What do you do when you're waiting for the highway robbers at San Francisco Toyota to charge you too much to install a device on the bottom of your car to prevent thieves from stealing your catalytic converter for the third time during COVID? If you're me in June 2020, you walk to Rossi Playground, lie down in the grass, use your hoodie as a pillow, call your mom, and use your mask as a muffler because the wind is blowing so hard that she can't hear you.
Rossi Playground is officially Angelo J. Rossi Playground, but it's more than a playground. It's a park. A really-for-reals-this-time park with a large grass field with nice sloping edges, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, a pool (in the process of being remodeled), a playground, and even an annex across Edward Street called the Edward Street Annex.
I didn't spend as much time lying here as I thought I would, because the highway robbers finished sooner than they thought they would, but I did read two-and-a-half magazine articles, try to avoid petting a dog that I really wanted to pet but that I was afraid of petting because of COVID unsureness, and plan a very nice weekend that ended up coming true even though the pessimist in me knew it wouldn't so he didn't get his hopes up.
Since that fateful June day, I've returned twice: once with a Love N Haight (RIP but please come back ASAP) sandwich in hand, the other time for a socially distanced walk around the edges and then sit-down on that nice slope. That second time, the blankets we brought were large enough to make it comfortable and comfortable, physically and psychologically.
My favorite thing about Rossi Playground lately is that it reminds me of dear Lori and dear Willard. Lori for obvious reasons but Willard because Willard North transforms itself into Edward Street, and if you've been paying attention, my intrepid Yelp readers, you'll remember that Edward Street borders Rossi Playground. So I was lying in the grass next to the street that is the street in disguise that reminds me often of a brave Black woman who broke all kinds of barriers in the 1960s in New York and probably eventually in San Francisco as well, that kind, hardworking, happy soul who told Pam A. and me (and other gathered temporary coworkers) her story even though we had known her for quite some time and she had never said a word about it because she isn't vainglorious or self-promoting, and I didn't even know it! Willard North also reminds me of that random, kind of fizzly Matt Gonzalez fundraiser party I attended with my brother and his partner in 2003, but I really do believe that apartment was on Parsons Street, not Willard North, even though I'm not sure but I really am. And Parsons Street is cool too, but not as cool as Willard North or Arguello Boulevard.
Rossi Playground is excellent. I love it.
Fun fact: It's impossible to drive your car all the way around the park without also driving around some houses; the eastern side of the southern edge of the park borders houses but no street, which means that some people are able to open their windows and drop rotten tomatoes directly from their buildings into the park. read more