The Canary Palms of Quesada Avenue

Thirteen Canary Island date palms line the median of Quesada Avenue in the Bayview, and San Francisco counts all thirteen as one Landmark Tree. Public Works lists them that way: the Quesada Street median, from just west of 3rd Street to the dead end, 13 palms. They are the same species as the far better known palms down the middle of Dolores Street. Local history has the Quesada median planted with them around 1920. One account puts it closer to 1932, and we have not been able to settle which, so call them roughly a century old, give or take a decade. What they have seen since is most of the Bayview's twentieth century, and they outlasted all of it; the city's current landmark list still carries all thirteen. A palm of this kind holds no rings to count, and nobody has published the height or the girth of any of the thirteen, so the age rests on the planting date alone. This is a street, not a park, and that is the appeal: the whole landmark stands on one compact block, so there is one place to go and thirteen trees to count. Walk the sidewalk rather than the median itself. Our pin is a mid-block point that has not been checked against aerial imagery, so treat it as the street rather than a spot. The 3rd Street end is the easy one to find. If you know when these palms were really planted, tell us.