South San Francisco

Jul 042011

Today’s post is, well honestly, a soap box. Most people know the City of South San Francisco because they see the above when they drive into San Francisco from the airport. That is it, that is probably all you need to know as well. It is a delightful little town with an old downtown where you can still get your shoes fixed, and the hardware store guy knows your name, and what you need. It is a split town, the freeway runs directly through it, the west side of the freeway is why it is called the Industrial City. It is miles and miles of office buildings, almost entirely feeding the biotech industry, ugly, massive and lacking all signs of humanity except the ubiquitous 500 car parking lots.

However, South San Francisco has done something that other cities should do. They built a public park that is functional, attractive, and has an art walk.

First, it has the typical things you would expect, but oh so much more. It has TWO baseball parks, Bocce ball, Tennis, Soccer, TWO kids playgrounds, an indoor swimming pool AND a skateboard park.

All this and an art walk, proving that when cities and counties want to do it right – it is all possible.

The art wasn’t anything to write home about, but here it was in the middle of a park filled, with families picnicking, playing ball, and generally just enjoying their park.

The grounds were really well maintained, and well designed. Colma Creek used to run through the area, making it marshy and unusable. During construction they tamed the creek in concrete culverts. I assume this little trail was meant to pay homage to the creek.

Oh, and did I mention there is a 1.8 acre dog park, with separate areas for big and little dogs AND it’s own art.

If you enjoy reading history, there is a nice article in the local paper covering the area from the 1800′s.

Oddities in San Francisco – Aeolian Harp

Just outside San Francisco, South San Francisco, U.S. Cities - Other 4 Responses »

Jun 292011

This is one of the more obscure pieces of art in the San Francisco area. It is actually in South San Francisco off Grandview Drive in the Oyster Point area. It is difficult to find, and surrounded by ugly industrial buildings that over shadow it. Which is sad, because it is really rather magnificent.

92-feet-tall sculpted by Aristides Demetrios it is one of the world’s largest aeolian harps. Named for Aeolus, the Greek god of the wind, and invented by the 17th-century polymath Athanasius Kircher, an aeolian harp is a passive instrument played by the movement of the wind.

I was there on a very windy day and what you hear throughout the area is a very low pitch hum, almost like electrical machinery, not annoying, but there. It is not so loud that you are absolutely sure that it is playing, and yet you are aware of it.

Not until I visited this site and started researching Aristides did I realize that I have seen, and truly admired, many of his works around the country.

Born in 1932 in Massachusetts. His father, George Demetrios, was a classical sculptor, trained by Bourdelle, a student of Rodin. His mother, Virginia Lee Burton was author and illustrator of children’s books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and The Little House, for which she won the Caldecott prize. After graduating from Harvard, Demetrios spent three years as an officer in the Navy and then studied at the George Demetrios School for three years. In 1963, he won his first national sculpture competition when his proposed design was selected for a major fountain commission at Stanford. Shortly after that, he was chosen to be the sculptor for a public art commission in Sacramento in front of the County Courthouse; subsequently, he was selected to design and fabricate the sculpture to grace the entry to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The piece I recognized right away was “Cosmos”, a large red work of steel off Highway 80 near Roseville, California as you drive up to Lake Tahoe. If you too think any of those are familiar, you can check out his website and see all of his work.