The Sunset Connection - Perspectives from SF's Sunset Neighborhood

October Means Movies in McCoppin Park - It's a Tradition!

• Jessica J. Ho • Season 1 • Episode 16

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A foggy square, a rolling library cart, and a neighborhood ready to gather, this is how a small idea became a 15‑year tradition that now brings 700 people together every Friday in October. We sit down with Albert to tell the full story of Movies in McCoppin, from a merchants association looking for fresh energy to a city‑loved series that unites families across the Sunset and beyond.

We walk through the origin moment sparked by former Supervisor Carmen Chu’s suggestion, the early nights with a DVD player, and the steady evolution to bigger screens, better sound, and posters that have become part of the district’s visual history. Then we explore the secret sauce: playful pre‑show experiences tailored to each film, stormtroopers for Star Wars, hula lessons for Moana, NASA talks for Hidden Figures, a petting zoo for Zootopia, and a clever partnership model that buys food from Taraval restaurants and serves it for free, introducing neighbors to local favorites and keeping dollars nearby.

This year brings a strong lineup: Moana 2, Inside Out 2, Monsters, Inc., The Wild Robot, and Coco. There will be free popcorn, free food from local merchants, arts and crafts, and more! 

For families looking to do something family-friendly for Halloween, which falls on a Friday this year, come join us for a Coco screening with trick‑or‑treat giveaways so families can bundle costumes, candy, and community in one stop. We also unpack how People of Parkside Sunset (POPS) evolved from a merchants association to a broader community advocate focused on safety, cleanliness, lighting, and bringing fresh attention to Taraval Street, even courting film shoots to boost local pride and foot traffic.

What sticks most are the memories: the roar when the series returned after the pandemic pause, kids singing along in costume, neighbors meeting future classmates. If you care about community building, local restaurants, family‑friendly events, and the simple joy of a movie under the fog, you’ll feel right at home here. Follow, share with a friend, and leave a review, then grab a blanket and come say hi on Friday night.

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The Sunset Connection — exploring the stories and histories that connect us.

JessicaHo:

All right. So today on the Sunset Connection, I'm so excited to have our original guest back on the podcast. Say hello, Albert.

AlbertChow:

Hi, Jessica. Thanks for having me on again.

JessicaHo:

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of incredible that you're my first podcast guest because I needed to finish a school project like in in February of this year.

AlbertChow:

So like has it been that long already? Wow. It feels like so much has changed.

JessicaHo:

So much has changed, right?

AlbertChow:

Yeah.

JessicaHo:

And lo and behold, like people really liked your episode. People liked, you know, wanted to hear more. And so you this is now episode number 16.

AlbertChow:

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm just thinking like all the stuff that's changed between February and now. Um wild. People just say the sunset's boring. It's not anymore.

JessicaHo:

Spicy now.

AlbertChow:

We're spicy, yeah.

JessicaHo:

Yeah. Uh so today we're gonna be talking about something that brings neighbors together because there has been a lot of division in the sunset. But there's one thing that has been consistent over the years, even before things got spicy, and that is movies in McCoppin. And if you've never heard of movies in McCoppin, this is the reason why we're doing it, because we need to get the word out about movies in McCoffin. And that's been going on for over 10 years.

AlbertChow:

15 now.

JessicaHo:

15 years. And so today, Albert and I will talk about how movies in McCoppin started, what it takes to make it happen every year, and the partners and funders who set up and where he sees it going next.

AlbertChow:

Okay. Well, first, I'm not going to take credit for the creation of that. So our organization, People at Parkside, Sunset, used to be called the Teravelle Parkside Merchants Association since 1956, all the way until about 2010. So prior to that, I came in about 2008, and what we were doing every year, we had an annual event too. It was called the Teravel Senior Dance. What? Yeah. So we used to hold it at the Irish Cultural Center. Yeah. And then later we ended up doing it at the Promory Center behind the zoo. And for lack of a better word, it was getting a little stale. And we thought, you know, we really need to reinvigorate ourselves and try something different. And right then, Supervisor Carmen Chu got appointed because our previous supervisor, Ed Yu, got in a little bit of trouble, as some of us some of you may have heard. But I won't delve into that. I'll just delve into our great past supervisor Carmen Chu. Uh, she says, Well, let's put our heads together and think of some new event. And she goes, Why don't you do some movies? Show it to the kids.

JessicaHo:

I thought Oh, so it was Carmen's idea.

AlbertChow:

It was Carmen Chu's idea.

JessicaHo:

Wow.

