In the Works - Community Newsletter In the Works July 2017 | Page 16

an email with photos of bright
pink flowers and the praise:
“Thanks again for a good job!”
Leung had last seen the hillside
at the intersection of 27th,
Newburg and Castro streets
when he and section manager
Raymond Lui completed the
$250,000 stabilization project at
the end of last year that left the
lush slope secure and safe – but
barren.
Spurred by the email from
Eugenia Caldwell, whose
home abuts the hillside, Leung
drove to the site this month.
And indeed, it was abloom
with colorful trumpet vine and
princess flowers, Mexican sage
and various succulents – a stark
contrast to the rocky, eroding
landscape he encountered when
work began last year.
The work scope included
removing the hillside’s
overgrown vegetation, installing
rock dowels and wire mesh
netting to shore up the unstable
slope and hydroseeding the land
to ensure the area would return
to its verdant glory.
From the beginning, Caldwell
and her husband, Peter, kept
close tabs on their de facto
side yard. When it became
clear the majority of plants and
flowers needed to be removed
for the project, they hired a
landscape architect to determine
which could be saved. During
construction, the couple cared
for the plants and invested in
dozens of succulents and flowers
to spruce up the two terraces at
the base of the hill.
The future of the Noe Valley
hillside was a team effort from
Day One.
“I think the City did a very
good job on a complex project.
Technically, they didn’t have
any obligation to us; we’re just
neighbors. But they treated
us as if we were stakeholders,”
Caldwell says.
The Caldwells have been
committed to the publicly
owned hillside since they
purchased their home 30 years
ago. Back then, Caldwell recalls,
“It was a terrible-looking
eyesore: weeds and beer bottles.”
In the early 1990s, the
Caldwells’ neighborhood
group, the Duncan Newburg
Association, secured a grant to
beautify the hillside.
Today, thanks to the
stabilization project, the slope is
experiencing a renaissance.
“It looks better now than it
looked 25 years ago because you
can see the wildflowers all over
the hill,” Caldwell says. “We
were away on vacation and just
in that week all of the flowers
had popped out. We couldn’t
believe it.”