Our fall membership meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 12 at 7 PM at 501 Castro, second floor.
With all the positive buzz around Mayor Lurie’s urban revitalization, neighbors want to know – how has his tenure impacted Castro
businesses?
Our speakers are President of the Board of Supervisors Rafael Mandelman and Terry Asten Bennett, co-owner of Cliff’s Variety. Send any questions for the speakers to [email protected].
The results of the election of the board members will be revealed on November 12 as well. Don’t forget to vote before November 12. You are eligible
to vote if you are a paying member of at least 90 days and live or own property within the CHN boundaries. You will receive an email prior to election day with voting instructions.
Corbin Stairway/Panos Place at Halloween
Just in case you missed Panos’ creativity!
Running Amok on the 17th Street Hill
The 17th Street hill was the site of several serious accidents. The most serious accident, of which we are aware, occurred on November 16, 1949. The accident was
described at the time as on the most spectacular accident in the city’s history. A runaway six-axle Peterbilt truck carrying compressed sawdust fire-logs lost its brakes at the top of 17th Street, raced down 17th Street eventually reaching a speed of 75-80 miles per hour. It smashed into the heavy traffic stopped at the intersection of 17th and Castro and Market Streets (at the time, a two-way street). Before the truck stopped, it wrecked seven
automobiles and injured five motorists, one mortally. The driver of the truck was uninjured. (The San Francisco Call Bulletin, November 17, 1949, p. 2.)
A month later, one man was injured, two telephone poles smashed, and three automobiles damaged by another runaway vehicle. The vehicle that caused this damage belonged to a Mrs. Sutherland who lived at 21 Uranus Terrace. Just before midnight on December 13, 1949, the driverless
Sutherland vehicle slipped away from the curb, continued north on Uranus, then turned right downhill on 17th Street. Gathering speed, it hit a telephone pole, bounced to the other side of the street, hit a car parked outside of 4402 17th Street, hit a resident of 214 Corbett who was walking at 17th and Temple, breaking his leg and right arm. In front of 4386 17th Street, the runaway auto sheared another pole, which in turn damaged the car
belonging to another resident. Next, the auto careened backward into the house at 4384 17th Street, a 600 foot run. Mrs. Sutherland was cited for improper parking on a hill. (The San Francisco Examiner, December 14, 1949, p. 15.)
Credit: The San Francisco Call Bulletin, December, 13, 1949, p. 28. 438417th Street
At just about the same location on 17th, a photo shows yet another accident. A 1949 Buick Roadmaster made a stop in the back yard of 200 Corbett, just west of Corbin Stairway/Panos Place in this undated photograph.
Credit: Opensfhistory.org – wnp26.2004
There have been numerous accidents on the 17th Street Hill, too many to report or be reported in the newspapers. Seventeenth Street
resident Ted Teipel’s lost not one, but two trucks, one in 2003 and the other in 2011.
Credit: Ted Teipel
While not exactly a 17th Street incident, Ord Court
gets notice for an unusual accident. On July 20, 1951, an automobile and an ice truck dropped into the yard at 64 Ord Court. The truck’s brakes failed while it was parked on States Street, near Levant. It rolled down States Street for 200 feet, crashed into the unoccupied car of the owner who lived at 4310 17th Street, and both plunged over a 250-foot embankment to land on Ord Court. No one was hurt and no citation was issued.
San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 1951, 7.
CHN is still attempting to get a traffic light at Ord and 17th. It’s
pending!
Geographic Center of the City (and it’s close to us)
A marker is on a sidewalk at Corbett Avenue, a few paces west of upper Market Street. Surveyors determined, after taking a series of complex measurements with a $35,000 geo-positioning gizmo mounted on a tripod, that the center is at 37° 45’ 16.3502” north latitude by 122° 26’ 33.1594” west longitude. (Subject to change if you include, for example, Treasure Island or
the Farallon Islands or whether it’s high or low tide.) The brass disk was placed in the sidewalk, but the actually location is 40 feet due west of the sidewalk in a clump of bushes.
700
Block of Corbett
A New Feature—CHN Crossword Puzzle #1
Features the famous and infamous of Corbett Heights
Richie’s Picks: THE FAMILY TREE by Liz Garton Scanlon, Audrey Vernick, and Fiona Lee, ill., Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane, September 2025, 48p., ISBN:
978-1-6659-4837-1
Richie Partington, a Corbett Avenue resident, taughtchildren’s library services classes in the San Jose State MLISprogram. Richie has served on numerous American Library Associationaward and selection committees, including the Caldecott Medal committee.Richie generously and willingly agreed to let us print this latest review.
“Nicknames for a maple seed include helicopters, whirlybirds, twisters, whirligigs, spinning
jennys, propellers, and pug noses. The technical term for a maple seed is a samara, which is the name for the winged fruit that helps it spin and travel from the parent tree.”
“Maple tree seeds, also known as samaras, can be stuck on your nose. These seeds have a wing-like structure that allows them to spin like a helicopter as they fall, and they are often called ‘helicopter seeds’ or ‘whirlybirds’. People sometimes refer to them as ‘polly noses’.”
– Google
AI
“We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden”
– Joni Mitchell (1970)
“But then
Something happens,
something that gets
everyone’s attention.
It starts out small.
Penny pauses at a hint of green in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Is it a toy part? Runaway lettuce? The morning light?
Penny blinks, grabs her lunch, and, well…hurries out again.
That
night, Dad sees it too.
He takes off his glasses,
cleans the lenses, and keeps moving.
When Mom gets home
with dinner, she catches
a glimpse of whatever it is
and just say, ‘Huh.’
Bo-Belly growls a low growl.”
A family that is busy all the time, and seems to never slow down and actually commune as a family, finds happiness in and through nature when the seed of a maple tree takes root in the middle of their kitchen floor. And,
yes, by the end of the tale, when the multiracial family and their family dog are all blissed out–thanks to the resulting nature that now dominates their home—there is, in fact, a roofing company involved!
The story begins on the front endpapers. We see a maple seed helicoptering through an open window.
They name their tree, Tree. And Tree makes for a happier, closer, and more meditative existence. They slow down and take a breath. Their lives are
filled with love, color, and contentment. It’s a great reminder to get out into nature (or bring it home).
Let’s just hope that, somehow, our precious national treasures, the parks and other protected lands, survive the current climate.
“The illustrations for this book were rendered in a mix of watercolor patterns, textures, and digital drawings, layered in Adobe Fresco.”
The visual result is an expressive, memorable trip of
family members along with their adorable and expressive dog. And, of course, Tree, in all its glory!