AlbertChow:

Yes, yes. If anybody didn't have more enough reasons to love Carmen Chu, here's one more. Right. She started an institution here in the sunset. Little did we know it was going to be that way. Um, her and her aide, Ashley Summers, and I think it was also Deanna Kizan, were were involved with helping put this together. So at the at the very beginning, it was literally a DVD player, a uh cart with wheels from the library, and we did our movies in McCopin with very little fanfare, and we had like 50 people show up. That's awesome. Um, it was it was a uh Mark Twain summer night, so it was foggy and a little bit wet.

JessicaHo:

Always is.

AlbertChow:

Uh, and so I don't even think we really made a poster. Then the next year we got bigger, and you know, we we already had a routine built down, and we got we found a source for a bigger screen, more professional sound and speakers, you know, and also the projection system was way, way better. So uh we we s we just showed the movies. We didn't have popcorn or anything yet, it was just movies, and that was it. And we were kind of trying to copy Dolores Park, but then we decided to do instead of just one movie, we did every Friday in October. So that stuck. We thought that was a good time because that's kind of when our Indian summer really comes into full bloom and it it gets dark just early enough that the uh we could show the movie and it doesn't end too late for the kitties, and so that's really the start of it. And then Ashley Summers to this day still produces all the posters for us voluntarily.

JessicaHo:

Still amazing.

AlbertChow:

Yes. I asked her, Do you still want to do this? And she goes, I love doing this. Oh so she's she's uh she just kept it up. So I think you know, she gets a real big kick out of always contributing, and I love her for it.

JessicaHo:

Yes, no, for sure. I'm when did she start? In 2011, then?

AlbertChow:

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, that was probably the first year we actually started putting out like a real poster.

JessicaHo:

Yeah, yeah.

AlbertChow:

And we would walk around the neighborhood, putting them up everywhere, you know, get it online, anywhere we could blast it.

JessicaHo:

So on average, how many people attend movies in the copin?

AlbertChow:

So we started with 50 and now we're like 700?

JessicaHo:

A night?

AlbertChow:

Yeah, each night.

JessicaHo:

Each night?

AlbertChow:

Yeah, each each each of the Fridays.

JessicaHo:

Wow.

AlbertChow:

Yeah, a lot of people come out now. So what had happened was that at the time that it started, I wasn't president yet. Yumi Sam was president. Um but when I became president, I think in 2014, I thought, you know, let's let's kick this up a notch. And that's when I started asking about the popcorn machine. You know, and um then we said, hey, you know, uh I remembered we had some Star Wars movies coming out, and so I thought, wouldn't that just be the coolest thing if I could find a couple stormtroopers? So we found a bunch of stormtroopers. They came in, such as a accompanying related event before the movie. So we would we would hire actresses and actors like someone to do Moana. We actually hired a lady that was teaching everyone how to do hula dancing. When it was hidden figures, I remember one year we we got NASA to come out and talk about the space program when we did Zootopia. I had a petting zoo. We just tried to find something relatable, great for the kids and the adults. And then we just kept trying to improve and add more amenities to the uh events. So we said, hey, why don't we just promote even more for the merchants? And so we decided to we we actually got some more money from the city because they liked our program. And so we started like using some of the funding to buy food from the restaurants and bring it to the movies and pass it out for free and say, hey, this food you're eating today is from this restaurant or this food.

JessicaHo:

Louise sandwiches. I think I've seen you've the food there being from Luz, right? Um and from the pizza place.

AlbertChow:

Almost every restaurant on Taraville has gone through it. So some are it's not convenient for some of them. Right. Or maybe the price points are a little bit too high. We can't quite do it. But for the most part, yeah, we've done almost every restaurant on Ontario.

JessicaHo:

That's awesome. So looking at the lineup for this year, which is coming up.

AlbertChow:

Coming up very soon.

JessicaHo:

Yes, and so the movies that are going to be shown this year are Moana 2, Inside Out 2, Monsters Inc., the original, The Wild Robot, and Coco. This year, what additional activities do you have planned?

AlbertChow:

Again, we get our funding from the city for a lot of this. And unfortunately, this year we're in a kind of a budget cutting season. And so on, you know, hate to say it, but we were like probably the first budget to get cut. We were the low-hanging fruit. So this year we're not doing any additional events. We're gonna stir food, we've still got the popcorn machine, we're going to, you know, have the movies, of course, but that's all we're gonna be doing. Okay, we still have like an arts and crafts table, right? With the Sunset Mercantile and the SF library. So there's still gonna be some fun stuff for the kids, but unfortunately, I I don't have any budget to hire additional entertainment this year.

JessicaHo:

That's okay. I mean, we're all kind of falling on hard times these days, aren't we?

AlbertChow:

Yeah, and I I think that you know, we can survive this. I think that people really love it for what it is, and hopefully next year if the budget gets a little bit more robust and uh we can apply for a grant again, we can we can have some of those amenities back.

