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Natick Triangle Clean-up

August 1, 2021 by Sophie Constantinou

Sometime in the middle of shelter-in-place the small triangle along San Jose Ave  – where Arlington meets Wilder and Natick Street – began to transform.  Shopping carts and tires became orderly piles. Great big mounds of cut fennel and diced ivy vines replaced the garbage. Our roadside eyesore started to have order and then mulch. Now it looks like a place where something is happening. Neighbors on Natick Street have started a movement. I asked Carol Hansen and Paul Muldown to share their story.
Carol:  Well, neighbor Ed and I had been talking for years about planting something without really knowing what that meant. Neighbor Dan had planted a Monterey Pine years and years and years ago. But we we’re always ignoring that place because it was ugly.
 
Paul: And we were busy. Yes. With kids, life, work.
 
Carol: And then I thought, OK, this sounds like a long term community thing that I could be part of. Make something better right in the neighborhood.
 
Paul: And a good commute.
 
Carol: I feel like it’s gone in directions that I had, we had no idea. I mean, we are literally watching native plant videos every night. And that’s what I think is so much fun about it. We’ve got power to try to change something when everyone says you can’t do anything. So, after kind of feeling tied with the pandemic, it’s sort of like, wow, we can do this thing and who’s going to stop us?
 
Paul: I think, now, both of us are really comfortable out there because there’s so many people around: drivers, bikers, walkers, dog walkers, the whole thing. In the beginning, I think Carol was doing it alone and it was a little scary.
 
Carol: I’m looking out my window now and I can see cars going by on it. My goal is to have it screened. Nobody should have to look at San Jose Avenue and cars going by.
Paul: We’re birders. And so my motivation now is getting natives in there so we can get the butterflies and the bees and the birds, the bugs. We heard a pygmy nuthatch up in one of the pine trees, that was kind of a surprise. And that’s about it. And I know it’s not because of the exposure to the cars and the wind and all that, because when we go over to the Excelsior Library and we walk across that overpass there are bushes right along 280 and we see cedar waxwings and these cars are whizzing by, you know, 80 miles an hour or whatever, and they don’t care. It would be so nice having some native trees and birds there. I think everybody in the neighborhood would like that.
 
Carol: It’s very interesting to me how people can ignore something right in their own backyard. So that’s what I’m noticing with our neighbors, people like that something better is going to happen.  It’s going to be nicer. And I like being part of that.
 
Paul: And already where we work people are respecting it more. Not as much garbage dumping as there is down the hill.
 
Carol: Our neighbor across the street has three kids and she’s come out to give us a cup of coffee and power bars. And then she came out and the kids spent forty five minutes – they were just young energy, they wanted to help. Those guys were monsters out there.
 
Paul: I think that the socialization part of the project is a really good thing. There’s a chance of increasing people’s awareness about how they can take a part in beautifying the city or their neighborhood. So I think it really has that benefit.

Filed Under: Arlington Community Garden, Arlington Path

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IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES

Arlington Path Beautification
Saturday, July 19, 10 a.m. to noon
Meet at 300 Mateo (x Arlington) for an exciting day of weeding, watering, seed collecting.
Tools, gloves and good company provided.


2025 Glen Park Night Market poster


 


Monthly cleanup on the Greenway
First Saturday of the Month (usually)
Click here to learn more


Friends of Glen Canyon’s
Glen Canyon Habitat Restoration
Every third Saturday 9:30 a.m to noon
Sign up here

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Saturdays 3-4:45 p.m.
Questions? Call 415-239-4007


 

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Join the Glen Park Association and help promote our community’s interests. Together, we can secure improvement funds, publicize neighborhood concerns and strive to speak as one voice on neighborhood and city issues.

Membership in the Glen Park Association is only $10 annually and can be purchased online.

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Glen Park Association is at Glen Park Greenway.
3 days ago
Glen Park Association

Saturday’s Glen Park Greenway Work Party is Cancelled.

“I’m very sorry to say that
we have cancelled our Work Party for this Saturday July 12, along with all organized volunteer activity on the Greenway until further notice.
As you may have read in the news, our fiscal sponsor, San Francisco Parks Alliance (SFPA), has shut itself down. Just as SFPA has shut itself down, the Greenway, as an organized part of SFPA, has also been “shut down.” We are busy looking for a suitable alternative fiscal sponsor that is willing to replace SFPA. That search is going well but it is a slow process. We had hoped to find temporary ways to enable the Greenway project to function responsibly as a community activity without a fiscal sponsor. Sadly, despite our best efforts and the help of many others in Glen Park, we have failed. That is why we must cancel our Saturday Work Party and discontinue future work parties and other organized volunteer activity on the Greenway (like weeding and watering) until further notice. We recognize that the Greenway is public open space and that the organizers of the Greenway project have no control over the activities of you or of anyone else on the Greenway. However, if you do venture onto the Greenway to satisfy your urge for outdoor recreation, please be aware that your activity is not in any way organized or sanctioned by the organizers of the Glen Park Greenway project. I’m well aware of the efforts that many of the
Greenway’s supporters are making to get the Greenway organized with a new fiscal sponsor and I’m confident that this will be arranged within weeks or perhaps a few months.
However long it takes, I will contact you with news of our progress.
Many thanks for all that you do for the Greenway.”

Nicholas Dewar, volunteer Project Director

#glenparkgreenway #glenparksf #sanfrancisco @rafaelmandelmand8 @danielluriesf @crosstowntrail
#crosstowntrail #sfparksalliance #publicspace #nature
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Wonder what’s stopping just organizing it separate from that non-profit. It seems like the volunteers largely come from Glen Park.

Glen Park Association is at Laidley Street SFO.
6 days ago
Glen Park Association

It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street!

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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It was a beautiful day for the annual #july4th celebration on Laidley street! 

📷: Photos courtesy of Michael Waldstein 

#glenparksf #sanfrancisco #laidley
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Coyote Yipps
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Open SF History
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Upper Noe Neighbors

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