sunnyside conservatory 3.0 launches with pomp, bagpipes, mayor

following the previous night’s major buzzkill (see below), it was sweet to see the sun come out, along with the gav (erm, his honor, the mayor), for the truly glorious opening of our neighborhood jewel, the newly renovated sunnyside conservatory.

a who’s who of sunnyside movers and shakers, along with regular folk like you and me (!), were treated to a redux worthy of the historic site. the designers have achieved a nice balance between acknowledging the conservatory’s storied past and creating a fully functional and rentable space for locals to use for events ranging from community activities to private parties.

i got there a bit late, but from what i hear and saw, the gav got a kick out of the new spot and rock starred it up a bit with a crowd clearly flattered he was spending a sunny saturday in sunnyside.

he was generous with the pics, and it took him longer to leave than most assumed he would spend there in total, but i chose to take my time with the mayor as an opportunity to promote this site! because i am a whore.

turns out local photog bill wilson caught the moment:

check out bill’s photo album from the day.

it was super to see the people i’ve met in the past year since launching this blog, particularly the friends of monterey blvd. with a full-on setup that attracted a lot of attention from locals curious about those “slow down!” signs. one lady construed it as a general zen comment, which was fine with the fomb’ers!

all in all, a great day in the ‘hood.

fomb unveils new monterey safety campaign

the friends of monterey blvd. folks have taken their “slow down!” movement one step further by specifying how much they want speeding drivers to slow down to – 25 mph, as opposed to the current speed limit of 30 mph.

check out their latest post, which illustrated very clearly their argument for bringing down the speed of traffic on my street. and while the fombers are bike folk, and thereby have an evil agenda to take us all back before the age of horseless buggies, as an occasional driver i can tell you that if you can’t restrain yourself from the urge to speed up to every stop sign between ridgewood and circular – YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

i just tested this theory yesterday while borrowing a friend’s car, and i found that 25 was actually my natural default. i had to rev up to 30 just to not get hit by all the usual spazzes

pretty much proved the whole point.

slip slidin’ away

i’m late to this party, as the SFist scooped me, but here’s the scene last week just a block from my place on monterey as this driver provided literally a picture-perfect example of why the Friends of Monterey have been working hard to get those “Slow Down” signs up along the boulevard.

and this was before the rain came this week. conditions at the time were ideal … for a responsible driver using common sense and following the speed limit.

luckily, and almost bizarrely, nobody was hurt in this accident. but this happened a block away from st. finn barr elementary school, yards away from a heavily trafficked pedestrian crosswalk.

thanks to karen for the report and the photo.

new monterey blog!

a couple of local friends have started a new blog focused on monterey blvd. (which flows through multiple neighborhoods, the districts of two supervisors and at least one microclimate!) called friends of monterey. check it out!

considering monterey’s dual role as neighborhood artery and ad hoc feeder freeway, friends of monterey will focus on safety issues and measures by us local residents to keep from getting hit by speeding cars.

for instance, blogger jonathan has designed some  signs (above) that can be posted on street-facing windows and that we hope to post on the thoroughfare to encourage people to not plow through our ‘hood like bats out of hell, to paraphrase my ma.

welcome friends! and, umm … godspeed?