Go Here Now is a first look at some of the newest, coolest places around — the ones we think are worth visiting.
A jogging dog walker keeps an excitable black lab on the landscaped trail. Children swing on a wooden bench as paper lanterns sway overhead. At the end of a concrete promenade dotted with white tables and chairs, a floating dock bobs on the tide. In the distance, four massive shipping cranes loom, framing the Oakland hills beyond.
This is India Basin Waterfront Park, a 9-month-old oasis on an inlet just north of Hunters Point. Formerly known as 900 Innes Ave., it was for decades an inaccessible relic of the neighborhood’s shipbuilding past. When it opened last fall, it gave residents of Bayview-Hunters Point five new acres of sloped and winding open space, with amenities such as a cafe and educational center called the Food Pavilion, open Saturday through Monday.
On weekends, the park hosts all sorts of events, from Family Day on first Saturdays to workshops on how home chefs can acquire cottage food permits to monthly “full moon” water ceremonies facilitated by local artists. Much of the programming is overseen by the park’s artist in residence, a joint project by the Arts Commission and Rec & Park.
Visit on a Wednesday afternoon, though, and you might have almost the whole thing to yourself (not counting the shorebirds). After a century of heavy industry and decades of decline, the ecosystem is showing signs of recovery. Raccoon tracks are visible when the tide is out. Wildflowers are still blooming, even in early July.
Access to the water is one of the main draws, according to David Froehlich, a project manager with San Francisco Recreation and Parks and a neighborhood resident. “People love the trail,” he said. “I see runners and bikers every time I’m there.”
Walking his poodle, Hardy, a Potrero Hill resident who gave his name as Terry said he comes to India Basin in part for its proximity to the water. “I love the views,” he said. “I commend the city for reclaiming it.”
India Basin isn’t finished. Over the next few years, it will double in size. Rec and Park purchased the 900 Innes property in 2014 and spent years cleaning it up ahead of last fall’s debut. Tons of bay fill were removed, but unlike many other sites in the area, Rec & Park says there was no radioactive contamination.
Sometime in the next few months, with help from a federal grant, renovations will begin at the adjacent, similarly named India Basin Shoreline Park, which was initially constructed in the 1990s as a trade-off for SFO runway expansion and will close until 2027. When that project is complete, the combined spaces — still called India Basin Waterfront Park — will fill in a key section of the larger Bay Trail that urban planners hope one day encircles the region.
Froehlich notes that the site was a center of boat-building and repair. India Basin’s waters are shallow, and before bridges crossed the bay, flat-bottomed schooners for transporting goods were constructed amid its tidal mudflats. Echoes of that era are still felt today. The restored, circa-1875 Shipwright’s Cottage crowns the park, and a separate structure houses Rocking the Boat, an organization that teaches young people how to build and sail vessels.
Froehlich says India Basin was designed with residents’ concerns at every step, so as not to spur additional gentrification by “greenification.” It is a worry: Next door to the park, Burner-beloved collaborative industrial-art studio The Box Shop will be forced to vacate its home by the end of the year, its lease having run out.
Another amenity at India Basin is as attractive as it is necessary: public restrooms. A gleaming, blue-tiled building contains a bank of stalls that were nothing short of immaculate every time The Standard visited, right down to the ample rolls of toilet paper. Based on the feedback Froehlich has received, park-goers seem to appreciate the cleanliness. “They’re probably our most popular item.” After the view, of course.