Sunday Streets Festival

Today was a good day in Bayview for nostalgia.

For the first time, the Bayview neighborhood was a part of Sunday Streets, when volunteers block off major streets to car traffic. Rollerbladers, bicyclists, pedestrians, had most of Third Street to themselves. Sunday Streets was a part of other Third Street events, rather than its own entity.

Sunday is a good day for foot traffic in this neighborhood. Many of its residents go to church on Sundays, and more importantly, many of them go to churches they can walk to.

Add to that local art shows. Local, black-positive artist Malik Senefru showcased at the Bayview Opera House, which marked the end of the Sunday Streets route.


Hats and Foot Traffic

Bayview has hats like nowhere else in San Francisco: big, wide-brimmed hats, wrapped hats in colorful printed cloth, hats with glitter and rhinestones, hats worthy of Aretha Franklin.

They come out on early Sunday afternoons, after church. Third Street is something to see at noon on Sunday—over the course of church-going hours it’s transformed from a ghost town to a small town thoroughfare. The streets are full of marvelous, old-fashioned outfits.

So it’s a good thing Sunday Streets happens on Sundays. The crowds outside Bayview’s major churches, vendors, bicyclists passing through from neighborhoods further north mixed together.

Third Street businesses put out balloons and played music.

It felt great, and strange, to walk in the streets.