SF’s most joyful jungle came and went in a day

Sometimes you need to get off the internet and touch grass. Other times, grass alone isn’t going to cut it, and only a full-on jungle will calm the nerves. That’s what neighbors got to do Thursday in adorable but densely urban Cole Valley, where a tangle of greenery sprouted on the asphalt late in the morning. Barely 12 hours later, it was gone.

Filled with pink-red hibiscus, rare palms, and fragrant lavender, this transient urban forest was the centerpiece of the second Cole Valley Pop-Up Town Square. Taking up most of Carl Street between Cole and Clayton, where the N Judah’s train tracks veer off the asphalt and into the tunnel on their way downtown, the event brought hundreds of all ages out for hours of Hula-Hooping, pizza, jugglers, musical performances, and frolicking amid a lush, temporary woodland. 

The pop-ups are a project of the Green Street Fund in partnership with culture production studio Into the Streets, which organizes outdoor events like last month’s Downtown Hoedown, the Civic Joy Fund, and landscape architect Alec Hawley of FS Studio. The aim is to bring nature to a neighborhood that’s heavy on gorgeous Edwardian homes but light on public open spaces.

Local gardening legend Flora Grubb delivered the makeshift grove from her eponymous nursery in the Bayview via 18-wheeler. She got involved because of a desire to get people off their screens and couches after years when online arguments or likes counted as a form of community. 

“It’s literally countercultural now to just leave the house and do something together outside,” Grubb said, as children played hopscotch among bubbles from a bubble machine and passing Muni trains rang their bells. “It’s bizarre that that’s where we’ve landed.”

Thursday’s Pop-Up Town Square was the second of three — the next is June 12 — with plans for additional street parties in the works. The organizers said it costs them just as much to leave the greenery up all weekend as it does to break it down the same day. So next month’s forest may remain in place for almost 96 hours. (Security guards will be in place at night to deter theft.)

“Making a space that feels as welcoming and inviting to kids as it does to adults is like having an outfit that works just as well on a sunny San Francisco morning and when the fog rolls in,” said Luke Spray, Green Street Fund’s managing director.

Around the block was Cole Valley Nights, a simultaneous monthly market with musicians, jewelry vendors, and Jamaican food from Peaches Patties. While the two events are separate, they’re part of the same city-sanctioned Entertainment Zone. That means you can grab a beer from Cole Valley Tavern and legally drink it at the forested pop-up.

Residents support the effort, even if it means giving up their driveways for a few hours. Charles Bennett, whose home was right in the middle of things, was all for it. Wearing a Mardi Gras harlequin hat, the 70-year-old retired nurse dragged costumed mannequins onto the sidewalk for an impromptu garage sale. He made a little money at last month’s pop-up, he said. “It’s festive. People like it.”

In 2022, Bennett and his wife sold their home of 18 years on nearby Downey Street and moved to Denver to be near family, only to find themselves homesick for their beloved neighborhood. “People were saying, ‘Not only will you not ever get back into San Francisco, you will never get into Cole Valley,’” he recalled. “And my wife said, ‘Oh, hell yeah, we will.’”

Each month’s event is informed by the one before. For example, Spray and Grubb sourced sturdier chairs this time and trucked in smaller plants to provide better sightlines. The goal, Spray said, is to close that block of Carl Street to traffic. Judging by the feedback, neighbors seem to be in favor of the idea — which is entirely up to them. Like many pop-ups before it, Cole Valley’s might become permanent.