SFist: nugget o' history: Sands-can-drift-so

Jym

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:05:07 -0800

=v= William Hammond Hall got his start at the other end of the park, though. To keep the dunes from inundating downtown, he created the Panhandle by planting some aggressive-growing trees. This city doesn't seem to be taking its trees seriously, these days. I just got a mailing from Friends of the Urban Forest about the latest budget proposal, which takes a chainsaw to the tree budget. They are recommending that you reword the following and get it to your Supervisor by Wednesday: I strongly support a thriving urban forest in San Francisco. You must reject the proposal to slash the City's urban forest budget and eliminate funding of Friends of the Urban Forest. Without this funding, 1500 trees planted in San Francisco in 2007 will die, and FUF's efforts to continue to build community and enhance our city's urban environment will be severely restricted.

sparkletack

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:02:45 -0800

Thanks for the book tip, I'll certainly check that out. In addition to selling off sand dunes, I think the city fathers of the time also had a serious case of Central Park envy -- they rejected Olmsted's plan at least partly because they were looking for something grand, something befitting the "Paris of the West". I love McLaren -- what a character! I love his detestation of statuary, which explains why half the park's sculptures are half-hidden behind trees and bushes... and also the story about when the Parks Commission decided he needed a car... and the first time behind the wheel he drove it straight into the lake! A driver was hired shortly thereafter. I've been meaning to record a show about McLaren for almost two years, now... maybe it's time to move him up the list.

Michael Smith

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:20:00 -0800

And there is so much more to the story. First, Fredirick Olmsted, of New York Central Park fame, was brought to San Francisco to design a great park. He noted the obvious fact that the land by the beach was pretty crappy and far away from most people. So he started work on plans for a park roughly where Van Ness is today. Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a more centrally located park in a sunny location that can much more easily support trees and such? But no. It turns out that the motivation for building a great park was to sell sand dunes to people, but who wants to buy a sand dune, unless it happens to be by a nice park! So the developers won the day, got the park built out in fogland, and made a fortune turning sand dunes into real estate. For more fun details I highly recommend the book the "Making of Golden Gate Park" by Raymond Clary. You might especially like the part where McLaren, the other great park steward, dynamited the tower that the de Youngs built in the Music Concourse!