Islais Creek Park

 Posted by on October 4, 2011
Oct 042011
 
Islais Creek Park
Quint, Third and Berry

The Ohlone Indians were harvesting mussels, clams, and shrimp on the shores of Islais Creek long before Europeans arrived in 1769. The creek appeared on Mexican maps in 1834, named for Los Islais (is-lay-is), a hollyleaf cherry and favorite Indian food. On today’s map it is the gateway to (the former) Butchertown, Bayview/Hunters Point neighborhoods.In the 1850s Islais Creek provided fresh water to Franciscan friars from Mission Dolores and irrigated the produce that Portuguese, Italian, and Irish vegetable farmers grew in the Bayview district. The Gold Rush marked the start of the creek’s decline when hordes of forty-niners swarmed out of the city and settled into the makeshift housing on the water’s edge. In 1870, the slaughterhouses of Butchertown came in, and Islais Creek, red with blood and offal, reeking of garbage, sewage, and unfit for any use, was diverted to a culvert and its contents sent out to the Bay.

Until the 1950s, the waterway was an open sewer, known colloquially as “S____ Creek.” Things changed in the 1970s with construction of a water treatment plant nearby and the clearing out of Buchertown’s auto-wrecking yards. But it was not until 1988 when neighbors banned together to create this wonderful little park. Today it is even greater, and bigger than they imagined.

The piece above marks the entry, and yet I could find nothing out about it or its artist. (Read update below)

I have always loved this structure, you see it just before you enter San Francisco coming from the airport. The five-story high copra crane unloaded dried coconut meat at Islais Creek’s copra dock from 1947 to 1974. Rescued as a San Francisco landmark, it will tower over the new promenade slated for this area.

A new note. In November I contacted Robin Chiang, an architect and active participant in the Islais Creek Renovation. He told me this about the sculpture.

The tower in your photograph was rescued from the Granax property on the north side of the channel when SFMTA bought it from the Marcos family (of the Philippines). It was used for hanging hoses. I designed the metal fish with cut out letters and commissioned metal artist Todd Martinez to fabricate and install it. When the SFPUC was expanding its booster pump station (at 3rd & Arthur) they asked us what we wanted. We wanted the expansion to be all glass so people could see the pumps, but that was not allowed for security reasons. So I sketched the marquee that proclaims ISLAIS LANDING and SFPUC had it fabricated for the pump station as a marker for the northern gateway to the Bayview.

  4 Responses to “Islais Creek Park”

  1. I love old industrial structures! Good post.

  2. This is all very interesting to me. In my youth and early adulthood we would not have gone to Hunters Point. The last time I was there was to go to tour an aircraft carrier. From your pictures there, it seems like you could walk around there.

  3. I am glad the copra crane was rescued…it makes a great sculpture itself!

  4. I can just imagine the area must have been before the area was transformed into a park. I think the crane makes an appropriate sculpture for the area.

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