In at least the third incident of vandalism in the last few months at the former Great Highway, now the park Sunset Dunes, a public piano at the park was damaged “beyond repair” over the weekend, after another installation had just been vandalized.

There was yet more car-free Great Highway controversy Monday morning when the Chronicle published their analysis "Has the Great Highway closure led to a traffic nightmare?" unleashing another round of partisan arguments among those who want cars back on the highway, and those who prefer the car-free area that is now called Sunset Dunes.

But there was already more controversy brewing in that Ocean Beach area, as the Chronicle had noted on Sunday that two acts of vandalism had hit some of the art installations at the park, with one vandalism incident apparently happening last Thursday, and another Friday night or Saturday morning.

Before any jumps to conclusions that the vandalism may have been related to Saturday’s anti-Trump protests, the incidents of vandalism both occurred prior to Saturday’s protests (one of which was at Ocean Beach).

On Saturday morning, it was discovered that a piano that had been placed in the park for the last few months was intentionally damaged. The organization Friends of Sunset Dunes said in a press release that the piano was damaged “likely beyond repair,” and that “Vandals broke all but 10 keys and 2 of 3 hinges for the cover.”

Friends of Sunset Dunes added in that same release that “JFK Promenade has had pianos for years, none of which have been vandalized.”

And on Thursday, June 12, there was severe vandalism to a faux phone booth installation along the park’s walkway, according to KTVU. KTVU says that the installation “was found with its phone ripped from the installation and surrounding wood structures taken apart and defaced.”

“Attacking art that brings people together is ugly behavior,” Friends of Sunset Dunes president Lucas Lux said in the press release. “San Franciscans can disagree, but should do so respectfully. Voters chose to open the park, and we should respect the will of the voters instead of lashing out and destroying things that bring the community joy and peace.”

That said, we don’t know if any of this vandalism was related to the Great Highway, or any frustration with cars being banned from that thoroughfare. A mid-March incident of graffiti on a mural was just a bunch of spray-painted lines. A separate tagging of that mural two weeks later featured the words “gentriffy” and “Your bringing trouble” [sic and sic], which could be seen as anti-park sentiment.

It could also just be that these two latest incidents of vandalism happened because the park is in a fairly remote location, and it’s an easy place to perform bad acts unnoticed. So this may have nothing to do with cars being removed from the Great Highway, or it could be another act of pushback from frustrated west side residents who resent that a stretch of their highway was taken away.  

Related: Great Highway Walls Vandalized Yet Again, With Angry Graffiti From Apparent Park-Haters [SFist]

Image: @RecParkSF via Twitter