My favorite San Francisco tree is this majestic, lone Mexican palm on Grove Street, nestled between the old Double Decker diner and the snazzy 300 Ivy complex. It’s very tall. It pops up above the rooflines of the five-plus story buildings around it, and it’s visible from quite far away. It’s 60 feet tall or more.
It might look at first that this must be a sidewalk tree, planted by the city. Or else it’s somehow related to the fancy condos. But neither is the case. This tree actually sits on the Days Inn property, adjacent to the Double Decker restaurant. The condos went up about a decade ago, and the tree is much older than that.
Below is the earliest Google Street View of the tree, from 2008, when it was just a parking lot next door.
You can see here that the Days Inn has sort of a goofy irregular corner. The reason why the Days Inn property has that weird corner — occupied by the tree — is because the Central Freeway used to run next to it, where the parking lot was and where the condos are now.
The state carved up the freeway path in the 1950s; the Days Inn moved in after:
You can see the palm was there in 1992 when the original double-decker freeway overpass — mortally wounded by the Loma Prieta earthquake — was torn down. (Hey… “double-decker”!)
I don’t know how old the palm actually is, but I think I can see it in this 1970s aerial image which clearly shows the Days Inn in its glory days, nestled up against that overpass. It probably seemed like a nice way to use that weird corner.
Since a year or so ago, the “Days Inn” is no longer a Days Inn. It’s been living out a twilight existence as “The Inn On Grove” while permits work through for a full redevelopment of the property. A 1960s-era motel just isn’t the best use of this location anymore.
The redevelopment will be a new, larger, boutique hotel that makes more effective use of the land area. Here’s a site rendering from the architect showing the Grove St side. The quirky angle at left is where the palm is today; that spot will become a parking entrance.
The tall Mexican palm is not part of the future development plan. I was a bit saddened to see that it’s barely even indicated in the development package, except for this (way too short) bit of tree clip art.
Because the palm is within ten feet of the public right-of-way and is greater than 20 feet in height, it is considered a significant tree under San Francisco statute. This means that potential removal falls under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Urban Forestry. Presumably given the new use of the land, removal is considered acceptable.
I don’t know if it’s possible to relocate a palm of that stature, but I hope they try! That someone planted a solo LA-style palm, in this part of the city, to hold down a strange corner in different times, and that it survived this long, to get this tall, is very cool.
If you want to see more then/now photos of the Central Freeway and its demise check out the project at Bye Bye Freeway.
And if you like good burgers in divey diners, don’t miss out on the Double Decker, it’s really great and it won’t be around much longer. 🌴
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