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Golden Gate Park in San Francisco

Thursday, 13 October 2022 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres (412 ha) of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development of Golden Gate Park. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape to but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York City, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles (4.8 km) long east to west, and about half a mile (0.8 km) north to south. With 24 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park and the Lincoln Memorial.

In the 1860s, San Franciscans began to feel the need for a spacious public park similar to Central Park, which was then taking shape in New York City. Golden Gate Park was carved out of unpromising sand and shore dunes that were known as the Outside Lands, in an unincorporated area west of San Francisco’s then-current borders. In 1865, Frederick Law Olmsted proposed a plan for a park using native species suited for San Francisco’s dry climate; however, the proposal was rejected in favor of a Central Park-style park needing extensive irrigation. Conceived ostensibly for recreation, the underlying purpose of the park was housing development and the westward expansion of the city. The tireless field engineer William Hammond Hall prepared a survey and topographic map of the park site in 1870 and became its commissioner in 1871. He was later named California’s first state engineer and developed an integrated flood control system for the Sacramento Valley. The park drew its name from the nearby Golden Gate Strait.

The plan and planting were developed by Hall and his assistant, John McLaren, who had apprenticed in Scotland, home of many of the 19th-century’s best professional gardeners. John McLaren, when asked by the Park Commission if he could make Golden Gate Park “one of the beauty spots of the world,” replied saying, “With your aid gentleman, and God be willing, that I shall do.” He also promised that he’d “go out into the country and walk along a stream until he found a farm, and that he’d come back to the garden and recreate what nature had done.” The initial plan called for grade separations of transverse roadways through the park, as Frederick Law Olmsted had provided for Central Park, but budget constraints and the positioning of the Arboretum and the Concourse ended the plan. In 1876, the plan was almost replaced by one for a racetrack, favored by “the Big Four” millionaires: Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker. Stanford, who was president of the Southern Pacific Railroad, was also one of the owners of the Ocean Railroad Company, which ran from Haight Street across the park to its south border, then out to the beach and north to a point near Cliff House. It was Gus Mooney who claimed land adjacent to the park on Ocean Beach. Many of Mooney’s friends also staked claims and built shanties on the beach to sell refreshments to the patrons of the park. Hall resigned, and the remaining park commissioners followed. In 1882 Governor George C. Perkins appointed Frank M. Pixley, founder and editor of The Argonaut, to the board of commissioners of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Pixley was adamant that the Mooney’s shanties be eliminated, and he found support with the San Francisco Police for park security. Pixley favored Stanford’s company by granting a fifty-year lease on the route that closed the park on three sides to competition. The original plan, however, was back on track by 1886, when streetcars delivered over 47,000 people to Golden Gate Park on one weekend afternoon (out of a population of 250,000 in the city).

The first stage of the park’s development centered on planting trees in order to stabilize the dunes that covered three-quarters of the park’s area. In order to transform the sand dunes into Greenland, John McLaren grew bent grass seeds obtained from France for two years. Once the seeds were grown, he planted them over the sand to hold the ground together. After this success, McLaren was able introduce new species of plants to the land, and is credited to have added over 700 new types of trees to California within the span of one year. By 1875, about 60,000 trees, mostly Eucalyptus globulus, Monterey pine, and Monterey cypress, had been planted. By 1879, that figure more than doubled to 155,000 trees over 1,000 acres (400 ha). Within his lifetime, McLaren is credited to have planted over two million trees within northern California as a whole. Another accomplishment of John McLaren is his creation of an open walking space along the Pacific shoreline on the western boundary of the park. Despite obstacles such as heavy tides and winds that carried sand inland towards the park, McLaren was able to build an esplanade by stacking thousands of tree boughs over the course of 20 years. When he refused to retire at the customary age of 60 the San Francisco city government was bombarded with letters: when he reached 70, a charter amendment was passed to exempt him from forced retirement. On his 92nd birthday, two thousand San Franciscans attended a testimonial dinner that honored him as San Francisco’s number one citizen. He lived in McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park until he died in 1943, aged 96. McLaren Avenue, in Sea Cliff, near Lincoln Park is named after him.
windmills were built at the extreme western end of the park. These pumped water throughout the park. The north windmill was restored to its original appearance in 1981 and is adjacent to Queen Wilhelmina tulip garden, a gift of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. These are planted with tulip bulbs for winter display and other flowers in appropriate seasons. The Murphy Windmill in the southwest corner of the park was restored in September 2011.

After the earthquake shook San Francisco in 1906, Golden Gate Park became a site of refuge for many who found themselves without shelter. The undeveloped Outside Lands became a prime location to house these masses of people, and “earthquake shacks” popped up all throughout the area. Of the 26 official homeless encampments in the Golden Gate Park region, 21 were under the control of the United States Army. The United States Army was able to house 20,000 people in military style encampments, and 16,000 of the 20,000 refugees were living at the Presidio. Within the Presidio were four major encampments including a camp exclusively for Chinese immigrants. Despite being simple lodgings the army organized 3,000 tents into a geometric grid complete with streets and addresses. “The Army constructed a virtual town with large residential barracks [with temporary] tented housing, latrines and bathhouses, laundries, and other services.” Not only was the standard of military organization high, but the social organization was also up to an acceptable standard despite the aftermath of the earthquake and fires. Reports indicate that small communities formed within the tent neighborhoods. The children of the refugees established play areas, and the adults congregated in the mess halls to socialize. Finally, in June 1906, the Presidio tent camps were shut down. To replace these tents the city of San Francisco built more permanent living quarters. As mentioned earlier these earthquake shacks were built to house those still homeless after the earthquake and subsequent fires. Army Union carpenters built these shacks, and residents paid off the cost of construction at a rate of two dollars a month for twenty-five months.

During the Great Depression, the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department ran out of public funds. Thus, the duties of the department were transferred to the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a government program designed to provide employment and community improvements during the economic woes of the 1930s. Within the park, the WPA is responsible for the creation of several features such as the Arboretum, the archery field, and the model yacht club. In addition, the WPA reconstructed 13 miles of roads throughout the park and the built the San Francisco Police Department’s horse stables. Another WPA contribution, Anglers Lodge and the adjoining fly casting pools, is still in use today. It is home to the Golden Gate Angling & Casting Club (formerly known as the San Francisco Fly Casting Club). The horseshoe pits were also entirely created by WPA employees. The pits also came with two sculptures, one of a gentleman tossing a horse shoe and one of a white horse (which has since crumbled), both created by artist Jesse S. “Vet” Anderson. Most of the water used for landscape watering and for various water features is now< provided by groundwater from the city's Westside Basin Aquifer. In the 1950s, the use of this effluent during cold weather caused some consternation, with the introduction of artificial detergents but before the advent of modern biodegradable products. These “hard” detergents would cause long-lasting billowing piles of foam to form on the creeks connecting the artificial lakes and could even be blown onto the roads, forming a traffic hazard. A sliver of park at the far east end of Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle, lies north of Haight-Ashbury, and it was the site of the Human Be-In of 1967, preceding the Summer of Love.

Read more on Wikipedia Golden Gate Park (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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