JessicaHo:

Who is movies in the coppin for?

AlbertChow:

Movies in McCoppin is for anybody that wants to come. We welcome everybody. It's free to attend. We've had people come from, of course, in our sunset neighborhood. It does get word out to the school, so a lot of the kids come. But we have adults come too, and we've had people come from far away, like East Bay. Wow, you know, South Bay come up to what to the movie event. We are the only movie event in San Francisco that does it in a series like this. Everybody else does like one or two, right? But we do it like every Friday for the whole month of October. So this month, Halloween just happens to fall on the the last Friday of October. So we have five.

JessicaHo:

Oh, got it.

AlbertChow:

So this year is you know, it's one of those odd years where Halloween lands right on Friday. So I know there's a lot of kids that, you know, we we want as many people to participate as possible. And what happens is like I know, like, especially little young ones, uh, if you go trick-or-treating and seeing a movie and all that, that might be a bit much. So we're gonna do some trick-or-treating uh giveaways at at the event, as well as food, as well as the movie. So hopefully parents that just want to do it all in one shot uh will will be there for that too. And we're showing Cocoa, which I think is such a wonderful Halloween movie.

JessicaHo:

Oh, absolutely, yeah. So I think that's a great activity for families in the neighborhood who maybe want to do something with other families.

AlbertChow:

Yes.

JessicaHo:

And if you don't know anyone in the neighborhood, you know, come out to this event and maybe you'll meet someone that you really get to know and maybe you'll become friends. Who knows? Right.

AlbertChow:

Right, exactly. Get to know maybe your kids go to the same school or you're thinking about going to their schools. Right. I mean, I've seen all sorts of connections and uh we always give out little prizes to the kids. I mean, we're here for the kids. So um I always buy extra prizes, extra little gifts that I can give away, like little flashy ring. Yeah, and if they want to get dressed up, little girls dressed up in princess outfits for frozen. Then when the songs came out, they just stood up and started singing with the movie. It was like like the kitty version of Rocky Horror Show. Yeah, right?

JessicaHo:

That's a good comparison, yeah.

AlbertChow:

Yeah, and then when we had like superhero movies in the past, like The Incredibles or something like that, like kids would come in in like their like their uh superhero costumes, which is always fun to watch. We'll see how it goes, but I think it's very family-oriented, it's very fun every year. There is no other event like ours where we have free food, good food even, you know, really it's our Terreville restaurants, taste of Terraville, you know, after all the stuff that's over with Great Highway. I really want people to be back together because at the end of the day, you know, those those issues come and go through our community, but our community remains. And we live here, we grow here, we love the vibe here. And Louise McCopin is just another reason why it's so wonderful to live here, I think.

JessicaHo:

Yes, I agree. Our listeners may not really know, like, what is People of Parkside Sunset?

AlbertChow:

People of Parkside Sunset used to be uh strictly a merchants association.

JessicaHo:

But we What is a merchants association?

AlbertChow:

Uh what is a merchants association? It is a it is a group of people, all merchants, that uh that represent a certain street and unite their voices together so that they can talk about and tackle issues, elevate their voices for concerns that would we could reach to people in control that can make things happen, such as the police department, such as the mayor's office, such as supervisors, heads of agencies, heads of corporations that may, you know, that may want to reach out to that particular street. That's what merchants and associations are for. You know, it's it's to help uh create a safe environment, a clean environment, and a prosperous environment for merchants to, you know, be able to make a living. Because if if our street was dirty, if our street was crime ridden, if our street was um just uh uh empty, there would be no there would be no commerce, there would be no success on Terravel Street. So we need to uh constantly promote it, watch it, make sure there's parking, make sure that the police are there, make sure the streets are safe and clean, well lit, and you know, those are those are like the basic things. And then what we want to do next is, you know, reach out to, you know, corporations, sports teams, musicians, agencies that do entertainment. I'm even average, I I try to advocate for even movies to be shot on Terravel Street because I think that would be a great idea. You know, because if you have if if we have a successful movie that gets shot on Terravel, people are gonna want to see the spot it was done.

JessicaHo:

Right.

AlbertChow:

Right? And that just naturally tourism. In yeah, that will naturally bring tourism to Sarah to Terravel Street. Now we opened it up to include community members because we thought that we should broaden our voice, bro broaden our the the concerns, broaden the uh scope of of um advocacy that our organization could could do for for Teravel. And we in in doing so we've brought in you know quite a lot of people that are just interested in the community and don't know exactly how to participate sometimes. And now they find us and they join us and they they add their distinctiveness to us and it creates a just a a better uh diverse base to you know. So there's so much talent that comes out of that that organization. There's uh everyone's got their little specialty that helps out.

