Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

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Blocker, No. 27: South Park St. in South of Market

It’s early on a Saturday afternoon, and we’ve somehow found our way to Paris.

OK, this isn’t Parisist. We’re not in Paris. Rather, we’re poking around South Park between 2nd, 3rd, Brannan, and Bryant Sts., where arrondissement 94107’s narrow ellipse of green space merely feels a bit Parisian.

The scene in the park is, for the most part, typical and ephemeral: young parents with their kids at the playground, couples chatting on benches or picnicking at tables, dogs and their attendant humans. Falling leaves pepper the ground with muted autumn color. South Park’s twist on the familiar neighborhood park theme, however, is the regular presence of down-and-out’ers at its west end. Nobody seems to demonize the two or three unshowered men hanging about, and while we’re not interested in joining them for a game of checkers or anything, it seems to be a case of no harm, no foul – at least on this afternoon.

Surrounded by South of Market’s wide-street bustle and flanked by a jumble of building styles, South Park’s enclosure is easy to miss from 2nd or 3rd. Plenty of outsiders missed it for several decades during the previous century, when it was home to bonfire-burning hobos who greatly outnumbered the handful who loiter these days. Before its lengthy slum era, outsiders simply missed it as a matter of not being allowed in: South Park was initially constructed in the 1850s as the centerpiece of one of San Francisco’s earliest snooty communities, locked gates and all. We briefly consider sharing these fascinating bits of local lore with “the gritty element” on the south-facing bench before giving our silly outreach idea a pass.

South Park’s original model was Euro-urban, and this hasn’t changed. The area’s alluring mix of bistros, apartments, small businesses, flora, slides, and swing sets only enhances San Francisco’s standing as a European-influenced city, as do the vaguely Danish accents of the pair of men seated at a sidewalk table outside The Butler & the Chef. The French toast on one guy’s plate looks mighty tasty.

Office vacancies here appear to be relatively low, although a couple of spaces are available. One gentleman even offers to show us one as he unlocks his door at 156 South Park. We politely decline, as we’ve just gotten a sudden photo request from a small group of giggling young women who clearly appear to be in from out of town. A few moments later, we hand the camera back to its owner and ask where they’re from. “South Bay. We’re going shopping,” she chuckles back. Our first-instinct parting comment - “Give our best to El Pollo Loco when you get home” – goes unsaid, and is quickly swapped out for the more benign, “Enjoy.”

Back toward 3rd St., the entrance to skin care center Mary Thé catches our eye. The vault-like door appears to weigh approximately six tons, which of course would be far too heavy for even the beefiest skin care technician to pry open. Adjacent to Mary Thé, a four-letter word is graphically applied to a window, and the four-letter word is “slap.” Later research reveals Slap to be a consulting firm, but nothing can completely suck the enjoyment out of seeing “slap” etched on a window’s glass.

Elsewhere around the west half of the park oval, creeping vines tangle with artful design for the mantle of Defining Visual Characteristic at South Park. The midnight blue artist studio at 123, set well off the sidewalk and fronted by a large slate brick area, sits between a subtly yellow flat and a red brick structure. The flat next door features an elegant, white entryway. Across the park at 106, and a few doors down from Caffe Centro, we’re drawn to the cast iron lettering that tops the gate at Gran Oriente Filipino, a residential hotel for elderly Filipino men. Foliage plays a flanking role at all three spots.

And then, abruptly, a large branch crashes down from one of the magnolia trees that ring the park. Such drama! The falling menace lands square in the middle of the eastbound corridor of South Park St. Fortunately, traffic is light, and no person or property is injured. As the nearest witness, we exercise our civic duty and drag it out of the street and over to the park. We then live out our hobo fantasy by dumping the dead wood into a round metal trash bin, building an old-time bonfire from it, and eating beans from a can. May oui.

(Photos by the author.)