Visitacion Valley Community Center

 Posted by on October 6, 2011
Oct 062011
 
243 Leland Avenue
Visitacion Valley Community Center
Artist: Victor Mario Zaballa
A prolific and fascinating artist Victor Zaballa is an Aztec originally trained in aeronautical engineering in Mexico City. He has lived and worked in San Francisco for a number of years where he is a popular and respected member of the artist community. He works in every medium including cut paper, painting, tile, steel, wood, and wire sculpture, puppet theater, and music composition, performance and musical instrument invention and construction. His performing group “Obsidian Songs,” has been heard in numerous venues throughout California.  He has had a kidney transplant and is a very loud voice in the Latina community for organ donation and education.
Why windmills?  Rancho Canada de Guadalupe, La Visitacion y Rodeo Viejo was named in July 1777 by a party of Spanish priests and soldiers who lost their way in heavy fog while en route to the Presidio. Now called Visitacion Valley, this area was the only Mexican land grant within San Francisco deeded to an Anglo. Windmills pumped water to irrigate the fields of early settlers’ cattle farms, nurseries, and vegetable gardens, leading to the nickname “Valley of the Windmills.” Eventually the pastoral scenery gave way to a mix of housing and commerce, and today Visitacion Valley is one of the city’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods.

Geneva Terrace

 Posted by on June 7, 2011
Jun 072011
 
Viscitation Valley – Geneva Terrace – San Francisco
Corner of Schwerein and Velasco Streets

In the early 1960s, Joseph Eichler enlisted the help of architect Claude Oakland to design affordable housing in the Visitacion Valley.  They came up with the Geneva Terrace Townhouse complex that you can see behind the park and the Geneva Towers high rise apartment building.  The Townhouse complex covers 8 neighboring streets and isn’t what I think of Eichler architecture at all.  They are all identical in design, they are all 2 story and 4 bedroom homes.  What I absolutely loved was the repetition of the beautiful arched windows and the red-brick facade.  There are bars on most everyone’s doors and windows, but all the work is very ornamental, for that reason it has a real, French Quarter, New Orleans feel.

The park in front was recently renovated, to the tune of 2.2 million dollars and is called Kelloch Velasco Park.  It was filled with children and looked like a loved park.

The Geneva Towers, an 18-story twin-tower high rise apartment complex was located near the intersection of Garrison Avenue & Schwerin Street.  The towers had 573 apartments with varying floor plans.  The original goal of this project was to provide affordable rentals to working class professionals however the Towers eventually became subsidized housing for low-income residents.

In 1995, HUD closed the Geneva Towers which had become a hotbed for crime and was becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain and on May 16, 1998, the Geneva Towers were imploded.

According to the real estate agent in the area Townhomes in the Geneva Terrace development currently sell in the $400k-$550k price range (excruciatingly cheap for 4 bedrooms in the city).  I will admit however, there was a Rolls Royce parked in front of one of them, hmmmm.

Viscitation Valley – Rebar Art Consortium

 Posted by on June 6, 2011
Jun 062011
 
Corner of Leland Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard – Viscitation Valley – San Francisco

“Sprouting” from the sidewalk like stalks of organically grown street furniture, Street Life is a large-scale sculpture composed of surplus parking meter heads, painted dark orange, attached to tall, arcing steel poles. The sculpture marks the gateway to the entrance of what locals refer to as “downtown” Visitacion Valley.

The installation is by a team of artists called Rebar. According to Rebar founder Matthew Passmore, “Street Life encourages viewers to imagine new possibilities for automobile infrastructure that is outmoded. The street furnishings of today may well be the art supplies of tomorrow.”
Rebar’s website is a feast of eye candy for sculpture fans like me.  Their projects are just amazing.
This project was funded by the San Francisco Art Commission for $38,000.
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