San Francisco has long been known for its iconic Victorians and tourist attractions on the north side of town, but there are some interesting areas on the south eastern shore of the city. These places are less widely known as they're oriented toward the locals not tourists. Areas such as Heron's Head, Warm Water Cove and Crane Cove are all within the broader industrial area of the city and are thought of as "urban parks". Wonderfully unexpected parks.
Heron's Head is supposedly a wild life refuge for migrating birds, but along one side is a huge warehouse used by the local garbage company. Discarded timber from past purposes and refuse floating in the bay water shared by the bird sanctuary sends a mixed message. I visited Heron's Head for the first time during a King Tide which gave the experience a nightmarish quality. Fences and the curve topped pier long in disuse were submerged under the lapping water and waves washed over the path I was on. It was a bit scary. When I later returned at low tide the place seemed quite benign, but still strange - a unexplainable combination of blocky industrial buildings, disintegrating piers, huge shiny ships, floating debris and lovely birds.
Warm Water Cove hasn't been improved despite governmental lip service of good intentions and still deserves its longtime nickname of Toxic Beach. At the entrance to the "park" a gutted warehouse seems to be disintegrating into the bay next to a charred pier. Birds struggle to find food in disgusting shoreline sludge. Long ago discarded tires stick out of the beach sand. The top of a submerged car appears at low tide. One only hopes there isn't a missing person's remains within. Homeless men have blankets and cardboard arranged in the weeds. "RIP Pepe" was recently painted on a wall enclosing the park. Some kind soul puts kibble out for the resident stray cat and Canadian geese.
Crane Cove, though tidied up is also, like the other 2 parks, a visual anomaly. An inviting curved beach and an ample grass area are at the north end. South of that is a large central area of cement marked at either end by now purposeless towers and punctuated in the center with a line of cement squares. This area at one time was a slipway for launching newly built ships. To the east of the slipway are warehouses long in disuse, fenced off as though the fencing will make them disappear. But the warehouses with their broken windows and dilapidated and graffitied siding are in many ways much more fascinating than the spartan park itself. Visually it's an inexplicable disconnect, but also an indication of an evolving neighborhood.
These three "urban parks" remain fascinating to me even after multiple visits because of the inherent strangeness I find in each of them. A visual disconnect of purpose and reality and yet, this in and of its self provides reason to visit Heron's Head, Warm Water Cove and Crane Cove again and again.
