The Burlingame Voice

Purple Tears

As we teeter on the brink of going to the dreaded "purple tier" I was struck by how the Vinyl Room - which has been closed for 9+ months -- keeps the lights on in a rotating color scheme.  It was just getting into the groove of having regular live music when the virus struck.  This is the closest bar to my house and thus holds a special position in my thinking.  When I was a grad student in Center City Philly, the closest bar was an ancient Irish bar that was just on the other side of the back wall of my apartment.  I think "pony" Rolling Rocks were a quarter.

So the owner of the Vinyl Room, Juan, is to be thanked for keeping the lights on.  I hope his landlord and he are figuring it out.  BPD is not enamored with the idea of music venues holding events--even outdoors, but as the Chron noted recently

“You need to do a little extra when winter comes,” said Blaine Merker of the San Francisco office of Gehl, an urban design firm with Scandinavian roots. “It’s about extending an invitation, going from functional to celebratory.”  Add music — members of the San Francisco Ballet’s orchestra played on Hayes Street several evenings last month — and makeshift starts to become a scene.

Bay Area cities responded smartly to the onslaught of the pandemic by making it easier for residents and businesses to make use of our streets via regulatory initiatives that took into account the need for social distancing. Another welcome step? Many are now extending the right for parklets to be in place well into 2021, which will help give beleaguered businesses the confidence to invest in their outdoor spaces.

At the same time, cities are tweaking their parklet standards to take winter conditions into account, such as the need for sidewalk gutters to be able to flow freely during rainstorms. Some, including San Francisco, have small grants available for businesses that need a financial boost to build a safe space outdoors.

What’s still needed — and time is running out — is taking the initiative to energize our shared landscape. A plaza or publicly owned parking lot could hold a communal market — perhaps shielded by an eye-catching waterproof tarp above the space. Public art commissions could line up (and pay) performers who would be available for gigs in neighborhood retail areas on days when blocks are closed.

Elsewhere downtown, I have been in contact with the city about the parklets that are shall-we-say "underutilized".  One in particular is getting a look since it takes up a couple spaces and I never see anyone using it.  It was also gratifying to see the support for a performance space in the new "Town Square".  More to follow, but here is my own Purple Tear.

As promised in the comment, Jennifer has provided this really cool photo from our past.  You can see the Senator Coctail Lounge on the left where the Vinyl Room is now.  It was the "Cosiest Spot in Town" and its phone number was DI 4-1466.

Historical Reference: The Corner Smoke Shop

There are days when I really miss certain B'game establishments.  La Pinata.  Route 66.  The record store on Hatch Ln.  Yianni's--but we have a new Greek restaurant moving in where the Nachoria was!!  Of course, the Bit of England.  Towle's.  The Burlingame Drive-in--don't we need that now instead of a big office building that might never get occupied?  Like 220 California--a dead weight on our downtown.

Today I am really missing the Smoke Shop on the Avenew.  I miss Fred telling me what the real name of the place was, but I just have to stick with the Smoke Shop.  I know the remaining partners run the cigar shop, and I thank them for that, but you could walk into the Smoke Shop and buy newspapers from around the world.  You want the three main London papers?  They had 'em.  Safeway has the pink FT somedays, but not the others.  You want the Singapore Straits Times, they had it.  Yesterday I wanted the New York Post, but did not know where to buy it.  If the twits at Twitter and the fakes at Facebook don't want me to read something, well, that just makes me want to read it even more.  Good luck with the censorship.  It hasn't worked since Ben Franklin bought his first printing press and it won't work now.

Cooling center in Burlingame

We live an an unsettling time where nothing is the way we expect. Yesterday and today we've broken temperature records for this time of year. In year's past however those of us who are not blessed with air conditioning or swimming holes could rely on cooling centers like the public library. ( Why our library could not be open as a cooling center even with today's challenges is a sore point with me, but I don't want to rant and rave today, it's simply too hot.) What I would rather do is remind everyone that there is a reliable cooling center in Burlingame that is always open and can easily accommodate social distancing. It's our extensive bay front. I took my lawn chair and a cooler and went there on both days. The cooling effect was not as great as a dip in a cold pool or not akin to being surrounded by cool air from the AC, but it was a respite of sorts and somehow looking at the water in the bay had the intended cooling effect. At some points along the bay front trail there were, like me, those who just wanted to enjoy the breeze and the view, others could be seen in the water and on the beach, yes a beach in Burlingame--not a particularly pretty one,(the scene reminded me of something from behind the iron curtain,) but yeah it was a beach and it was giving pleasure to a number of people. In short, in these strange times, we can rely on something, small as it is. Consider this a positive public service reminder that we who live in Burlingame can enjoy the bay anytime we want and it's right in our own backyards.  

