A City Sighs With Relief: the Park Will Open

BuboBlog doesn't normally like to throw around terms like "hugely influential" or "read by power brokers at the highest levels ofgovernment," but it's hard to argue with these results.

A few days after we asked why Sue Bierman Park had been closed for so many months (despite seemingly being ready for use), city leadersscrambled to schedule opening ceremonies for tomorrow. (Or maybe the event had been planned all along, whatevs.)

Opening the gates.

Here's the scoop from SF Curbed:

The fence comes down tomorrow along with the 5.3-acre swath of green's official opening at 11am, along with a "special announcement" about Ziptrek, the aerial cable ride across Justin Herman Plaza, flying over Vaillancourt Fountain and the bocce court.

Curbed also shows what the site of the park looked like before the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down.

Photo illustration by SF Curbed. Photo Credit: Charles W.Cushman Photograph Collection, Indiana University Archives/Digital LibraryProgram.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around what it must have been like back then — even though I lived in Santa Cruz at the time, and we would come up to visit the city. It's just so radically different now.

I walked by the park this morning and, while the fence was still up, one of the gates was open.

I wondered at the time if it was a trap to lure in "Wall Street" protesters (who have been gathering nearby). So I'm happy to hear the truth.

UPDATE: They've taken down all the fencing, so I was able to take a nighttime stroll through the new park just now.

It looks great. Thanks to everyone who worked on the project — worth the wait.