The San Francisco Parks Alliance’s annual Party for the Parks fundraiser is, typically, held in some lush, sylvan grove amid our city’s mighty parks system. But this year, co-chairs Michelle Curtis Harris, Mollie Hector and Katy C. Williams (with board chairwoman Liz Farrell) went uber-urban by pitching their party tent atop Civic Center Plaza park.

Alas, for many years tents were not an uncommon sight here. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, an influx of homeless people gave rise to a tent city that eventually cost then-Mayor Art Agnos his re-election bid as he grappled to find a humane solution.

That scenario has somewhat righted itself. But the open spaces of this 4.5-acre National Historic Landmark parcel in the heart of the city — framed by grand beaux arts monuments such as City Hall, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the Main Library, Asian Art Museum and the Supreme Court of California — was long a haven for bad behavior.

But thanks to a $10 million upgrade in February, this park (officially named Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza” for former Mayor Joseph Alioto) was reborn with two new playgrounds teeming with kid-friendly essentials (swings, slides, climbing structures), art and sport programs, a winter ice-skating rink and the city’s first BiRite kiosk.

“This park is a great example of how redevelopment can enhance a public space,” noted co-chair Hector. “With children and families playing here every day, this park is now more of a community.”

And swing-and-slide supporters raised more than $700K for Parks Alliance, the nonprofit partner that assists the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to refurbish some of the city’s more than 220 playgrounds and parks.

As cars, and a few unfortunate crazies, whizzed by this former asphalt jungle, 700 snazzily attired guests alighted for a playful evening of cocktails, DJ dance music and a McCalls dinner buffet amid a tricked-out Nicole Krassner-designed tent aglow with lounge seating and a dance floor.

“I drive by this park a couple times a week and always saw bad behavior or people lying on the ground. But when you bring positive energy and physical enhancements to a space like this, negative activities usually disappear,” said Harris. “Now when I drive by, the park is filled with children.”

The funds benefit the Let’s Play SF initiative, a public-private partnership between Parks Alliance and Rec and Park that will aid renovation of 13 city playgrounds.

“We’re focused on bringing equity to certain city playgrounds to benefit 20,000 children,” said Parks Alliance CEO Drew Becher. “A number of parks have local partners that raised funds for improvements. But this effort is focused on communities that don’t have the wherewithal to raise that kind of money.”

Those improvements will provide much-needed upgrades at parks including McLaren Park in the Excelsior, Herz Playground in Visitacion Valley, Alice Chalmers in Crocker-Amazon and Juri Commons in the Mission.

S.F. Rec and Park GM Phil Ginsburg said his department is blessed by the amazing philanthropic efforts of Parks Alliance, as well as the Helen Diller Family Foundation and Mercer Foundation, which provided big boosts to the Civic Center playgrounds.

“This park is important for families in the nearby Tenderloin, which is open-space deficient yet home to the highest concentration of kids in San Francisco,” said Ginsburg. “Parks Alliance chose this particular park to throw down a marker that this park is no longer a drive-by. It’s become a happy, joyous space. And there’s even free Zumba!”

Leave the light on: Onstage at the Vogue Theater, Porchlight founders Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick exude a vaudeville-era charm they channel via their punk rock ethos that is at turns edgy, goofy, zany and slapstick. This storytelling series they founded 17 years ago is a joyful pre-internet confab that inspires real-time conversations — accompanied by co-conspirator musician Marc Capelle, who may tickle the ivories to cue readers to wrap it up.

The team invites six citizens of all stripes to bravely stand before an audience, sharing 10-minute tales (ranging from heartbreaking and joyful to silly and sublime) of San Francisco life. For the recent Aug. 12 Porchlight edition, Klatte and Lisick chose the theme “Pacific Heights and Lows” that was ably interpreted by filmmaker Owsley Brown, artist rights’ activist Brooke Wentz, writer-editor Michael Wharton, cultural poobah Kevin Hunsanger, artist Cate Nelson and culinary author Peggy Knickerbocker.

Klatte, who grew up in Pacific Heights, joked that they had trouble attracting folks to dish on this posh ZIP code: “I guess Pacific Heights people are hesitant to mess up their gig.”

Yet Wentz recalled a time when Pacific Heights was a beautiful neighborhood, yes, but not the exclusive, overpriced enclave it is now. Instead it was filled with generations of EssEff natives, working parents or grandparents living in an in-law unit.

“The neighborhood we derided as wealthy was Nob Hill,” laughed Wentz. “We called it ‘Snob Hill.’”

Before Knickerbocker became a famed food writer, she was a Pacific Heights O.G., who appreciated her parents’ bohemian glamour but, as a beehived teen rebel, preferred dating a hot-rodder to attending debutante balls.

Touring her husband, Robert Fisher, around her old neighborhood, she dished but didn’t divulge: “There are secrets on every block of Pacific Heights. And I know them all.”

Porchlight P.S.: On Oct. 14, Porchlight, once again, joins the annual Litquake lineup at the Swedish American Hall with a program titled “Liars and the Lies They Tell.”

Catherine Bigelow is The San Francisco Chronicle’s society correspondent. Email: missbigelow@sfgate.com Instagram: @missbigelow