A Tale of Two Parklets

I talked about how I believe parklets (taking over some parking spaces, but leaving the roadway open) are a better solution for saving restaurants than the wholesale street closures here.  Now that some restaurants outside of the Burlingame Avenue Autonomous Zone (BAAZ) are jumping on the parklet idea, we can start to compare approaches.  Chatting about it with a few locals, the idea seems to be popular since it is seven days a week and can be done nicely.  Our Michelin-starred Rasa seems to have done the best local design so far.

But check out the effort by Moody's in Truckee!  All of the restaurants along Commercial Row are using the raised platform approach, but Moody's has upped the game with amazing lighting, curtains, heaters and loudspeakers.

Using the ugly orange hydro-barriers on all three sides instead of just the on-coming traffic side seems like a B'game-only approach--San Mateo doesn't require it.  B'game restaurants will hopefully make continuous improvements since these will likely be with us at least til the rains start.

The Voice Blog at 17

Today is the 17th anniversary of the Burlingame Voice blog.  Our original paper editions were hand-delivered to front porches a few times per year, but the move on-line in 2003 brought more immediacy and added interactivity--attributes we take for granted today.

The list of Categories (found on the right hand frame) has expanded as a means of tracking the conversations on specific topics and, of course, there is always Google or Duck Duck Go if you want to go way back in time.  That degree of referentiality and the back-linking it enables is a clear differentiation from other on-line resources.  When coupled with our laser focus on Burlingame issues, only crossing the border when the local impact might be felt, and the option of anonymity we allow makes for an informative and fun forum.  At least we hope so.  The rising readership numbers (particularly as the pandemic has increased everyone's screen time) would seem to support that view.

So blog on, we'll be here.  Happy 17th Anniversary.

Slang: Blgm, Bilgum, B'game, Blingum...........

It's time again for a little fun of the historical flavor.  I loved this letter to the editor in yesterday's Daily Journal:

Although I now reside in San Mateo (past forty 40 years) I grew up in Burlingame starting in 1950. What a fabulous city to grow up in and enjoy the city in the 50s and 60s while attending Roosevelt Grammar School, Burlingame Intermediate School and Burlingame High School.

I’ve noticed the Daily Journal abbreviates Burlingame as BGAME. I contacted some old chums and they agree the abbreviation has always been BLGM (pronounced Bilgum).  Hopefully your staff can make this correction and refer to this beautiful city as it should be. Thanks.

Paul Stuppi

San Mateo

I would note we just lost our greatest Burlingame historian, Martha May, last week so the absolute best person to ask can no longer be asked.  You can find Martha's self-penned, dry-as-she-liked-it obituary here.  Martha was a stickler for accuracy, an avid archivist and a steady hand at the Historical Society.  She will be missed.  At the next meeting perhaps we can solicit all of the nicknames for our little burg.

I recall Herb Caen referring to us as B'lingame and suggesting it be pronounced Blingum.  I'll bet there is a Caen clipping or two in the archives to correct my memory!  Thanks Paul for a provocative look at our nickname--gotta tell you I still prefer B'game! Just don't call it Boringame.

Covid-19 Tracking and Planning

It's time to start a new thread on our tracking of the coronavirus.  You can see the prior post from March 24th and the path of the virus' growth in the County here.  Today's County report at SMChealth.org shows 16 new cases in the County for a total of 767.  67 cases are currently in hospital and 7,295 total tests have been done with a 10% positive ratio.  Recall there are about 769,000 people in the County so the testing rate is still minuscule.

There was a great human interest story in the Daily Journal yesterday about Officer Steve Vega.  I've chatted with the officer on the street before (the last time was in front of the Apple store during the on-going patrol there) and I'm thrilled to hear he is better.  He may be down at Stanford right now donating

After recovering from COVID-19, Burlingame police Officer Steve Vega is hoping the antibodies in his blood can be used to treat others infected with the disease.  Vega, 55, is among the first participants in a new effort by Stanford Blood Center to treat COVID-19 patients while the world waits for a vaccine to be developed.

The 22-year Burlingame officer is set to donate his plasma, the liquid in blood, at Stanford this Thursday and however many times is needed after that.

