Dolores Park

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: How to Find Your Friends in the City's Most Crowded Park

“Heeeey yea hi? Hi can you hear me? Ugh AT&T … oh there you are. Yea we're sort of like … by the tennis courts? But up the hill a little bit? Like to the left. If you draw a straight line from the bathrooms to the tennis courts we're like 2/3rds of the way down from the bathroom. Oh between the first tennis court and the bathroom. The first tennis court if you're on 18th & Dolores. Can you see me? I'm waiving … in the pink bra top? I'm with Melanie but she's sitting down near the pile of bikes. Do you see me? Okay hold on I'll come down and find you.”

No longer! Now its just “Come find me under the 20 ft tall silver shiny windsock.” Boom. Done. 

Apparently People Would Even Rather Go To the Castro Street Fair Than Hang Out In Dolores

There were a million things going on in the city this weekend - the government was using our tax dollars to test out their new Burning Man art cars in the sky, everyone was out in straw fedoras Instagramming free music, your supervisor and his fiance were having a roof party in North Beach, we're all suddenly huge Oakland A's fans, and apparently football is still a thing.

But I didn't do any of that because I thought chillin in Dolo was the cool thing to do on the weekends. I put on my cuuutest romper, even made it to brunch in a timely fashion, and headed over to Dolo with my ladypals only to discover that everyone was off YOLOing elsewhere! What gives?! Is Dolo over? Is Speedway Meadows the new Dolo? Did we officially surrender ground to NIMBY Noe Valley families? Am I a NIMBY now?!

Ax or Machete-Wielding Lumberjack Chops Down Dolores Park Palm Tree

Because the J-Church needs to be made slower, some bored blade-owners decided to take advantage of the warm weather last night and cut up a palm tree along the park's Muni tracks.  Fortunately, they only made it about halfway through the tree before giving up.  But due to the risk of it collapsing onto a train or some crazed off-leash puppy, the city finished the job this afternoon.  Dolores Park Works reports:

The [Park Department's] arborist declared the tree an immediate hazard, [as] it leaned over the MUNI tracks, and work began to take it down early this afternoon. The crew arrived, just as the crowd of sunbathers were gathering on Gay Beach.  The tree crew needed to bring in two large cherry-picker trucks and a large pick-up through the Gay terrace.  A path was cleared through the growing crowd and by 2 pm, the tree was down.

And here's a small photo of the sliced tree:

[Dolores Park Works]

Did Anyone Lose a Pair of Skis in Dolores Park?

I've been trying to figure out why these were even there in the first place.  There wasn't any weird tag sale or anything, so I'm struggling to put it together, but these are my best guesses:

  1. Man misinterprets invitation from unusually chatty friend to go “hit the slopes” in Dolores Park.
  2. It's 80 degrees out and people's brains are being boiled.
  3. Hot new look for summer: missy-matchy with the weather

Anyway, if you did lose a pair of vintage Rossignols, they can most likely be found outside the Carl's Jr on Market5.

Critical Ass to Give You Something Other Than Drinking to do in the Park

Parks.  Man, they grow up so fast these days.  It feels like just yesterday that young Dolores could drink from when the fog burned off until it rolled back in.  But not anymore.  Oh no.  Now her metabolism has slowed down and she has to exercise to maintain her sleek 96-year-old body.

First it was yoga in the park, a convenient way to be social and stay buff without having to spend money on a studio and icky stuff like that.  More money for cold beer and maybe cold water, amirite?

But yoga wasn't quite cutting it.  We got rid of the weed dude so we'd stop eating three dinners a day, but the pounds we still piling up.  So here comes Critical Ass, a spandex-inspired dance class on Sundays throughout our summer.  It even includes Doritos:

It's not entirely clear when this sweaty 80s-inspired shitshow starts, but it's either this or next Sunday at 3pm.

Ganja Treats Dude Busted!

Here's what eyewitness tumblrer Just Crazy Enough to Work said about the incident:

Have no fear the real ganja man is here. But he’s being lead away by several plain clothes cops. Makes me angry.
Cop quote: “you gonna run?”
Bastards!

Looks like SFPD's pointless Dolores Park crackdown is still in full effect?

Dolores Park's New Playground Also Makes One Helluva Freestyle Course

Full Frame Collective tells us all about it:

On a Sunday evening D Block, and a few others went to Dolores to ride the newly built playground. At the playground there’s a perfect slide to ride as a bank. We got there around dusk and there were still a bunch of kids playing so we waited it out. 

Sick!  Also, good on them for waiting it out and not plowing into the little intended users.

(And to see a sampling of what else FFC has been up to, give their Clocktower edit a watch:)

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