Its free. Torontos ten-acre, 1.2-mile Bentway is a public space project that opened along the shoreline of Lake Ontario in 2018. This explains the too-visible donor wall facing the parks campfire amphitheater. 1. San Francisco, in its own unique way, has been blazing a trail in terms of 21st century urban park systems, said Guillermo Rodriguez, the California state director of the Trust for Public Land. If youre seeking a great natural experience in a National Park site, its not often you go stare at a freeway. So, head south on First Street as it starts to ascend Rincon Hill, then turn right when you pass Local Kitchens parklet. San Francisco's new venture capital hotspot: a national park a world John Ramos accidentally launched a lifelong career in journalism when he began drawing editorial cartoons and writing smart-alecky satire pieces for the Bakersfield High School newspaper. Input from more than 10,000 community members helped shape Tunnel Tops, and children from the city tested it out in person prior to opening. The bulk of the feedback, says Chris Lehnertz, President and CEO of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the parks nonprofit partner, is that people just wanted a place where they could hang out. Presidio Tunnel Tops offers plenty of places to do just that, from picnic tables shaded by Torrey pine trees to a series of driftwood benches made from fallen Presidio cypress trees. Known as urban greening, the concept has been proposed as one approach to mitigate the health consequences of climate change. From the different languages I hear in conversation, to seeing book club meetups or people practicing meditation out there. Non-profit . Most structures were built with natural materials, including the centerpiece 250-year-old white oak tree trunk sculpted into three pieces. Public art installations include Shepard Faireys Stamp of Incarceration mural, which features human rights activist James Anderson, whos also the program administrator at the Anti-Recidivism Coalitiona nonprofit aiming to end mass incarceration in California. The new Outpost is a playground where young people can climb boulders, scale fallen tree logs or happily play in the mud. Most of the $118 million needed to build the new park was raised privately and its open and free to everyone. We have a responsibility to all of them to give them the best backyard we can.. Updated on: July 17, 2022 / 10:39 PM Presidio Tunnel Tops: A new entry for your San Francisco to-do list "We take meetings outside and we walk around the big lawn here.". Two dozen parks and playgrounds across the city have debuted or reopened since 2020. Laura Kiniry Come enjoy the history and the natural beauty of the Presidio. With plans for Presidio Tunnel Tops underway in 2014, organizers launched an international design competition to find a suitable developer for the project. Presidio Tunnel Tops Park is 14 acres that sits on top of the tunnels on Highway 101 that . John Metcalfe is a Bay Area News Group features reporter for The Mercury News and East Bay Times, covering nature, food, the arts, and notable things to do in the Bay Area for the Eat Drink Play section. Campfires, barbecue pits, picnic benches its all free for visitors. The art of park-making in this incredible setting is to keep things simple, to practice restraint so as to not detract from or overwhelm the view, and to carefully choreograph paths and features so that the power and beauty of the site is revealed and heightened as one moves through the space, Kennedy says. Create a password that only you will remember. Battery Bluff is part of the culmination of an immense redesign project that began after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which revealed how the New Deal-era Doyle Drive leading to the Golden Gate Bridge really needed to be replaced. Cancel anytime. But after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, it became obvious that the drive and the bluffs were not seismically sound. The Presidio in San Francisco is getting a new restaurant: Dalida. SAN FRANCISCO, July 8 (Reuters) - Venture capital firm Headline used to be in one of San Francisco's most eye-catching skyscrapers: the pyramidal Transamerica building that has defined the skyline for decades. But the view from the upper plateau is matchless, a sprawling blend of city and nature that embodies the allure of where we live. There's also a new dedicated bike path through the park, although cyclists haven't yet discovered it. This is still the city, as the materials attest; on one visit I saw a bedraggled man tumble out from behind the tall granite slab thats a design feature in the back. The Presidio Trust, which manages most of the former army base, embraced the idea as a way to add an educational component and central magnet to the parks natural bounty. Now considered the backbone of New Orleans bike network (which had a mere 11 miles of bike lanes prior to 2005s Hurricane Katrina and has grown to a whopping 120-plus today), the 2.6 mile Lafitte Greenway sits on what was once an 18th-century drainage canal and then a 20th-century passenger rail line, before the destruction of Katrina left it blighted and abandoned for years.