Triumphs

Sunday, Apr. 26, 2009 - 1:32 a.m.

First of all, hooray for Laila The Repaired Cat. She's found a way to carefully climb up on the easy chair, and can get back down out of it as well without sustaining damage to herself.

Here she is, modelling her cast and her satellite dish:

While Laila's dish collar was off, Solange also allowed her to bestow a brief grooming session.

And as always, thank you to Dave Marron for taking such adorable pictures of her.

If you guys are thinking of donating to Old Buddy Dave's Cat Repair Fund, please go do it at the Donate button to the left. Thank you!!

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Congratulations to KRON's Gabe Slate, who managed to file a report on the triangular Aptera three-wheeled hybrid car which contained a sentence that said in part: "The Aptera is shaped that way to be as wind-resistant as possible."

Um. Yeah.

Are you SURE about that, Gabe, old bean?

Did anybody check your copy at all before you filed the report?

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And yesterday, Omaha Dave and I had our semi-quarterly lunch thing, and he took me to Joe's Cable Car Restaurant over in the Mission Terrace area of San Francisco.

Then, after lunch, he and I went for a drive ended up in the middle of the city.

And I do mean the exact middle.

After taking Twin Peaks road up the hill to the overlook, where Omaha had never been before, we then drove back down and enjoyed the meandering discoverability of the Terrace neighborhoods -- and it was then that Omaha Dave spotted something interesting-looking on his car's GPS system. One of the Terrace roads seemed to go in a circle around something.

The investigation revealed this:

There was a plaque on one side, but even though Omaha climbed up and practically pressed his nose against it, it proved to be illegible.

So then I Googled the words Upper Terrace Memorial -- and I found out what this thingumy actually is.

It's the exact geographic center of the City of San Francisco.

This spot was once marked by a statue, which was dedicated in 1887 by Adolph Sutro.

The statue's name was "Triumph Of Light".

After the land around it was developed, it fell into disrepir and its vestiges finally had to be removed due to vandalism.

Once in awhile, the absent statue is discussed in a forum, but otherwise, there's not a particularly easy way to find out the history of this really special little piece of real estate. Other people before me have discovered this place and done their own research, to which I'm linked and for which I'm profoundly grateful.

But it's a real shame there's no historic marker or anything.

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All right, that's it.

Have a good Sunday.

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2 of my readers commented on this entry

art - 2009-04-26 14:08:55
well, ya know, its just like The City to let something this significant fall into disrepair, imagine if The City would try to restore it.
1. an environmental impact study would have to be done;
2. a city-wide monument task force would have to be formed;
3. a blue-ribbon commission would have to be inpaneled;
4. there would be a squabble between parks and rec and interested third parties as to who would maintain the monument.
5. the board of stupes would have to meet to discuss neighbourhood impact.
6. Da Mayor would have to put his two cents in, to propose a plan to make the monument environmentally friendly.
7. there would be protests and demonstrations by the sierra club because the monument is in a park that is not "green" enough.
8. before redeveloupment permits would then be issued, bids by private contractors would have to be submitted and decided upon.
9. a city wide special election would have to take place to decide if the people would want to have the monument repaired.
10. the estimated cost of the venture would be decided to be 1.3 million dollars.

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Acorn - 2009-04-26 14:25:02
how interesting!
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