This is a new shot – as close as I’ve gotten when it’s at its highest:
And here it is near the bottom floor:
I don’t think it ever gets level, so you’re standing on a sloping floor the whole time:
I haven’t seen it in action lately, but here’s a shot from aught-four:
And more recently:
Or you can take the stairs I guess…
Now what _I’d_ call this trail is a dirt sidewalk on the north side of Twin Peaks Boulevard what takes you from Twin Peaks Reservoir to Christmas Tree Point Road.
Anyway, here’s what RPD is doing these days. This is relatively new, these Jersey barriers connecting the trail to Eureka Peak. Note the post on the right:
This is new, right?
Note that it allows bike riding.
Now we’re looking east. The trail is on the other side of the guardrail:
This trail will take you to the reservoir and/or Mount Sutro / Midtown Terrace. I’m calling it singletrack ’cause it’s kind of narrow. And of course it’s shared with hikers.
This is noteworthy since singletrack is rare in SF / the bay area.
It’s not much of a trail for bikes, but it’s a trail anyway…
Well, here’s your background – just keep reading down.
Photographer Ed French was killed in July 2017.
And here’s the latest:
SF Leaders Consider Proposal to Close Twin Peaks at Nighttime – By Terry McSweeney
(Of course, people would still go up atop Twin Peaks, but not with their cars, so that would certainly lower the SFPD / RPD workload.)
Impressions: Sunrise
Here’s where one of the gates could go, on Twin Peaks Blvd. The 30 MPH speed limit seems a tad on the high side, but there you go:
And here’s where the SFPD hangs out – you can pretty much see everybody who comes and goes from this spot:
And here’s your greeting these days:
Repeating endlessly:
Speaking of which, here’s your broken auto glass report. I think I saw strong evidence of at least three break-ins last time I was up there:
And:
And:
This is quite an improvement from earlier this summer, when all the broken glass really stood out on the newly laid macadam. So a rate of about 1000 break ins per year has dropped a lot, due to the heightened SFPD presence.
The popo aren’t up there now as much as in August 2017, but they’re still up there.
As are your shutterbugs:
All over, actually:
Hey, did this woman sleep overnight on the less-trafficked, “car-free” side of this hill? IDK. She looked like a sleepyhead when I saw her one morning:
So there you have it. I can understand why it’s easier for SFGov to just throw its hands up and say, “Screw it, let’s put up some gates on TPB.”
As for whether that’s the best course of action, well, that’s up to you, Gentle Reader.
See what I mean? This is the part what’s closer to Christmas Tree Point Road, where the action is, so it’s more popular with walkers. But a good portion of them are actually the dreaded Car People who have parked either at the overlook area or in the saddle betwixt the two peaks of Twin Peaks.
Now this is a similar view, but it’s of the faraway peak area. No peds or bikes, but plenty of sk8ter bois.
IDK if they are allowed to do their tricks here. This is a more isolated area now, of course. And also of course, if you’re going to put up Jersey barriers, you’re going to get graffiti:
And of course, if you leave a way for bikes to roll in, you’re going to get your share of motorcycles:
You know, a small but full-on motorcycle here:
(And can I ask why a “pedestrian paradise” would have a double-yellow line right down the middle of it? I’m sure it has something to do with something, but it makes the few peds what are up there walk on the shoulder, at least for some of them.)
And generally there are marked SFPD up here all the time, 24-7. But it’s not really the cops’ job to enforce parking, and they don’t, not really. So, our tourists park in the BUS ONLY zone with impunity. See?
And that causes a bus jam, sometimes. Oh well.
And actually, the laxness of SFGov, SFMTA, SFPD, RPD enforcing any parking rules means that you can always find a place to park up here, even though the SFMTA suggested that all roadside parking was against the rules. Go figure,
Anyway, there’s a bunch of new pavement up there and that made all the broken auto glass, you know, figure more than a thousand break-ins each year, in this small area, REALLY STAND OUT. But then the most recent murder happened and the 24-7 marked SFPD presence began and since then I’ve only seen evidence of just one break-in.
What else, oh, there’s now marking for the new pavement, so that shows progress.
So I guess SFGov just operates on a different time horizon than I do. So yeah, they’re getting to it, I suppose.
We’ll just have to wait to see how things go here…
Here it is:
I don’t think it ever gets level, so you’re standing on a sloping floor the whole time:
And then you go up up up to the highest horizontal point of Sutro Tower:
I haven’t seen it in action lately, but here’s a shot from aught-four:
And more recently:
Or you can take the stairs I guess…
I’ve been up to Twin Peaks seven days out of the past eight – this is the first I’ve seen anything like this:
There was an SFPD presence up here even before the killing of last week, but it has stepped up quite a bit now.
