🌁 Secrets of Golden Gate Park

On Sunday, we attended a book launch near the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. The book is Discovering Golden Gate Park: A Local's Guide, by Marta Lindsey and Nancy Botkin, and it arrived at the perfect time. Spring came early this year, and the park has been packed.

West side residents in the Sunset and Richmond who roam the park may think we know it all when it comes to Golden Gate Park. We know about the bison. We ride our bikes down JFK Drive. We've visited the Japanese Tea Garden and wandered the Botanical Garden. But even the most seasoned locals will find something new in this guide.

Stephanie Linder, CEO of Gardens of Golden Gate Park, kicked things off with a point that stuck with me. For many visitors, the plants in the park are just the backdrop for concerts, sporting events, and festivals. For her team, the plants are the stars of the show. She thanked the gardeners, nursery specialists, and volunteers doing the quiet work behind the scenes. She also shared a secret worth passing along: half an hour after sunset every night, the Conservatory becomes a light and music show, and it changes with the seasons. It's been happening for years, and many people have no idea.

She then introduced the panel, which included Marta Lindsey (author), contributor Nancy Botkin, and Susan Freinkel of the Golden Gate Park Substack. They opened the talk by sharing some of their favorite hidden gems: segments of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, the oak woodland and ancient forest, the far end of the AIDS Memorial Grove, and the Fuchsia Dell. Many of these are the kind of spots you only find if someone tells you, or if you've been wandering long enough.

They also shared some trivia that would surprise even longtime San Franciscans. For instance, the Panhandle was once planned as a freeway corridor, a proposal that neighborhood coalitions ultimately defeated. The Conservatory was once devastated by a monster windstorm in 1995. It was saved when Hillary Clinton visited in 1998 to induct it into the Save America's Treasures program. One more gem from the panel: tucked into the far west end of the park is America's oldest public archery range, free and open to anyone. Competitive archers still go there to train.

Bookshop West Portal was present at the launch and selling copies of the book. You can buy the book at Bookshop West Portal, The Mountaineers, or Amazon.

Our personal favorite spot in Golden Gate Park? We’re big fans of the area around the carousel. We love bringing a book to the park, grabbing a coffee at the cute California Kahve kiosk, and finding a spot to picnic in the Robin Williams Meadow.

Just a short walk down the Panhandle from the book launch, the afternoon had a completely different energy. A flatbed truck had become a stage, and a crowd of Deadheads, tie-dyed shirts and all, had gathered in the warm sun to dance. The event was "Hard to Handle: Live Music in the Panhandle," a tribute to the free shows the Grateful Dead played on this very strip in the mid-1960s. The show is one of a series of events coming in the wake of Bob Weir's passing, with the community returning to the place where it all began. The free show was exactly what a 70-degree Sunday in the Panhandle called for.

Often while walking down Anza in Lone Mountain I’ve taken notice of an ornate, circular building at the end of Loraine Court and wondered what it was. This past week I finally decided to look it up. I discovered it’s a columbarium and that it’s open to the public, so I decided to plan a visit. I learned that a columbarium is a dedicated, above-ground structure containing small niches that hold urns with cremated remains. This differs from a mausoleum, which houses casketed remains.

Constructed in 1898, the San Francisco Columbarium, a four-level, neoclassical, copper-domed building is a truly beautiful work of architecture with peaceful grounds, mosaic tiles, and a dramatic stained glass interior dome capping the 45-foot-high atrium. The Columbarium was designed by British architect Bernard J.S. Cahill. There are eight rooms in the ground floor featuring stained-glass windows of angels and other heavenly images. The eight rooms are named after the Anemoi (the Greek gods of the wind), each one corresponding to the cardinal and intercardinal directions. One room named Aquilo (the Roman name for Boreas, the north wind) is notable for its stained glass attributed to either Louis Comfort Tiffany or John LaFarge (an uncertainty that stems from missing historical records).

The Columbarium houses the cremated remains of several notable San Francisco figures including Harvey Milk, Jose Santana, Edward Robeson Taylor, and The Folger family. It is one of the few places within city limits where human remains are still kept. The main areas are open to the public, and it is well worth a visit if you have an interest in San Francisco history, architecture, or to see the “time-capsule” niches with memorabilia that tell the stories of lives past.

Wako is a prestigious Clement Street sushi restaurant that opened in 2014, earned a Michelin star in 2016, and maintained it for six consecutive years. Now they are offering to-go sushi boxes that are a great chance to try some very high-quality sushi and nigiri without springing for a full, in-restaurant omakase experience. Customers can choose from two different boxes featuring combinations of Bluefin tuna belly, Bluefin tuna zuke, salmon nigiri, tuna maki, and chef’s choice white fish. There is also a third tuna donburi box option. The boxes are filling and truly excellent, with fish that melts in your mouth. My personal favorite was the Bluefin zuke.