Glen Park's Next Murals Are Headed for the Corners You Can't Park On

The Bosworth pedestrian bridge at Lippard Avenue is blue now. Public Works painted it in March 2026, and in May five pillars got tile mosaics made by artist Ross Holzman of the Create Peace Project with students from the Glen Park school next door. On September 26, dozens of neighbors came to celebrate it with District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, Public Works Director Carla Short, food donated by Gus's Canyon Market, and bluegrass from the Peach Pies. A plaque for the bridge entrance was unveiled at the same event.

The bridge follows a pattern. Over four years, Glen Park's public art has gone onto the neighborhood's most utilitarian concrete: a retaining wall, a cul-de-sac stairway, utility boxes, a footbridge over Bosworth. The next round has a new kind of surface. Thanks to a state law and a city program from this summer, the red-curbed street corners where nobody can park are now available to paint. Slow Arlington is the first Glen Park street lined up to use them.

Four Years of Painting the Leftover Concrete

Most of this work goes back to three volunteers. Renee Berger, Libby Reder and Beth O'Leary run Glen Park Beautiful, and the Glen Park Association describes their method as "finding ugly and making it pretty." All of the finished pieces can be seen on foot:

Every one of these sits on public infrastructure that was built to hold up a hillside, carry wires or get people across a road. None was built to be looked at. Neighbors did much of the work themselves. Suzanne Ginsburg came up with the idea for the Elk Street mural and led the project with Berger. Neighbors painted it at a community painting day on April 27, 2025. The utility boxes were paid for by the Civic Joy Fund. On November 7, the Bosworth team asked volunteers to come pull the remaining invasive ivy on the school side of the bridge as part of the Public Works and District 8 Beautification Day.

That track record explains where the next money went.

The Grant Round That Pays for the Next Pieces

In 2026, Glen Park groups won more than $65,000 from Avenue Greenlight, according to the Glen Park Association. Avenue Greenlight is a nonprofit that pays for projects on San Francisco commercial corridors and the blocks around them, using philanthropic money. The San Francisco Standard reported in 2023 that Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen started it in 2021.

The money went out as three grants:

• $25,000 to the Glen Park Association for murals and planters on the corners of Slow Arlington
• $25,000 to Glen Park Beautiful for a refreshed Welcome to Glen Park sign at Bosworth and Diamond, a mural on the fence beside it, and a scavenger hunt at the September Night Market
• $20,000 to the College Hill Neighborhood Association for neighborhood banners along Mission Street

The scavenger hunt has already happened. Glen Park Beautiful's Merchant Discovery Challenge ran at the September 19 Night Market with 24 shops taking part. The rest is still to come, and the biggest single grant is the one going onto a surface Glen Park has never painted.

Why Arlington's Corners Are Open for Paint

California's AB 413 bars parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk on the side traffic approaches from, and that includes crosswalks without painted lines. SFMTA says the clear space helps people walking and driving see each other. That is why so many corners now have red curb. In its June 17, 2026 announcement, SFMTA said about 65 percent of the daylighting required by state law was already in place citywide. The agency plans about 50 new painted safety zones a year, adding to more than 500 already in place.

In the same announcement, SFMTA introduced Community Corners, which its board approved the day before. It is a 24-month pilot that lets registered community groups add murals and planters to painted safety zones. Groups pay a $50 registration fee, sign a maintenance agreement, carry insurance for planters, and pay for the art and its installation.

Arlington was already a good candidate. The Glen Park Association describes its four-block Slow Street as having "whizzing traffic, battered signs and bent bollards." When the GPA asked Supervisor Mandelman about removing it, he said there was no political will to remove Slow Streets that were written into the city's transportation code in December 2022. Neighbors decided to make the street work instead. About 30 of them made signs and planters on May 31, and parents from Dolores Huerta and Glen Park elementary schools were especially involved because Arlington is a "bike bus" route to school.

The GPA says the plan does not remove parking or change traffic patterns. The corners were already off-limits for parking, and the murals and planters remind drivers that the street is shared with people walking and biking.

"This grant will really help us expand who feels comfortable using the Slow Street."

That was John Francis, one of the project's lead organizers, quoted by the Glen Park Association. In the same piece, neighbor Kris Romasanta said the grant gives the group a chance "to activate the space with more community events and bring our neighbors together."

Dahlia Gustafson, an artist who grew up on Arlington, is designing the corner murals. At the GPA's October 20 meeting, the association reported that SFMTA was measuring the dimensions that can be painted and that Gustafson would work neighbor feedback into her design. The schedule is set by the grant. The Slow Arlington page says the Avenue Greenlight money must be spent within one year, and the group's plan places temporary planters in the daylighted zones before permanent Community Corners pieces go in.

Diamond Street Gets Its Turn in Spring 2027

Glen Park Beautiful's two grant projects are in the commercial core, where Bosworth meets Diamond.

The first is a mosaic mural on the fence at the back of the patio next to 2860 Diamond Street. It is possible because the private owners of 2852 to 2860 Diamond Street agreed to it. The GPA calls the space the courtyard next to Pono Boutique. Artist Dana Albany presented a first draft to neighbors at the Glen Park library on October 21. At its July meeting, the GPA said the patio could host pop-up events in the future.

The second is the "Welcome to Glen Park" sign at Bosworth and Diamond. A neighborhood art survey raised concerns about its condition, and Glen Park Beautiful applied for money to restore it. Both projects are scheduled for Spring 2027.

The welcome sign stands at the same intersection as Vanessa Shive's owl utility box, which went up in June 2025. By late spring, that one corner will have three finished projects from the same small group.

The Edges Come Next

The third grant reaches the stretch where Glen Park, Bernal Heights and the Mission meet. Sophie Constantinou, who led the greening of the Bernal Cut, won $20,000 for the College Hill Neighborhood Association to hang banners on Mission Street up to Bosworth. "Our grant will be a gateway to Glen Park," she told the Glen Park Association. She is working with EvolvedSF, the screen-printing shop at 3922 Mission Street run by Thalia Leon and Fernando Ramirez. EvolvedSF has also worked with Constantinou on a mural on the freeway overpass at Lyell and Bosworth. At its summer meeting, the GPA said Keikos Coffee Shop on the 3900 block of Mission had joined long-standing businesses in the corridor's beautification work.

Under I-280, the Bernal Cut Project has proposed an educational mural for the Islais Creek Watershed Storytelling Project on the freeway underpass. It would go alongside two other murals proposed for the other side, and the GPA wrote a letter supporting it. The Burnside mural is also about Islais Creek. If the underpass mural is approved, Islais Creek will appear at two ends of the neighborhood, on a residential cul-de-sac and under a freeway.

How to Have a Say Before Anything Goes Up

The Arlington corners are still in design, so feedback can still shape them. The neighbors behind the project invite both praise and criticism.

1. Email the Slow Arlington group at [email protected], or fill out the survey linked on the Slow Arlington page.
2. Send comments on the Community Corners program to SFMTA at [email protected].
3. Watch the Glen Park Association sidebar and Glen Park Beautiful for chances to weigh in on the patio mural and welcome sign. Glen Park Beautiful plans to involve the community in both.
4. Volunteer for Slow Arlington. The group is recruiting helpers along with ideas.

If your block has a red curb and a neighbor willing to sign a maintenance agreement, KJ Kohlmyer is glad to talk about what neighborhood projects like these have meant for Glen Park streets, and what your own home is worth on one of them.