New mural vandalized day after Great Highway shut down to cars
After just one day of the Great Highway shutting down to cars, a new mural was vandalized overnight.
The community group, Friends of Ocean Beach Park, and the artist say they won't let it discourage them and they will repair it. People who frequent the area, like Jim Kirk, noticed the tagging.
"I actually used to go to Playland when I was a little boy," Kirk said while looking at the mural of Playland by the Sea. "It's just beautiful, she portrayed the whole thing, the cliff house, and someone came and graffitied over the whole thing."
Kirk has spent his life in San Francisco, the new mural reminded him of his childhood.
"Playland was where the Safeway was down there that whole thing was all Playland," Kirk said. "It was like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk."
It closed in 1972, but the mural brought it back to life.
Kirk says he saw the artist, Emily Fromm, paint it and he was disheartened to see it had been tagged.
"That's my first thought," Kirk said. "Maybe it's someone against the park but regardless it's just uncalled for."
Friday was the first day a two-mile stretch of the Great Highway was closed down to cars for good. Crews have already started the transition of the space between Lincoln Avenue and Sloat Boulevard into the city's newest park.
Back in November of 2024, 55% of San Franciscans voted "Yes" on Proposition K to transition the space, but many people who live nearby didn't support the proposition, including Kirk.
"I'm not really for the park either myself," said Kirk. "I lived here my whole life and I like having the Great Highway to drive on. I feel like we need it for the traffic and for the emergency workers, firetrucks, ambulances, the coastguard uses it if somebody needs help out on the beach. I feel like we need the highway."
Sunset Resident Seth Rosenblatt disagrees with Kirk. He still rides his bike with a sign of his support for Prop K.
"People keep forgetting that although two-thirds of The Sunset voted against K that means a third of us voted for it," said Rosenblatt about the closure of the Great Highway. "This is really going to be an incredible thing, not just for recreation but people are going to come out here in a way that they haven't since we had Playland at the beach. It's going to be an economic engine that people are not expecting."
Rosenblatt stopped to take a picture of the vandalism. He says it's disappointing, but he doesn't think it was in defiance of the park.
"I would be surprised if it was related," said Rosenblatt. "The people who have turned their 'No on K' support into recalling Joel Engardio have been using what I call fact-free arguments but I don't think they would tag something like this."
Kirk believes there should be a middle ground between having only a park, or only a highway.
"My thought is that they could have both," said Kirk. "They have enough room up here where they could have two lanes of traffic and then they could create a park on the west side. I think that would be a good comprise."
The organization Friends of Ocean Beach Park and the artist plan to restore the mural and put a protective coating on it so that if it gets vandalized again, it can be cleaned off more easily.
"While I do not know why the mural was vandalized, since the markings were random and unspecific, it is likely tied to the conversion of the Great Highway into a park, a very divisive change which took effect the day of the defacement," Fromm said in a statement. "However, the mural is intended as a gift for the community, regardless of that change, and defacing my art has no bearing on this voter-approved measure. "
