The Burlingame Voice

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. 

Local Celebrities Stop By B'game

Golden State Warriors "Outsiders" Drew Shiller and Grant Liffmann stopped by the Rec Center Monday night as part of a Park & Rec Foundation fund-raising speaker series.  Both young men grew up in B'game and played sports here before going on to bright turns in college.  What started as a bootstrapped show on Facebook Live has blossomed.  Now they are the "voice of the common man" on TV right after Warriors games.  They have drawn enough attention as Outsiders for their relaxed format to be copied around the country by other pro basketball teams and now pro football (the Eagles).  Grant is also doing some other announcing and looks to have a career in the making.

Attendees got almost two hours of discussion and all the Q&A the crowd of about 40 people could muster.  The pitch resembled the guys' show which is not surprising since their approach in TV is to give the impression of two guys sitting around talking basketball.  We got some insights on their careers, on specific players, the NBA, and the new Chase Center where the Outsiders will have a nice new studio.  They certainly will be better situated at Chase than at the "Wreck Center"  (hat tip to Hollyroller on the nickname) where we endured the harsh florescent lights and hard chairs.  Grant and Drew need audience support so follow them on Facebook, Instagram and watch their show--especially if the Warriors lose which they predict will be much more common this year than we have become accustomed to.

B'game on the Ave. Success

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that the long-running, name-changing "Burlingame on the Avenue" festival continues to show out of towners how great B'game really is.  Sunday was packed and you could feel the energy.  Band stands on both ends of the Avenew and the main one in the middle.  The Kidzone seemed larger than in the past.  Even with the Burlingame Breeze up at mid-day people and their dogs were enjoying themselves immensely.

Kudos to the Chamber of Commerce for a job well done.  My only question/suggestion is why stop at 5pm on Saturday.  I walked over for dinner around 6 pm and it was still light out and there were plenty of people around.  The Ave. is still closed down with the booths, but wouldn't running one more band until 6:30 or so bring some end-of-day focus and energy and a few more dinner bills?

Here's the SF Banjo Band doing that old-timey thang.

Music in the Park Blossoming

Our own Music in the Park series appears to have jumped in popularity probably because the bands are a notch better than in the past.  The new raised stage funded by Facebook as part of its move into B'game doesn't hurt and neither has the spectacular weather.  I missed the show two Sundays ago, but I hear Pride and Joy drew an amazing crowd.  I did make it to the Fog City Swampers this past Sunday and the crowd was sizable.  There is one more show this coming Sunday with All-star Jukebox - I've seen them before and they are really fun.  Here's last Sunday's gig.

Spring Brings Fun to B'game

Spring is here and not just going by the calendar.  Flowers are blooming, hummingbirds are humming and pollen is everywhere.  Spring's arrival also heralds more community activities like music, plays and art which we desperately need.  I'll just mention a few that come to mind over the next two weeks.  We will never garner our own section in the Pink Section but it's a start.  Feel free to add a comment with more that you like.

The 33rd annual Silicon Valley Open Studios event returns to Burlingame on May 4th and 5th.  Details of this free event are here that describe the art studio locations in B'game and surrounding areas.  There are three artists participating plus the full Peninsula Museum of Art studios (with 28 artists) at 1777 California Dr.

St. Catherine's annual play is also a lot of fun and this 23rd iteration promises to deliver the same.  It runs May 10-11 and 17-18 at 7:30 pm with Singin' in the Rain as this year's program.  Staying very local, the Burlingame Historical Society's quarterly meeting will be on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 in the Lane Room.  These are always well attended and interesting especially since this meeting will focus on the old Post Office--it's history and some of it potential future.

A great example of entertainment we need more of comes to the Burlingame Womens Club on May 9th when Il Sapore is sponsoring a night of food, wine and Italian opera with Pasquale Esposito.  Given our lack of clubs with space for a larger production, it's great to see the Womens Club be used to assuage the entertainment drought.  You can get tickets here.  One venue that has been quietly ramping up music is the Vinyl Room.  Aside from the salsa and comedy nights, Friday nights (starting early around 6:30 or 7pm) have become a reliable rock 'n roll gig.  The bands are usually local drawing a local crowd that knows them already.  Here is last week's show by Up and to the Right.

Happy New Year from the Voice

Russ and I wish all you intrepid Voice readers a very happy New Year.  During the course of 2018 we surpassed one million views, approached the 5,000 post milestone (4,790 to be exact) and almost 30,000 comments have been added over the last 15 years.  The themes have stayed consistent and will continue on in 2019 because, well, the issues pretty much stay the same.

For starters, as outgoing mayor Michael Brownrigg said during his speech at the council rotation, we have to guard against "asphyxiating on our success".  I'm as worried about dehydrating from our success as asphyxiating, but that is a topic for another post or two...or three.  At one holiday party this past week, I had a chat with a long time Silicon Valley exec who does not pay much attention to local politics--he's focused on growing his latest start-up.  As I described the prevailing politicians' view that we can build our way out of the "housing crisis" he looked at me like I was joking.  "Don't they understand that the more they build, the more we will build?"  The we is the biotech, information tech and whatever-is-next tech industry.  I told him "no".

You can peruse the right hand frame of this page to see all of the categories of interest.  Locals bemoan the quality of our local restaurants, but I think they are improving...slowly.  And maybe there will be some improvement in SFO runway noise as it garners more attention.  At last night's NYE party, without any prompting from me, five B'gamers just ripped the new roundabout.  And I could not agree more with two of the Daily Journal's Jon Mays New Year's resolutions:

• Perhaps someone can build something that actually improves traffic with the increase in bridge tolls and sales tax for transportation. Perhaps there could be some paving work done on El Camino Real with our gas tax revenue as well.
• If you are a politician advocating for mass transit, take it semi-regularly, not just on occasion.

I'm hoping for more Best of Burlingame postings about locals who add to our quality of life and here's hoping for some developments that move us in that direction--like getting Top Golf going on the bayfront and hearing more live music on B'way and the Avenew.  I'm working on the live music dream myself, so if you know of any venues (mostly restaurants) that might be interesting in hosting, please let me know.  Have a safe and happy 2019.

Welcoming Anson Back to B'game

The unveiling of the new bust of Anson Burlingame in the downtown library Friday night was quite the affair.  More than 100 people attended to hear an excellent recap of Anson's career (delivered by Dr. George Koo and David Chai), some words about his family from family member and recently arrived Burlingame resident Lisa Lillelund along with a few politicians.  Sculptor Zhou Limin spoke about his inspiration for creating the bust and we heard a few words about the Burlingame Foundation from its president, Dr. Walter Christman.  All in all great event and a wonderful way to welcome Anson (and his descendants) back to B'game.  Here are Lisa, Dr. Koo and the unveiled bust with the US and Chinese flags of the period.  The program was also streamed to China for added viewers.

Walking Through B'game History

The Historical Society put on a fun tour through three parts of B'game yesterday.  I only caught the Burlingame Ave. tour given by Joanne Garrison and Jennifer Pfaff which started at the train station and took about 50 people past the new Greetings mural, down the Avenew, past the library and stopped at City Hall.  The crowd got an hour and fifteen minute whirlwind introduction to a number of prominent architects from B'game's formative years including A. Page Brown, Geo Howard, William Weeks, W. H. Toepke & Havens, Col. Norberg, Charles Weeks, and William Whifler.  The combination of some of their life histories while standing in front of some of their designs made for a delightful afternoon on a busy Sunday on the Ave.  Hopefully a few new members signed up as a result.