My little slide park featured in the NYT

My little micropark on my little San Francisco street was featured in the New York Times this week (thanks Mom!)

I didn't know the history.  But I do like the various little hillside parks in my neighborhood.  I've adopted this one.  I regularly walk the few houses over to the slide park at Esmeralda and Winfield Streets and pick up trash, sweep and remove graffiti.  It's a never-ending job.  Especially the graffiti.  On a tip from the guy who keeps up the park lying immediately downslope from this one (no slide, just a well-maintained rock outcropping and planted landscape), I bought gloves and paint thinner.  I pour the thinner on my gloves and directly rub off the graffiti with the glove surface, because the graffiti is usually tough.

The article has it right.  (Usually) good natured teens slide down in the evening.  Sometimes smoking and drinking, but usually not.  There are the occasional gang/drug sellers there, but they don't persist.  And a homeless guy has recently taken to quietly sleeping on the one bench that is protected from the street.  During the day, families bring their kids to the slide.  There is always some cardboard around that some use to get real speed on the slide.  I throw away the scraps when they build up.

The other day, Yvette and I were fascinated by a guy rolling a tennis ball down the slide to his young dog, who somehow caught the ball at the end of the slide, even though the ball was moving almost too fast to see at the bottom.