VIDEO: San Francisco police step up patrols on Twin Peaks after 71-year-old man murdered by thieves
[Feel free to boot up (Shakedown) 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins while you read – that’s the reference.]
Here it is, noble Sutro Tower, beloved symbol of Frisco. The vertical part in the middle is an add-on – it brought / brings digital TV to the Bay Area.
Well, two decades ago it caused consternation to certain (and certainly now) millionaire homeowners of Midtown Terrace, Forrest Knolls and basically the whole Twin Peaks area what’s located in the “fall zone.” (Uh, that’s in quotes due to the fact that this phrase was made up by some area attorney homeowner back in the day. But it’s center of gravity is like 16 underground, so as long as it stays together as a rigid body (and, you know, it probably will – I’m not promising you anything though), I don’t think it can fall down.
Anyway, noble Sutro. I think this is as close as I’ve ever been to it at an altitude higher than the base, if that makes sense:
So, just as area attorneys (and USF law students) banded together back in the 1970’s to deprive us of our landmark, area attorneys banded together in the 1990’s to fight the relatively minor addition of a 100-foot long metal “auxiliary antenna” for digital TV broadcast.
All this digital antenna fooforall was ably covered by INTERESTED PARTY the San Francisco Chronicle in 1998. And look:
“The 977-foot Sutro Tower is owned by four television stations: KRON, KTVU, KGO and KPIX. KRON is owned by Chronicle Publishing Co., which also controls The Chronicle.”
Hello! (The writer properly put fall zone in quote marks. Good.)
Obviously the fretful homeowner lawyers were threatening to sue, but also obviously we now have this auxiliary antenna, so how did that happen? Well, Sutro Tower Inc. (STI) had to fork over some cold hard cash:
“STI agrees to contribute:
a. $3,000.00 per year to the Midtown Terrace Home Owners Association. The initial contribution payable prior to December 31, 2008. Subsequent contributions to be made on or before July 1 of each year
b. $4,500.00 one time contribution to the Twin Peaks Improvement Association for an open space improvement project.
c. $6,000.00 one time contribution to the Forrest Knolls Neighborhood Organization to replace the Forrest Knolls entrance sign.
d. $ 10,000.00 one time contribution for the benefit of the surrounding area to purchase two drinking fountains one each at the walking paths around two area reservoirs. The contribution will be payable only when the fountains are approved by the appropriate agencies and actually purchased.”
The big winner? Well it’s gotta be the MTHOA, which gets three grand every year from here to eternity, paid for by Channels 2, 4,* 5, und 7.** All that’s gotta add up to a couple hundred thou eventually.
Read the rest of the agreement if you want. (You don’t hear so much about the RF concerns anymore – I guess people have other things to worry about these days. And what else, a few people were complaining about red and white lead paint chips falling down and landing in the soil a while back. I haven’t heard about that issue lately either.)
On the up side, the people who live there have benefited from some nice middle class welfare over the years such as mortgage interest deductibility, Prop 13, and massive massive home price appreciation since the 1970s / 1990’s, the times when the yammering was going full tilt.
It’s pretty much a happy ending. Play us out, Wiki:
“Despite the initial revulsion of some residents, Sutro Tower is now recognized by many as a Bay Area icon, it appears in local art, television shows, and movies as one of the architectural symbols of the city. The tower is featured in video games, business logos, on clothing, as furniture and even tattoos. The U.S. band Information Society used it on the cover of their album Don’t Be Afraid. A local entertainment guide, SF Station, uses it as a logo, as does the collaborative art game SFZero and the Expose SF art competition.”
And Don’t Be Afraid, Midtown. Your tower is 100% Pure Energy. It brings us our Information Society.***
And oh, I just came across this:
Sutro Tower: The Origins of an ‘Eyesore’ By Jessica Placzek
Enjoy.
*Which is no longer owned by the Chronic – it’s master is now Nexstar Media Group.
**I can’t host a Super Bowl party when NBC is doing the broadcast, cause I’m a cutter, a cable cutter since like aught-nine. And no Olympics either.
***Or Vast Wasteland, your pick. When somebody presses the remote button wrong, the digital TV turns on. Like 16 channels – home shopping network, plus Spanish and Chinese language programs.
Haven’t seen this afore:
Everybody’s doing it, if you’ll notice:
It’s quite a scene up there, sometimes:
