April 12th, 2025 was the day of celebration for San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio who spearheaded the campaign which made Sunset Dunes Park, “California’s largest pedestrianization project” a reality.
Supervisor Joel Engardio the leader of the campaign which made Sunset Dunes Parka reality celebrates the moment as a beaming Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg looks on.
It was a historic day in San Francisco on a sunny April Saturday as thousands turned out for the formal opening of Sunset Dunes Park.The culmination of the victorious Proposition K in the November 2024 election as 55 percent of San Francisco voters approved creation of the two mile park alongside the Pacific Ocean.
Liz Heidhues flashes the “V” for Victory sign as the Snowy Plover waves approvingly
A parade of dignitaries spoke at the event including, but not limited to, Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg, representatives from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), the California Coastal Commission, the California Academy of Arts and Science and a representative from Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office.
Sunset Dunes Park. A happy place for people of all ages.
The beautiful Pacific Ocean adjacent to Sunset Dunes Park
The mural celebrating Sunset Dunes Park near Judah Street.
Bikes, bikes and more bikes on Sunset Dunes Park
Park Rangers have a quiet day at the Sunset Dunes Park inaugural festival
A group of Sunset Dunes Park celebrants
San Francisco Chronicle – 4.14.2025
Sunset Dunes Park emcee Unique Derique juggled many responsibilities during the inaugural party.
A jazz rock fusion band ‘Children of Lucy’ provided musical entertainment at Sunset Dunes Park.
Sunset Dunes Park is a “PARK IN PROGRESS.”
One celebrant steps up to get a better view.Sunset Dunes Park is welcoming to everyone.
An enterprising citizen offered lemonade to the attendees.
Back home after the celebration blogger Lee proudly displays his “OFFICIAL SOUVENIR” ribbon
The old San Francisco along the Pacific Coast shorelineBanned forever from Sunset Dunes Park in San Francisco
The losers trying to Recall the leader of Sunset Dunes Park
A small group of obnoxious motorists gunned their engines and tried to disrupt the joyful event. Their rotten entitled motorist behavior fell flat when the City blocked the nearby streets to all vehicular traffic. “One family in the protest parade screamed in unison out of their open car windows, mother and children lending their voices to the cacophony. Another protestor, revving his motorcycle, declined questions, and revved only louder when a park supporter asked him to quiet down.“I hate them,” said the supporter, Dee, who withheld her last name for privacy. The Great Highway neighbor and SFUSD paraeducator said she had been on the fence about the issue, but the protestors helped make up her mind. ‘They have convinced me. They’re just a bunch of screaming, tan-truming 3-year-olds,’ “she said. Reported in SF Standard. SF Chronicle photo – Stephen Lam
These guys intentionally blocked traffic on the Lower Great Highway and blew their horns repeatedly. But it was barely audible in the park. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick
Liz Heidhues stands at the bus stop en route to the Sunset Dunes Park celebration. Blogger Lee and Liz have never owned a car. We have made our way through life in San Francisco raising two children utilizing bicycles, public transit and our feet. Using our bodies, our good health, our wits. Never succumbing to the typical American false need for a climate destroying car.
Top photo – Sunset Dunes Park ribbon cutting – Liz Heidhues
Say goodbye to the the Dragon which has adorned our front door the past year.
Good things may be coming for the Merry Makers of The Chinese New Year celebration, when the Chinese calendar cycles to a new zodiac animal.
A bag of “Peace and Joyz” sweets, apples, a New Year cake and a realistic wooden snake in the blogger’s kitchen.Sunset neighborhood shoppers check out the oranges and tangerines on Irving Street.Flowers are desirable for the Chinese home to invite prosperity, growth and good fortune in the upcoming New Year.
But only pain and suffering are in store for those poor animals destined to be the celebrated delicacies for the groaning tables of the Chinese New Year feast.
