{"id":359210,"date":"2026-06-13T11:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/359210\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T11:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T11:44:11","slug":"the-mystery-behind-one-of-san-franciscos-best-parklets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/359210\/","title":{"rendered":"The mystery behind one of San Francisco’s best parklets"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ritual was happening along\u00a0Clement Street<\/a>, marked only by an anonymous note. \u201cDan, you\u2019re a legend,\u201d it read. The note was taped on the side of an overgrown parklet at Third Avenue, one that\u2019s been there so long that it\u2019s practically part of the sidewalk.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I passed by countless times before I realized that there was something peculiar about this space. It didn\u2019t seem to be connected to any adjacent business, an anomaly in a time when so many parklets are de facto dining rooms. It\u2019s big, the size of three parking spaces. Sturdy. But the most striking thing is the greenery. The plants that ring the edges are so healthy and well established that to sit there is to forget that traffic is only a few feet away. The space is curious for other reasons, too. There\u2019s a long-standing bar, and big slabs of wood are stacked to make a seating area that\u2019s something between a sculpture and a throne.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dan Carlson is to thank for this space. For years, he was a mystery to me, but it\u2019s time for him and his fellow caretakers<\/a> to get their flowers. After all, they\u2019re the ones planting them<\/a>. You\u2019d be surprised to learn how many of the city\u2019s beloved green spaces are the product of loving neighbors rather than city workers. The word to describe these caretakers of the public realm is steward. Whenever you find a tiled stairway<\/a>, hillside garden or parklet oasis, you\u2019re in the realm of stewards. It\u2019s an honorary title for an unusual bunch.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the vegetation at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE\"People<\/p>\n

People hang out at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

They\u2019re diverse and quirky. Prolific yet often hidden. They seem to know the secret of happiness, or at least the secrets of the block. They\u2019re earthbound in a society increasingly set in the cloud, which gives them an almost monk-like quality, though some are less monk, more maverick: dissidents determined to get s\u2014t done. What prompts such an intense level of care? And what happens when it stops? Stewards hold the city together, and, in Dan\u2019s case, they hang on by a thread.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s hidden stewards<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery week, in the early evening, a man named Dan tends to this parklet garden. It is a ritual I am so appreciative of, and I am grateful for the space he cares for.\u201d The anonymous note was my first clue about the identity of the mysterious gardener, and an indication that I wasn\u2019t the only one to notice his handiwork.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dan is what Elizabeth Barlow Rogers, credited with saving New York\u2019s Central Park, would call a \u201czealous nut<\/a>.\u201d Zealous nuts are the type of people with an irrational sense of care for their place. But since zealous nut doesn\u2019t sound as complimentary as its intent, we\u2019ll stick with steward. I\u2019ve grown to recognize stewardship as many things. It\u2019s a sense of agency seemingly as powerful as therapy or drugs. An attachment to place in an increasingly placeless world. The unsung quality that we simultaneously depend on and take for granted. It\u2019s a quiet revolution on a trash-strewn lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People hang out at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve wanted to write about stewardship for years now, but it wasn\u2019t until I met Dan that I felt like I could capture its elusive magnitude and magic.<\/p>\n

My first exposure to this city\u2019s culture of stewardship was in the Portola. This tiny, proud neighborhood is sandwiched between 280, 101 and the\u00a0ridgeline of McLaren Park. Perhaps it\u2019s this isolated quality that allowed its stewards to shine so brightly. In the mid-2010s, I worked in the neighborhood. My office was a concrete bunker above a small coffee shop. Outside my window was Burrows Pocket Park, a tiny garden made of leftover land from the embankment that held up 101, which whisked commuters down to SFO and the Peninsula beyond on the other side of the retaining wall.<\/p>\n

What had long been a neglected dead end was transformed by neighbors into an oasis. They ripped out a metal guardrail and started planting. They got permission from Caltrans to beautify the space and added benches and a mural. Then they started looking at the space beyond the fence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

