Golden Gate Park Memo

Memorandum

From: Eesha Bemra, Camden Davidson, and Lauren Harter

To: Carlton Lassiter, Director of Citywide Planning

Date: March 11, 2016

Re: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA

The Golden Gate Park, over one hundred and forty years old, is a popular public park in San Francisco that was converted from previously uninhabited, unincorporated land that sat at the city’s former edge. Its construction helped promote development and city expansion into the area. Similar to Central Park in overall shape, the rectangular park is actually twenty percent larger than its New York City counterpart (Trust, 2011). This is comprehensive summary of the history of the area, the steps taken to develop the park, and the significance of San Francisco’s large

The success in transforming such a bleak area into the widely used park that it is today makes the Golden Gate Park a remarkable example of a successful redevelopment project that has grown to become a vital, essential part of a city's identity and unique

Many of the park’s main features, such as the De Young Museum, the Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, the windmills, the carousel, the Arboretum, and the Bison Paddock, are over a century old, serving as reminders of the rich history of the San Francisco Bay Area and providing a stunning variety of attractions and activities for park visitors. The Music Concourse area, home to many of the more prominent features of the park, is a century-old testament to the grandeur and importance of the 1894 Midwinter International Expo. Other areas of the park contribute to the different facets of San Francisco's unique culture and history; the Bison Paddock and various nature trails, gardens, and pristine woods and fields are indicative of conservation and environmental protection efforts, while Hippie Hill, which was the site of the 1967 “Summer of Love”, a precursor to the ‘70s counterculture