I wouldn’t want to be a Dungeness crab waiting for a buyer to take me home and boil me alive for their New Year’s dinner.
A shopper inspects the crabs who are in their painful final throes of life before landing on a New Year dinner table
Last Sunday my gaze was riveted by a crowd of happy people hovering around a makeshift stall outside a market in the outer Sunset District of San Francisco.
I saw a vendor selling live Dungeness crabs, many with legs broken off, to a throng of captivated shoppers.
The shoppers were poking and dangling the crustaceans by a claw up in the air, to inspect whether one of the sentient creatures would be suitable for purchase.
Pulling the crab to its final destination.
Afterwards, they would toss the poor thing back into the box from which it had been plucked — upside down on the heap of its brethren crustaceans stacked like logs — to thrash futilely about, as it tried to right itself and crawl away to escape a cruel death.
The unnecessary pain and suffering the human species inflicts on the animals it kills and eats is enough to stop a thinking person in their tracks.
Screenshot
Sunset neighborhood residents of all ages and types on Irving Street.
I looked at the oblivious faces of the shoppers around me.
Chinese New Year celebrants on their way home with their completed shopping.
I had to force myself to turn my attention back to the purpose for which I had cycled from the Richmond District, through Golden Gate Park, and to the Outer Sunset District for.
I had cycled to Irving Street to find a cardboard cut-out to adorn my front door.
The Snakes hangs atop the store next to a beautiful lantern.
Every Chinese New Year’s, I put the lunar animal associated with the new lunar year on my door to invite good luck and happiness into my home where I have lived 41 years. This time I needed to put the Snake out. To my chagrin, I discovered I was lacking the Snake in the extensive collection of Chinese New Year’s cardboard cut-outs I have saved.
I possessed all the other astrological signs of the Chinese lunar calendar, from the Rat to two versions of the Pig.
Blogger Liz’s stash of Chinese Lunar New Year animals. Carefully collected, embellished and stored over the years.
But I was missing the deepest thinker and the enigma of the Chinese zodiac cycle. The sixth sign in the lunar cycle of the 12 animal signs. The Snake.
I scoured all the stores I knew within hiking and biking distance of our home and finally found a decent facsimile of a Snake. It was hanging in the 22nd Ave and Irving housewares store where I buy my bamboo steamers and toilet bowl brushes.
A housewares store with a cornucopia of merchandise. During New Year’s the traditional red envelopes, fully stacked in this store, are a big attraction.
But this Snake had a happy and cherub-like face that I had never seen on the supernatural reptile that Western culture considers evil and cunning.
I had to buy embellishments to add to this angelic-looking Snake to give it the aura that we all attach to snakes.
When I asked the owner of the Richmond District’s Clement St store, where I have shopped for over two decades to buy my Chinese New Year’s decorations, why was it so hard to find a snake, she said to me: “People don’t like the Snake. They’re afraid of snakes. They won’t buy them. So I sell different kinds of things instead.”
After admiring the Snake and the other purchases I had made on Irving St, while wandering up and down its stretch crowded with shops catering to Chinese culture, palm trees, cars, and shoppers in search of Red Envelopes, I realized it had grown dark.
Oranges and tangerines- round and golden in color-symbolize fullness and wealth for prosperity in the New Year.Sword lilies set the stage for prosperity on the journey through the New Year.
I packed the things I’d gotten into my pannier and rode my 30-year old bicycle back to a dark and deserted Golden Gate Park.
It was peaceful and quiet there after the noise and bustle of Irving Street.
City dwellers had surrendered the space to the dark, a serene and philosophical time when all the people and cars pack up and go home, leaving this natural space to its wildlife and a few unhoused denizens to enjoy.
A quiet scene in Golden Gate Park nestled between the Sunset and Richmond districts of San Francisco. Photo – Lee Heidhues
Top photo. The Snake is a supernatural animal able to wriggle out of its skin to exchange it for a new one as time marches on.
Lee's Perspective 