Travel Log - 10/01/2011 - Bernal Hill, San Francisco, CA
From charlesreid1
I have noticed a curious phenomena about San Francisco, which, for all its diversity, has this funny tendency to aggregate into neighborhoods that exhibit surprising homogeneity. Bernal Hill is a good example of this. If you hold out your left hand face-down, and imagine that it is now a map of San Francisco, Bernal Hill is at the second knuckle from the top on the first finger. Downtown San Francisco is at the first knuckle from the top on the first finger, so as you can imagine, the hill gives a nice view of downtown.
This neighborhood is quiet, has the feel of a suburb, and is laced with trees. The entire neighborhood is built on the slopes of Bernal Hill, and the hill is never more than a ten minute walk away. But there's something that ties the community together, more than the Hill: well-behaved dogs.
It seems that every resident owns a dog of some shape and size, and every restaurant, coffee shop, bookstore, and laundromat has its share of polite, well-behaved, and eager dogs, either interacting excitedly with each other or sitting patiently waiting for the laundry to finish or the meal to be over. It's the one common thread among everyone in this community. There are rich and poor people, young and old people, all different nationalities, but everyone's got a polite dog.
The polite dog phenomena was exhibited by dogs without collars. The first collar-less dog I stumbled upon was some large, loud, and very intimidating species of canine, sleeping on a porch so that I didn't notice him until his mouth was near ear level. He then barked once, loudly, and then stood watching me as I skittered nervously up the hill away from the dog.
On the hill there were, of course, many many dogs, but here too many dogs had no collar, and many were also well-mannered and polite to others of their own and their owners' species. I spent some time on the hill photographing and drawing the view of downtown and the surrounding area. The top of the Hill is a large and intimidating-looking fenced-off microwave or radio transceiver.
You can walk around the entire hill, which is quite small, and get 360-degree views of San Francisco. You can also walk around a 1-mile road that goes around the base of the hill, and also get more 360-degree views of San Francisco. There are fantastic views of the Bay Bridge, the Twin Peaks, the tops of the trees in Golden Gate Park near the park's Haight Street entrance, downtown San Francisco, the Castro and Mission districts, the John McLaren Park and the San Francisco 49ers stadium to the south, San Francisco General Hospital, and the entire San Francisco bay to the east. I was even able to spot the UC Berkeley International Center across the bay, a large and distinct white building.
The hill itself is surrounded on all sides by houses (all with fantastic views). To get onto the hill, streets ending at the hill can be taken to their terminus, and the rest is a short hike. Alternatively, there are one or two roads that go to a parking lot on the hill. I took Eugenia Avenue to Elsie Street, then through the Elsie Community Garden to a trail that led to the top of the hill. I came back down the same way. This provides quick access to Mission Street, which lies to the west of the hill. Alternatively, it is always a short walk to Cortland Avenue, a main road that cuts directly through the hills of the Bernal Heights neighborhood and dumps you out onto main roads on either side (freeway to the east, Mission to the west). The freeway to the west (I-280) bounds Bernal Heights in that direction.
Also on Cortland Avenue is Red Hill Books, in the process of changing its name to Dog-Eared Books. The bookshop was fairly small, with a very focused selection on fiction, poetry, and childrens' books, and there were some very interesting books in the travel and philosophy sections. I found some interesting books on historical San Francisco. While I was there I picked up a book with 12 historical walking tours through different neighborhoods of the city, with various landmarks and buildings of interest in each neighborhood.
(Speaking of historical references, Red Hill Books is a historical reference itself to the nickname for Bernal Hill during the Vietnam War for all of the anti-war activists that moved to the area.)
I bought three books at the bookstore:
- Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails through the City's Past by Rand Richards
- Winner Take Nothing by Ernest Hemingway
- Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
After my bookstore visit, it had gotten dark, and I got some coffee and went back up to the top of the hill. The night view was spectacular, even better than the daytime view, and the place was empty and very quiet. It felt like being on the hills east of Salt Lake City and looking out at the city at night: feeling just removed enough from the city to make it feel like a distant place. A pleasant island of quiet in the middle of San Francisco.
How to get there:
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