ELECTION 2022 / CONVERSATION
The day after Election Day, a chilled but giddy crowd gathered on Golden Gate Park’s JFK Drive, now JFK Promenade, to share an emotional cocktail of disbelief, gratitude, and absolute relief that the fight to keep the road closed to cars was over — and they won.
With about 60 percent of votes counted at this writing, Prop J, to make a car-free JFK permanent, is at 59 percent yes. Prop I, a countermeasure to bring cars back to both JFK and the Great Highway, is at 61 percent no.
One man stood out in the crowd, and not just for his signature top hat. David Miles, Jr. is SF’s Godfather of Skate, and he has fought longer than anyone to get cars off Golden Gate Park’s main drag.
Resplendent in a flowing salt and pepper fur vest, a Church of 8 Wheels t-shirt, the matching top hat, and of course skates, Miles thanked the sizable mass of humanity — including SFMTA director Jeffrey Tumlin — that gathered to celebrate near the Skatin’ Place, the patch of asphalt just off JFK that Miles helped create in the 1980s.
MIles said watching the results on his computer Tuesday night was like the movie Groundhog Day, and many in the crowd described a feeling of doom leading up to the vote, with polls showing Prop J losing. It made the emphatic win all the more emotional. “I have cried once today already,” said WalkSF’s Marta Lindsey, a Prop J organizer.
Miles first came to Golden Gate Park by hopping on the 21 Hayes on his third day ever in the city, only a few years after San Francisco had begun car-free Sundays on JFK in 1967. On that visit, some roller skaters told him about Sundays. He made friends and even met his wife under a lamp post that’s about 100 feet from the Skatin’ Place.
After all his activism for JFK’s closure, as well as the community and camaraderie he has built in the park, Miles can now enjoy the space he’s helped create. The Frisc caught up with him as he basked in Wednesday’s celebration and raised a cup of champagne.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for length.
The Frisc: What was it like when you first started skating in the park?
David Miles Jr.: See how we are all in here? [He motions to the assembled crowd.] Imagine this is all roller skaters just going up and down. That’s what it was like when I first came out on a Sunday back in the ’70s. There were thousands — I’d never seen anything like that in my life.
We originally began skating in the [Music] Concourse every day around 3:30, me and my friends, drinking beer, smoking weed, and things. Then one day the [media] came out and says, “‘Hey, why don’t you guys do some tricks?’”
So we’re jumping off the steps and turning, and they report, “‘Danger, danger, these people will hurt you skating in the park.’”
They were gonna ban roller skating, so me and my friends joined the skate patrol, a volunteer group that would help monitor skaters. We got trained in first aid, CPR, it was like the Guardian Angels but on skates, doing the same thing that the park patrol would be doing.
I actually asked Rec and Park to string speakers up and down JFK Drive so we’d have music. They didn’t go for it. In 1984, I asked if they could close the 6th Avenue entrance on weekends for skating, and eventually it was made to look like it was never an entrance to reduce traffic in the park.
When did you start fighting to close JFK to cars beyond Sundays?
In ’82. I did not want to be a leader. I was just here skating. I lived in Visitacion Valley, and I skated here in 45 minutes every day. That’s how desperately I wanted to get to the park. And as we were skating every Sunday, I’m saying, “Hey, we should skate on Saturdays, too.” Everybody’s saying, “Yeah, D, yeah, we should do it all weekend.”
And so I got a petition drive and took ’em up to the Parks department. They said no [to Saturdays], but they always give something. That’s how we got Monday holiday closures: Labor Day, Memorial Day and all were closed to car traffic.
That was great. If you win anything, you’ve won: that was my attitude then. I was just some roller skating dude in the park.
So you pushed for more?
We went for Saturdays again. We were always fighting the museums, just the museums. And so Gavin Newsom took half of us on one side of City Hall, and Phil Ginsburg took the other half, and we stayed there for 20, 22 hours. Back then the museum people always considered me the sane guy with the crazy people because I always believed in compromise.
That’s how you got the partial Saturday closures?
Yeah. I didn’t wanna go through all this voting. Let’s just come to an agreement. That’s how I’d always felt, up until this time.
‘We’ve won some things, but we never actually beat them. When you experience this, you want more.’
How did you feel when they put Prop I on the ballot?
I felt insulted, really. All you gotta do is have enough money, What was it? 200 grand?
[Editor’s note: According to SF’s campaign finance database, two contributors alone — the de Young Museum’s parent organization COFAM and its former chair Diane “Dede” Wilsey — put a combined $833,000 into the JFK fight. COFAM’s share was the largest from any single entity in this election cycle.]
Well, look, we beat all the money. I call ’em the Blue Bloods. We’re like a ragtag force of people. Just our kids and our families, our bills, and everything it takes to live in this city. None of us have time to really fight these things, but we did it ’cause we had to. And I’m just so proud of that.
Have you ever visited the de Young?
I went there twice because there was a meeting, and I had to go.
So you’ve never been in as a visitor?
No, I’ve never looked around. I have no ill will towards them. I love history, but if you’re gonna be in a park, You’re gonna have to be in the park — not run the park.
How did you feel this morning when you stared at your screen?
I almost couldn’t believe it. I had to ask Rose [his wife] to do it because maybe I did something wrong. We’ve won some things, but we never actually beat them. This is the very first time, and it’s gotta shake ’em up because if we take this same energy and put in some of these other areas … when you experience this, you want more.
So what’s next for you?
I just opened up a roller skating rink across from City Hall. When you talk about the energy here, you’re talking about the skate park. I want to see if this can spread, because everybody talks about how all the good things, all the energy in San Francisco is gone. No, it’s not gone.
At City Hall, we get more and more people every day. The families that live in the Tenderloin and don’t even go outside, I see them bringing their kids. A lot of ’em don’t speak English, but they can get across what size skate they wear and all of that. They can understand the ‘walk like a duck’ when I show them, and it’s just wonderful. I love it. I think I’m the luckiest person who ever won a lottery.
Kristi Coale covers streets, transit, and open spaces for The Frisc.