Also in the news is some data on how the work-at-home trend for self-isolating plays out across the economy.  Having worked full-time from home for more than a decade one article about the trials the newbies are discovering was gratifying to read.  On the data side, the Wall Street Journal has a piece titled "The Lucky Stay-at-home 37%"

A newly released study called “How Many Jobs Can Be Done at Home?” reckons that 37% of all U.S. jobs can plausibly be done at home, meaning that nearly two-thirds cannot. The study’s authors, from the University of Chicago’s Becker-Friedman Institute, add that their 37% estimate is at the “upper bound of what might be feasible.”  Along with other studies, this one also finds that those in jobs that can be done from home “typically earn more.” By their calculations, for example, 37% of jobs that can be done at home account for 46% of all wages.

Those who have stressed the need to get our economy up and running again are sometimes criticized for favoring profits over people. But the Becker-Friedman paper underscores that those lower down on the socio-economic scale are most in need of a re-opening for their livelihoods.

That's an important point that can be missed during the high-anxiety zeitgeist we are in.  Here is the Avenew showing that zeitgeist.

 

Our Cupola

Let's lighten things up with a couple of normal, pre-COVID style posts.  You may have gotten the freebie magazine Punch - Spirit of the Peninsula in your driveway over the last couple of days.  If so, be sure to read the very last one-page article by our very own author-historian Joanne Garrison.  The mag asked her to explain what can seem like an odd little feature of our downtown parking lot next to Pet Express on Park Rd.  It's the cupola from the original city hall that stood on that site.

Joanne notes the original city hall was designed by Charles Peter Weeks and describes how the late-'60s plan to tear it down in favor of the architecturally-challenged city hall we still have raised preservationists' ire, spawned the Burlingame Historical Society and gave the cupola a home amid the asphalt and parking meters.  Fun story about a fun monument.

The Other Burlingame....Kansas

I got a great trip report from local B'gamer Linda Yelnick about her recent visit to Burlingame, Kansas.  The other town named for Anson is about 28 miles southwest of Topeka.  Linda prepped for her visit by contacting the Burlingame (KS) Historical Preservation Society and letting them know she would be visiting so that when she arrived she got the classic friendly mid-western reception.  Linda and her son discovered a number of interesting things about this little town of 934 people from Carolyn Strohm of the BHPS.

The other Burlingame was originally a coal mining town named Council City and is one of the oldest communities in Kansas being founded in 1854 before Kansas was a state.  Anson Burlingame passed through four years later in 1858 and gave an anti-slavery speech that impressed the folks enough to rename the town after him.  Anson never lived in either town named for him.  B'game, KS is known as the place where "rail meets trail" as the Santa Fe rail and Santa Fe trail cross there.

Linda was impressed by the small-town feel where the main street is about two blocks long and everything is closed on Sundays unless the restaurant owner decides to open and make a meal for a visitor as he did for Linda and her son.  The street is quite wide so that the ox caravans of old could make a U-turn downtown.  As Carolyn Strohm told Linda "everybody knows everybody and we feel safe and secure".  Old timers in 94010 remember something similar.  The old Lincoln school building that dates from 1902 has been re-purposed into a impressive historical museum.  Oddly enough, the school mascot is the Burlingame Bearcat!  San Mateans cannot be happy about that.

The other Burlingame also has a prominent citizen named Jerry Hill who is most famous for award-winning kettle corn.  The two Jerry's have been in touch and kettle corn was exchanged.  The next time I see our Jerry I will ask him what he sent out to their Jerry.  Check out the entry sign to Burlingame, KS 66413.  Plenty of room to grow there.

BHS Student Brings it Home

With the election in the rear view mirror, we can get back to regular issues.  The Daily Journal has a nice write-up on BHS student Jeffery Chen

The Burlingame High School senior won first place in the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, receiving a $250,000 college scholarship, $50,000 for his science teacher and $100,000 science lab for his school.  Chen, 17, won the international competition Sunday, Nov. 3, with a three-minute educational video he created about neutrino astronomy, which tracks cosmic events through the capture of galactic particles.

And with the new science learning space to be built at his school, Chen said he is hopeful to inspire other Burlingame High School students to push the boundaries of their imaginations too.

This is a welcome antidote to the recent disappointing news about graffiti at BHS and the subsequent arrest of a local young man.  Kudos to Chen.  You can click through to his video here and while you are there check out all of the local B'game background - the Bayfront, the BHS lawn, and the train station at sunset.