Tribute to Patricia Walkup

This issue of The Hayes Valley Voice is dedicated to Patricia Walkup. On these pages you will find some of the memories others have of Patricia and the work she did with so many others. Patricia would be the first to say that she wasn’t responsible for all that we credit her with doing, that there was a diverse group of people from throughout the neighborhood and throughout the City responsible for the accomplishments in and around Hayes Valley. Regardless of how much she did personally, how much she inspired others to do, or was inspired to do by others, the reality is that much got done that wouldn’t have been remotely possible without Patricia. There will be a memorial celebration, tentatively scheduled for September 10, 2006 at 11am. Check www.patriciawalkup.org for more details as it gets closer to that date.

Anyone wishing to help memorialize Patricia in a permanent way may send contributions to: Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association, PO Box 423978, San Francisco, CA 94142-3978. Please note Patricia Walkup Fund in the memo line. The funds collected will be used toward the costs of establishing a permanent memorial to Patricia and the work she and others did to establish Octavia Blvd. Any funds remaining will be used by Hayes Valley Community Partners to further their focus on safety and outreach to families and children in the area.

Sea Scattering in San Francisco Bay

June 15, 2006

In remembrance of

Patricia Ann Walkup

December 18, 1946 - June 6, 2006

Thank you for attending today's informal remembrance of the life of Patricia Walkup.  Each of us had our own unique relationship with Patricia.  We knew her in different ways as friend, colleague, confidant, community advocate, and for me, sister.  I imagine that the lasting impressions and pictures of Patricia we each remember, have many similarities.  She carefully considered every angle of a problem.  She never spoke without thinking.  She was a tireless champion for change; and never gave up when she believed she was right.  She was not one who talked down to others; and treated everyone with respect.  If she was your friend, it was born of mutual respect.  She always told you exactly what she thought.  Her judgement was usually logical and correct.  And her wry sense of humor was fun to be around.

As a community advocate, Patricia probably accomplished more in her short lifetime than most of us will in ours.   On a personal level she will be missed tremendously.  But I must remind myself continuously that she will no longer have to deal with the many health problems that kept her from enjoying the basic pleasures of life that many of us take for granted.  Our lives are certainly the richer for knowing Patricia.  And we thank her for that by gathering here today in San Francisco Bay for this informal tribute.  Her life is proof of what she often said:  "Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things".

Thank you again for your presence here today.  Patricia would be pleased that you came.  Each of you was special to her, and she loved you very much.

Lee Walkup

A Great Loss for the City

It was the spring of ‘99 when I met Patricia Walkup. And not only was I new to the neighborhood, but new to California altogether. I had arrived just a few months earlier from Atlanta, Georgia and felt a bit like a fish out of water. Having spent my whole life in Georgia, I understood how things worked there. I felt comfortable. I knew the political scene and considered myself quite the “activist,” volunteering at least once a month at a local shelter, occasionally working in a community garden, being sure to vote in every election, knowing my neighbors who lived on either side of me. I considered myself a truly concerned and engaged community member.

Then I moved to Hayes Valley and met Patricia. Boy, was I wrong. SHE was the true definition of a concerned and engaged community member. For Patricia, giving time to your community once a month was not enough, nowhere near it. Voting in every election didn’t cut it, she recognized that to make real impact, you had to effect what we were voting for. Knowing your immediate neighbors was easy, but knowing the entire community was what it was really about. And her community had few boundaries; she may have focused her efforts on creating synergies in Hayes Valley, but in many ways, San Francisco was Patricia’s ‘community.’ She had strong opinions. She didn’t back down from a fight (thank goodness). And although we didn’t always agree, she never failed to inspire me with her conviction, her determination and her unfailing energy to move toward her passion of greater neighborhood - a greater community for all of us. Her legacy will continue to impact San Francisco in profound ways for generations to come.