When they first pointed to the fennel-strewn lot, I think I laughed. It was a dumping ground. Completely inaccessible. And at a 45-degree angle tilted toward the highway above. Yet the neighbors were undeterred. They cleared the fennel. Hand-built terraced walkways. They even used a crane to bring in an old junk car and stuffed it full of plants. A fitting metaphor for nature reclaiming what had been destroyed by the ravenous appetite of highway expansion<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where 101 had severed the neighborhood, this greenway began to reconnect it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

There was a dedicated crew who showed up for the monthly gardening days. Even when it was slow, or rainy, the regulars were there. Alex, a high-end designer and amateur horticulturist, was often the leader. Shae, the owner of the nearby bar, was always picking weeds, even while casually waiting for her coffee at the shop next door. Maggie, the chain-smoking vice principal with a raspy voice strained by years on the playground, was a constant. She was in her late 50s, but it was easy to picture her as the young physical education teacher who would run the school decades later. Much of what I know about stewardship I learned from her, though it took me years to fully grasp what she was doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Things kicked into high gear once Raul showed up. During the pandemic, he saw people working on the overgrown lot behind his house. He got curious and joined them, eventually clearing enough brush to extend the pocket park through to the next block.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Proximity matters when it comes to stewardship. How will you care for a place from afar? This work is inherently local \u2014 a sense of place is built through a thousand small acts. Under the care of Raul and the regulars, the pocket park grew like a vine. It\u2019s beautiful today, but if I could show it to you a decade ago, you\u2019d be stunned to see what an accumulation of care can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are living in a time when much of the world seems out of our control. Even the idea of agency has been co-opted, with \u201cagentic\u201d becoming the latest tech buzzword. That the machines would be gaining the ability to act independently while ours slips away is more than a bit dystopian! But the stewards of the Portola reveal a different path. They\u2019ve found an analog answer to our dizzying digital age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People hang out at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Agentic is a good concept for artificial intelligence, but its truest form may be the practice of public space stewardship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

People need to believe they can shape their environment. In fact, they need to. Whether it\u2019s home, work or the space outside your front door, studies show that having a sense of control over your world is as powerful as anything a doctor might prescribe you. When it comes to the public realm, agency manifests as an invitation. Seize your ability to improve the world around you, it whispers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When we plant, paint or pick up trash, we\u2019re activating all the senses. Civic agency is immersive: physical, psychological, social. You improve something, observe, discuss with the person walking by and then try again. This process cultivates a shared belief \u2014 no, an understanding \u2014 that change is possible. Here, now. \u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something intoxicating about seeing and shaping such tangible improvements. Why else would people keep doing it? These tasks would be Sisyphean if they weren\u2019t so enjoyable. And the act of caring for our communities becomes a gateway to understanding the local terroir: hidden fruits, hot gossip and good neighbors, all revealed in an afternoon out in the sun. Place connects us, and in the process, we find everything from bloody mary recipes to babysitters. Stewardship localizes care: Neighbors tend to a place, then to each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the vegetation at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

What drives stewardship?<\/p>\n

Back on Clement Street, I\u2019d occasionally ask around about the\u00a0parklet, and by proxy, Dan. When a new store moved in next to the little oasis, I took the chance to chat up the owners. I stood at the counter of Food Folk with Kevin Elmore, the co-owner, as we marveled at how lush the parklet looked outside his front door. I asked him if he knew anything about Dan, and he told me he heard Dan was retiring. Retiring? No. It couldn\u2019t be. What would become of his garden?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

I sent off a flurry of texts to the neighbors I knew, and they confirmed the rumor. Somehow, none knew how to contact Dan, but I hit a lucky break when I reached out to Eric, a fellow preschool parent who lived across the street. He\u2019d seen Dan at work and had struck up conversation, eventually exchanging numbers. I asked him to connect me.<\/p>\n

