The Friendship Bench is the very first thing I wrote about on here and one of the first truly unique and neat things I noticed when I moved into The Outer Sunset.
The idea that someone can convert their house into a little public art space is really charming and the fact that it’s survived unmolested all these years is amazing. I keep on discovering new things everytime I take pictures here.
Nice use of sand dollars. Sand dollars are local sea urchins that are indigenous to Ocean Beach. If you know how, you can collect them along the beach and then bleach them to a shiny white. You see them everywhere out here. Locals have them in their garages and gardens; you can see them in the mural over by the Ortega Street library. Collecting sand dollars is very much a Outer Sunset / beach culture kind of pastime.
I met the owner of this house the other day as he was pulling into his driveway. He was super nice and explained that The Friendship Bench was his wife’s idea. She set most of this up and since she passed away he has been maintaining it as a shrine to her.
And that’s what I love about The Outer Sunset; the idea that you can just convert your house into a mini shrine and no one will stop you.
The Outer Sunset 
Cool, I always wondered why Dinosaur Island was there.
Hey, Mike. Just catching up with your neato blog. Where’s the friendship bench? Or is this stuff kinda like an Easter Egg Hunt?
Dottie of the Inner Sunset 🙂
Hello Dottie of The Inner Sunset,
The Friendship Bench is around 30th Ave and Judah.
Funny that you say that because at first I definitely wanted it to be an Easter Egg Hunt. I had to work to find it plus I didn’t just want to broadcast the location out there, but within the past week several internet strangers have helped me out and told me the location of secret SF murals that I’ve been trying to track down so I feel more like sharing right now.
Funny how life is like that…
Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t.