Thank you, Patricia, for everything.
Ashley Hamlett, Past President, HVNA

I chose to move to Hayes Valley because it is a place where one can live comfortably and pragmatically without a car. After living here for a couple of months, I went to a Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association meeting to try to learn more about the people who helped to make my new neighborhood such a wonderful place to live. There I found Patricia Walkup, who promptly recruited me to sign up to get emails for the Transportation & Planning committee.

Soon thereafter I began receiving emails for meetings about this and that. It was overwhelming at first. But after a few weeks I was in Patricia’s house for a strategizing session. I learned quickly that HVNA was an organization that welcomed change, embraced the concept of sustainable transportation and urban development, and that would not accept mediocrity. After that initial strategizing session, I began talking regularly with Patricia on the phone about local land use and transportation issues. Patricia opened up and shared all kinds of fascinating stories and insights with me about San Francisco, the freeway fights, about her roots in Texas, and about good food from New Orleans.

Patricia kept at it until the end. I last spoke to Patricia on Sunday, June 4th, two days before she died. She had called about the planning department’s “Initial Environmental Review” of the 55 Laguna Project. Having just read it, she asked me to write some comments about analyzing the environmental impact of too much market-rate housing in the neighborhood. Patricia had always been concerned that Hayes Valley was becoming less affordable to people like teachers, artists, city workers, and that the neighborhood would loose its unique character and diversity.

While she believed strongly in infill housing and was even welcoming of new housing across the street from her own home, she wanted new housing to be affordable for the working class. After talking with her for about 30 minutes I gathered that she was losing her breath and I said that I would let her go so she could rest. But I am sure she called someone else about 55 Laguna, or 1844 Market, or the other myriad developments unfolding in our neighborhood.

On Monday afternoon, I wrote up our comments on 55 Laguna. After proofreading and re-reading I wanted to be sure I had properly articulated Patricia’s affordable housing concerns and so I called her. She was not there. I left her a message and expected her to call back. She did not. I was on my own.

Jason Henderson, Transportation and Planning Co-Chair

Sadly, San Francisco’s Livable City movement lost a great advocate with the passing of Patricia Walkup recently. Patricia was a dedicated neighborhood advocate who founded the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association, and effectively and graciously worked on behalf of her neighborhood to help it through the difficult yet promising transitions of the past two decades.

I met Patricia over a decade ago, when I was an eager young appointee to the Citizens Advisory Task Force on the Central Freeway. Hayes Valley was then a neighborhood reeling from the depredations of 1950’s and 60’s traffic engineering and freeway building. It was divided by an ugly double-deck freeway, many of its streets had been co-opted into one-way traffic sewers. Patricia was already well established as a committed advocate for safe streets, working with neighbors and the police to address the criminality and desperation that clustered under the elevated freeway.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake brought about the removal of the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway, as well as the Central Freeway north of Fell Street. Hayes Street, freed from the noise, grime, and the shadow of the freeway, became much more upbeat. Hayes Valley began to imagine life without the Central Freeway, and Patricia stayed committed through the three ballot campaigns it took to secure the Octavia Boulevard. At last year’s boulevard dedication, she remarked (with characteristic modesty) that “ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.”

Patricia knew that great neighborhoods are diverse ones, and she was also dedicated to transforming the Housing Authority’s projects on Haight Street from scary, unwelcoming places to the tidy town homes there today, and was vitally interested in making sure that the residents were able to return after the reconstruction. She also worked to renovate neighborhood parks, and was active in the Octavia & Market planning, where she championed retaining the neighborhood’s dense, mixed-use character, building less parking, creating housing for a range of incomes and households, and reclaiming the streets from excessive traffic. She was excited about the future of Hayes Valley, not only for the neighborhood’s sake, but as an urbane example for the rest of the city. She was an inspiration, and we will miss her greatly.

