Remember how this is happening? Yeah. The long-debated, long-awaited renovation of Dolores Park is actually, finally taking place starting in January, and it's going to begin with the closure of the entire northern half of the park, a.k.a. Hipster Hill and Fixie Flats.
This is likely going to mean a social apocalypse in which everyone must crowd together near the playground and on the Gay Beach during the first half of 2014, and this is both exciting and frightening. What could go wrong? Oh, surely many things. And everyone better get used to full and partial nudity with much designer underwear amongst the gays.
Perhaps we can all live in peace and harmony, and perhaps fewer people will go to the park once there are big fences around it and such. Heaven fore-fend we should have a really warm spring.
As reported earlier, the renovation is going to entail some new pathways, the demolition of the existing clubhouse/restrooms, the addition of two new restrooms at either corner of the park (near the basketball courts and in the hillside next to the playground). Also, the bicycle polo people got one of the courts deemed a "multi-use" court, and they may be found playing bicycle polo there, like in the Portlandia credits. There will be a new central path connecting the different parts of the park, and following the northern-half renovations, a new path from 19th Street to the playground is going in.
THEN, starting around August of next year if things stay on schedule, the southern half of the park will close, with the exception of the playground. This means no Gay Beach for next year's Indian Summer, even though all they're really doing to that section is putting in some paving stones and benches up at the lookout point at 20th and Church. Also, we're now told, a "pissoir" is going in near that corner as well, so that maybe the gays will stop peeing in the bushes across the Muni tracks.
You can read all about it at Mission Local, and how there's been a $2 to $4 million cost overrun due to the fact that things were so delayed by all the community input meetings, and a lengthy environmental impact review. Now that the economy's stronger, contractor bids are getting more pricey.
