an unlikely urban garden
Walking up Polk on this weekend day with no intentionality, just a sense that I should put one foot in front of the other, heading south towards downtown. At noon, around the intersection at California, I remembered that Saigon Sandwich in Little Saigon in the Tenderloin has these delectable banh-mi, which have stayed an affordable $5 all these years. And so I headed there.
With a banh-mi siu mai and small carton of coconut water in hand, I walked up Larkin towards Civic Center, where I'd find a spot to sit and have lunch. A few blocks up, saw that the Tenderloin People's Garden was open, with a few folks in there tending to plots. As I'd never been in there, and seeing as I could add a new point to my Community Gardens of SF map, I walked in and found a shaded garden table and chairs towards the back, where I sat and unwrapped the sandwich and gaze at the surroundings.
This garden at the Tenderloin neighborhood has an unexpectedly epic (and quite unusual) view of City Hall and the Civic Center Square. It certainly qualifies as an urban oasis, with particular organic poignance and significance because of where it is located.