At long last, I\u2019d found the mysterious gardener.<\/p>\n

Like most stewards, Dan\u00a0is not one to toot his own horn. He is gentle and soft-spoken, with the calm of someone deeply in tune with nature. When I asked if he wanted to meet me at the parklet, he declined. I was a bit surprised. He asked to chat by phone instead, and when we got on a call together, I began to understand why.\u00a0Leaving the\u00a0parklet was a bit like a breakup. He needed time away. \u201cIt became too much for me,\u201d he said. I came to learn that he\u2019d been caring for the parklet for more than 12 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People hang out at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

He described it as a \u201croot-bound, water-hungry entity\u201d meant to evoke \u201cbeach dunes and big grassiness.\u201d Comparing it to a hard sponge, the space required an hour and a half of watering every third day, during which time Dan would clean the space as well. Originally the brainchild of two artists, Jonathan Anzalone and Joseph Ferriso, and their studio, Anzfer Farms, the parklet predated almost every business on the block, including the neighborhood\u2019s beloved farmers market. I came to understand the space as a remnant of an earlier era, with the only constant being Dan himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Just as the digital world distorts our sense of agency, it distances care from presence. When a friend has a baby or a broken foot, it\u2019s easier to\u00a0DoorDash a meal rather than deliver a home-cooked one. We\u2019ve become conditioned to posting our way toward a better world. Sign this petition, contribute to that GoFundMe, boost this story! Dare I say it\u2019s not going too well. We\u2019ve certainly seen the power of this approach, but a care bound by two thumbs and an algorithm is destined for diminishing returns. You can make waves in a sea of content, but it\u2019s an ocean that consumes more than it contributes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this environment, stewardship is subversive. It\u2019s full of untraceable acts, organic growth, real-world ripple effects. It compounds over time, creating the character of the places where we live.<\/p>\n

Yet stewardship often stands in contrast to the status quo, which the public realm tends to gravitate toward. People like their places to be predictable, and so a thicket of processes becomes the prerequisite for change. Forms, surveys and virtual hearings create a digital border around our physical world. And in these layers of abstraction and delay, most of us gradually lose the agency to improve the places we occupy. But not stewards. They have an itch to improve things, and they\u2019re not likely to wait. For them, the world is more malleable.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Being about place predisposes one to this sense of doing. Dan and his fellow stewards embody this practice. And it really is a practice. You show up again and again when you\u2019re caring for a place. It\u2019s habit-forming. Maintenance. Part mundane, part muse. What compels someone to provide this level of continual care? I\u2019d often ask myself this question when I saw the Portola stewards doing another thankless task in the shadows.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the vegetation at the public\u00a0parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

The answer was that every new planting or project was a chance to reap the rewards of agency: connecting with nature, building community and realizing that the world is responsive to our touch. They\u2019d found the \u201cgranularity of attention<\/a>\u201d that Jenny Odell praises, a wisdom formed from presence and place. By embracing the idea that the public realm is theirs to care for, stewards gain a sense of collective ownership. Making a place better creates more than just pleasure or pride; it changes how one sees the city. How one loves it.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the left thinks social change has to look like\u00a0Che Guevara, but maybe changing the world is more like caregiving than it is like war,\u201d mused Rebecca Solnit, at a recent talk at the Internet Archive. She noted how so much change is the result of \u201cnice little ladies,\u201d an observation backed up by the fact that much of the Bay Area\u2019s natural beauty is preserved<\/a> thanks to such nice yet fierce women. Speaking on the theme of interconnection, she talked about how \u201cthere are no objects, only systems.\u201d She drove her point home with a line that stuck with me: \u201cWe are verbs in drag as nouns.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let the digital fence fool you. We are doing creatures. And at our best, we are stewards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People hang out at the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Who maintains the maintainers?<\/p>\n