JessicaHo:

Yes. Um on a personal note, what's your favorite memory from all the years of movies in the coppin?

AlbertChow:

Wow. Um I think that well I still one of my favorite was the um when we did Star Wars and we had the stormtroopers actually come down and everyone was just like looking at it and everyone was just in awe of all these stormtroopers, rebel pilots, all these different characters. And then they all came out and we had a photo booth and people were just coming out taking pictures. I thought that was so fun. But I I think one of my best memorable moments was right after we we took a pause for two years because of COVID, because of the pandemic. And when we first started showing again, people came up to me and said, We thought we lost this. And I was so they were they were really they were just so they were just so happy it was coming back. And that made me feel really good that we actually had created something that people were actually looking forward to every year. It wasn't like we had to even remind them. They were really anticipating it. And so uh when they didn't see the posters of for two years, they just thought like we had lost something. And nothing speaks more than when something's taken away. That's when you really feel like what it's meant to you. And so when it came back, um I was very proud. I was very proud. I was very um my heart really warmed up to all those comments and the cheers we got, you know, on the first night.

JessicaHo:

It's beautiful. So um thank you so much, Albert. I want to now transition, play a little game of trivia with you. Again. Um, the first question is about outdoor festivals, which I realize now that you might already know the answer to, but anyway, let's hear here we go. San Francisco has a traveling outdoor movie series that brings film, food, and music to parks across the city. What is that called? A film night in the park, B, Sundown Cinema, or C pop-up movies in San Francisco.

AlbertChow:

Sundown cinema?

JessicaHo:

Yes, that is correct.

AlbertChow:

Wow, okay. I didn't know that?

JessicaHo:

No. One that the Dolores Park does. I never knew that you never delivered that one. Yeah, well, I mean, I was that's why I thought it was interesting. Like at some point, maybe we you know, would the city be able to promote movies in the coppin like they do for Sundown Cinema?

AlbertChow:

They did it it's on the Wreckin' Park website. Oh, they really like it, they really like it because it's like the one at Delores Park is a little bit more adult uh targeted our audience, and ours is much more family and kids, so yeah.

JessicaHo:

So this fall, the Stanford um the San Francisco Standard stepped in to revive Film Night in the Park with two one-off screenings. Which movies are they showing? A La La Land and Edward Scissor Hands, B, Barbie and the Inception, or C, Toy Story and the Birds.

AlbertChow:

La La Land and Edward Scissorhands.

JessicaHo:

Correct again! Alright. Two out of three, already won. Um, that's according to wait, wait, don't tell me rules, by the way. Okay. Yeah. I like that show. Yes, that show is amazing. So Lala Land at Dolores Park on September 25th, and Edward Scissorhands at the Presidio Park on October 23rd.

AlbertChow:

Okay.

JessicaHo:

Yeah. Anyway. Who was Frank McCopin? McCopin Square is named after Frank McCopin. What was his claim to fame? A, a San Francisco's first Irish-born mayor, B, a designer of Golden Gate Park, or C, founder of Sunset District neighborhoods.

AlbertChow:

Mayor.

JessicaHo:

That's correct.

AlbertChow:

Alright. That's a guess.

JessicaHo:

I mean, you're just you're just blowing through this one. So I'll give you a bonus question.

AlbertChow:

Alright.

JessicaHo:

Just to make it, you know, more challenging for you. When did the Coffin School become a park?

AlbertChow:

Oh, jeez.

JessicaHo:

1905, B, 1910, or C 1915.

AlbertChow:

I want to say 1915.

JessicaHo:

The answer's 1910, but very close. I mean, that's like a five-year difference. Like it's fine.

AlbertChow:

I was thinking like it was all sunset, it was all dunes out here.

JessicaHo:

Right.

AlbertChow:

And I'd seen older photos, so I just thought like 1915 a little bit later. Yeah. Because 1910 was just right after the earthquake.

JessicaHo:

Yeah, it was right after the earthquake. Right. Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

AlbertChow:

I know.

JessicaHo:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Albert, for taking the time to come here and talk about what's going on in our neighborhood and answering some of those questions and hopefully getting the word out about movies in the Coppin and all the cool stuff that you're doing along Terravell.

AlbertChow:

We're trying all the time. We want to make Sunset interesting. We want to make Sunset a wonderful place to live with great activities. So, yeah, thank you, Jessica, for having me on again. It's a pleasure.

JessicaHo:

Awesome. As always, thank you for listening and being part of this community. Subscribe, share, and come say hi. I'm Jessica Ho, and this has been the Sunset Connection.

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