This week: attracting monarch butterflies, exploring local tide pools, beautifying an Ocean Beach bathroom, and illuminating the park. Plus, ‘Oakland is Proud 2’ mural, long lost love letters, a Haight-Ashbury storytelling series, and Levi’s fashion through the ages.
Night roots
A mile of illuminated installations has settled into the Botanical Garden at Golden Gate Park, turning the usual loop into an evening walk lined with shifting color. The route moves through redwoods, open lawns, and fern canyons, where the lights take on different shapes and rhythms depending on the terrain.
Lightscape runs through January 4, with discounted tickets on select dates for those using SNAP, EBT, or Medi-Cal. — Broke-Ass Stuart
East 12th reverberation
Legendary Oakland graffiti artist Del Phresh’s updated “OAKLAND IS PROUD 2” mural on East 12th Street revives the bold lettering he first painted in the 1980s — the same style that once flashed across the credits of ‘90s sitcom Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper and helped broadcast Oakland’s swagger far beyond the East Bay.
Community painters — including members of TDK, the East Bay graffiti crew founded by the late Mike “Dream” Francisco, plus Dream’s son Akil — recently helped bring the piece to life. The group plans to hold a “The Kings of the East Bay” event next summer. — KQED
Threads of influence
San Francisco’s Levi’s Vault has briefly opened its doors for a special exhibition tracing more than a century of jeans across stages, red carpets, and rehearsal rooms. From Freddie Mercury’s 501s to Beyoncé’s Swarovski-studded jackets, and Britney and Justin’s all-denim moment, the exhibition shows how denim shaped music and style.
Levi’s historian Tracey Panek guides visitors through these cultural footprints, revealing both the iconic and the unexpected. The Vault at 1155 Battery Street runs through December 18, with free admission. — CBS San Francisco
Voices in residence
At Haight and Ashbury, the Doolan-Larson House has become a stage for stories. Over the past months, Haight Street Voice has recorded ten episodes in its historic parlors, capturing conversations with figures like musician Mickey Hart, visual artist Woody LaBounty, and journalist Ben Fong-Torres about the neighborhood’s layers of music, counterculture, and local life.
The building, now under San Francisco Heritage, is inviting proposals to reimagine its future as a public cultural space, carrying forward the spirit of the street while opening doors to what’s next. — San Francisco Heritage
Paper trails
A trove of century-old letters traveled from San Francisco to New Jersey and back again, bridging decades of separation. Wendi Shaw, a New Jersey woman who collects and researches historic correspondence, tracked down the Olsen letters’ rightful owners and reunited them with the couple’s granddaughters.
She also located families for other letters she found along the way. She treats each letter as a piece of history, making sure it finds its way back to the family to which it belongs. — NBC Bay Area
Garden invitation
Want butterflies in your garden? Plant nectar-rich flowers and host plants like milkweed, pipevine, and herbs such as dill, parsley, and fennel. These plants feed caterpillars, provide a place for eggs, and help pollinate other blooms.
Avoid pesticides, leave leaves in flower beds, and create small natural habitats to support their life cycle. With these choices, gardeners can attract and sustain local butterfly populations. — Marin Independent Journal
Beach blooms
Two women have turned a windswept Ocean Beach restroom into a tiny flower shop. Joy Perdue has cleaned the shoreline for more than a decade, saving stray cups to use as vases, and Jennifer Ázima met her while working the nearby Pit Stop restroom.
Their friendship grew into a shared project: placing small bouquets in the bathrooms at Judah and La Playa. Beachcombed finds, garden clippings, and weekly flowers from Perdue’s husband now brighten the tiled room, drawing regulars who stop in just to see what’s new. — Mission Local
Tides in winter light
The coast shifts dramatically this season as the year’s biggest tides return, lifting the shoreline before dropping low enough to reveal whole hidden worlds. The next king tides will arrive December 4–6 and January 1–3, exposing anemones, urchins, and starfish across spots like Bolinas and Moss Beach.
These winter lows briefly turn familiar beaches into rocky galleries, though strong surf and sneaker waves keep things unpredictable. For tide poolers, those December and January dates offer the clearest window. — Secret San Francisco
Top Image: Levi’s Vault
Previously:Field Notes: Local Landmark Love, the Visitacion Valley Library, and Faith No More’s Roddy Bottum
