a lot on the side: the ingleside

Disembarking from a BART train or an M-line Muni Metro car at the Balboa Park station to cross the bridge over the Bayshore Freeway will take you into one of the quieter, yet underrated areas of lively San Francisco.

At the end of the bridge, pastel-colored houses line up for blocks before you are led to a large white building dominating the next street over. This is the main campus of the City College of San Francisco and one of the well-known institutions in a neighborhood known as the Ingleside.

“It’s a spot for educational growth,” said Emily Spain-Lavender, a second-year City College student who also takes classes at the Mission campus. “It’s concentrated with not just kids, but students.”

With convenient access to the transportation hub at Balboa Park and surrounding Muni lines, it’s no surprise that City College has become a popular center of the Ingleside neighborhood and a place for San Franciscans to study and socialize in. The Ingleside is also home to Lick-Wilmerding High School, an elite private school and Archbishop Riordan High School, a Catholic all-boys school.

Beyond the schools, the Ingleside also houses many local businesses and franchises, offering convenient services to the high school and college students and residents nearby. Busy Ocean Avenue runs through the neighborhood. Cars and buses pass by familiar household names such as McDonald’s and Clean X-Press, but also places that can’t be found anywhere else such as JoJo’s, Beep’s Burgers, and CopyEdge Digital Printing, among other restaurants, liquor stores, salons, and medical clinics.

“We’ve been around for about 40 to 60 years, so everyone knows who we are,” said Kaye Lacap, a cashier at the drive-in Beep’s Burgers. “It’s a good neighborhood to be in. It’s not as troubled as downtown and I don’t see a lot of fights going on.”

Perhaps the presence of St. Francis Wood, a section of beautiful, mansion-like houses located within close proximity to Riordan High School and City College, gives the neighborhood its positive rep as a desirable place to live in and a reason to stay out of trouble. Perhaps it’s the cultural diversity of the neighborhood.

“It’s a blend, so I wonder if it does have a personality,” said part-time City College student James Michael. “Neighborhoods like the Haight and the Mission are uniform, but the Ingleside is mixed.”

Or perhaps it’s a sense of community that makes the Ingleside so special. The neighborhood houses the Ingleside Community Center, which offers many services to San Francisco residents such as senior classes, job training programs, social services, Feed the Hungry Missions, and after-school tutoring. It shares a building with the Ingleside Presbyterian Church.

“Community partnership is key,” said Monique Martin, who has served as executive director of the Ingleside Community Center for 10 years. “With that, Ingleside thrives, San Francisco thrives, and California thrives.”

But maybe it’s just the fact that everyone in the neighborhood is happy, and that makes the Ingleside so special.

Said Rich Gianuario, a senior at Riordan High School, “The people here have the biggest smiles you’ll ever see in your life.”