Tom Radulovich, Executive Director, Livable City

“We’ve really just begun. In another five years you’ll see as much change as you’ve seen in the past five years. In a few years, there will be people who will never know a freeway was there.”
Patricia Walkup

Photo: Barbara Wenger

Patricia Walkup was a dynamo who would not stop until her mission was completed. Without her energy and commitment, the Octavia Boulevard may not exist today. I am proud to have had the privilege of knowing her.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, 13th District

On June 6th, with the passing of Patricia Walkup, Hayes Valley residents lost a great advocate, a great neighbor and a great friend. There are many adjectives that come to mind when I think of Patricia: tireless, selfless, respectful, dedicated, tenacious, patient, genuine. She was a great listener and had a great talent for building consensus among diverse people with diverse interests. She dedicated most of her last 15 years since moving into Hayes Valley for the betterment of the community.

She was the founder of HVNA and began organizing the neighborhood in the early 90’s when Hayes Valley was overrun with drug dealing, prostitution and criminal activity, when break-ins, muggings and shootings were common occurrences here. Many people here didn’t experience it and it’s hard to believe now. But at that time, if you said that you lived in Hayes Valley people would often sigh, give you a pitying look and say, “I’m sorry” in response. But working with neighbors and the police Patricia was able to turn that around.

Despite the crime, she always appreciated the neighborhood for its diversity and unique character and strove to maintain that by advocating for affordable housing, balanced transportation, public safety and improved parks. The past few years she focused on planning issues including the UC Extension Project and the Market/Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan, working to ensure that future development would complement the neighborhood.

But I got to know Patricia best when we worked together as co-chairs of the 3 campaigns from 1997-1999 to replace the Central Freeway with Octavia Boulevard. The tireless effort and selfless dedication she put into those campaigns was extraordinary. I’ll never forget Patricia sitting day after day in the vestibule outside her apartment on Laguna Street organizing volunteers, collecting petitions and counting the 18,000 signatures we had to gather in just a few short weeks to put an initiative on the ballot in 1998 to get rid of the freeway. Without her we never would have won.

Patricia was one of a kind and a model for all of us. She loved Hayes Valley and left a great legacy here. She’ll be deeply missed.

Robin Levitt

PS. A committee has formed to plan a memorial celebration in early September that will take place in Hayes Green, which we’re hoping will be renamed in her honor. If you’d like to help plan that celebration, would like to help with the effort to rename the park or just want to be kept in the loop, please visit www.patriciawalkup.org

In March 1994 neighbors came together in response to postings on telephone polls. The sign was about taking back the neighborhood from crime. The meeting was at John Muir School and there were over 100 people in attendance. This meeting was part of a five year grant from the State of California to study substance abuse. It identified nine transitional neighborhoods in San Francisco and Hayes Valley was one of them. This was the beginnings of NIT-AMP (Neighborhoods in Transition-A Multi Cultural Partnership). Patricia was at this meeting.

We identified five areas to work on: drugs, prostitution, policing, youth and parks. Patricia emerged as one of the strong leaders in these areas. Over the next few years, she was relentless in partnering with the police and dealing compassionately with prostitutes,helping to start the first John’s Program in San Francisco, with Norma Hotling. She was at the center of every community meeting, listening, questioning, putting people to task.

Patricia found her calling through this work and has left an enormous imprint on the neighborhood. Her spirit lives on in the many people she inspired to be leaders.

Barbara Wenger

If you haven’t heard, Patricia Walkup passed away. Patricia was the founder of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association and worked tirelessly to improve her neighborhood for all people. While neighborhood beautification is an easy cause to generate support, Patricia never shied away from the more difficult issues such as working for affordable housing and sustainable transportation. Her pleasant personality was one of many soft-spoken but hard-working and consistent people in the neighborhood that overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to remove the Central Freeway north of Market Street.

I got to know Patricia during the Planning Department’s Market & Octavia neighborhood plan meetings. In an age of unabashed NIMBYish behavior, she was a welcoming voice embracing (very Jane Jacobs) the idea that people are good in a neighborhood and, in particular, housing for diverse people is essential.

In her tireless efforts she proved her own quote: “Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.” Patricia is a great inspiration and the City will miss her voice greatly. To help keep the memory of Patricia alive, let’s dedicate one personal act of community participation to Patricia and help ensure that in San Francisco ordinary people continue to accomplish the extraordinary.

AnMarie Rogers