Over the years, Dan\u2019s care for the parklet took on a nocturnal quality. This was more practical than anything, he explained. He had a full-time landscaping business, and it was easier to tend to the parklet at night when there were less people to work around. But it began to wear on him. The work was largely unpaid, save for an occasional $200 stipend from a nearby property owner. And it was during these nocturnal waterings that he became \u201can anonymous entity,\u201d as he put it. I realized he was right. It was how I had perceived him, and he was even more anonymous to the countless folks who\u2019d enjoyed the fruits of his labor without a second thought to how such beauty blossomed.<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Who maintains the maintainers? Like a Greek tragedy, Dan made me see that stewardship\u2019s essential element is community. That\u2019s what Maggie had been doing all along in the\u00a0Portola, so simple and profound I\u2019d missed it. Stewardship is collective care. And it\u2019s not limited to gardening. It\u2019s the shared experience of tending to any common space. Everything Maggie did, from asking me to join her school\u2019s board, to inviting me to coach fifth grade basketball with her, to laughing her way through a Saturday workday, was in service of building this community of care for the Portola. And it continues to flourish.<\/p>\n

Stewardship opened my eyes to how the city is built and who does the building. Show me the place you tend to, and I\u2019ll know who you are. The lesson from Maggie and Dan went deeper: Care isn\u2019t an independent act. It\u2019s mutual.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a temptation here to assume this story is about Dan, but he wouldn\u2019t want that. Most stewards feel similarly. It\u2019s as if they\u2019re saying, \u201cLook at what we\u2019re creating. Look at its beauty, how it benefits the birds, how it brings people together \u2014 how could this be about me?\u201d To them, the story isn\u2019t about the steward; it\u2019s about what\u2019s being stewarded. And even if Dan was the only constant person over the years, the parklet itself was a continual presence on the block. The accumulation of care gave the space a life of its own. The parklet contributes to the community, just as Dan contributed to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the magic of well-loved places: They take on a life of their own. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\"Pedestrians<\/p>\n

Pedestrians walk by the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE\"The<\/p>\n

The public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE\"A<\/p>\n

A pedestrian crosses the street near the public parklet on Clement Street near Third Avenue in San Francisco on June 3, 2026.<\/p>\n

Douglas Zimmerman\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Seen in this way, this story isn\u2019t a tragedy but a triumph. Dan left his post at the parklet in February once the winter rains had replenished his big, grassy sponge. And still the Clement Street parklet grows. A local merchant was entrusted with its care, though no one person can replace a legend like Dan. We\u2019re all responsible for this place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Jia Tolentino<\/a> writes about the act of motherhood as \u201cso crucial and difficult that it seems objectively holy,\u201d and I think the same can be said of stewardship. \u201cI can only care,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause I am being cared for.\u201d It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship. People and place. Solnit\u2019s interconnection in its purest form. I see stewards in their acts of service, cleaning graffiti off a mural, calming tensions in the group chat, or carrying a folding table up a hill, and I\u2019m reminded of Tolentino\u2019s words: \u201cWe have to make of ourselves and our situations a soft place for others to land.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The parklet eventually stopped being a soft place for Dan, but the neighborhood oasis he created remains. I\u2019ve begun to recognize the parklet and all the places like it as monuments to maintenance. And when we care for them ourselves, we honor the maintainers and begin to enter into their secret society of stewards.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Stay informed, and entertained.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The problem with stewardship in a digital era \u2014 especially in a place like San Francisco \u2014 is that the best get burned out, and we\u2019re often too distracted to notice. A culture that lives online misses the joy, satisfaction and community that\u2019s found in caring for the city as a physical place. The screen works to separate us, and we miss the pliant, boundless, foggy world beyond it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n

The silver lining is that our collective distraction has left many doors wide open. For the aspiring steward, San Francisco beckons. And once you start to see them, you\u2019ll recognize stewards in all corners of the city, each with an outstretched arm. Stewards are the chair guiding the board of your favorite organization, asking you to join. They\u2019re the muralist offering you a paintbrush, and inviting you to drinks afterward. They\u2019re moms demanding safer streets, and sometimes taking action themselves. As stewards do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, what are you waiting for? The joy of stewardship awaits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A ritual was happening along\u00a0Clement Street, marked only by an anonymous note. \u201cDan, you\u2019re a legend,\u201d it read.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105,925,1693],"class_list":["post-359210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sfgfreelance","tag-sfglocal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}