San Francisco History » Art and Architecture

Sarah B. Cooper Brings the West its First Kindergarten

May 182013

Golden Gate Park
Near the Sharon Art Center

This memorial to Sarah B. Cooper was placed in the park by the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association in 1923. This area sits on the other side of the carousel from the Koret Childrens Playground.

Sarah Cooper was instrumental in the Kindergarten Movement of San Francisco. Here, from John Sweet in Public Education In California, Its Origin and Development, With Personal Reminiscences of Half a Century. American Book Company: 1911. Excerpts, Chapter XIII, pages 224-226.

Mrs. Cooper entered on the free kindergarten work with her whole soul. She was a woman of marked literary ability. For many years she earned enough with her pen to aid in the support of her family and in the education of her sister’s children in Memphis, Tennessee. She had no money to contribute to the kindergarten cause, but she gave what was needed more than money, —the wealth of her clear intellect, her winning manner, and her devoted Christian philanthropy. It was through her influence that Mrs. Leland Stanford became interested in the work and finally endowed three kindergarten schools with one hundred thousand dollars for their support. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was induced by Mrs. Cooper’s persuasive power to endow another kindergarten school. A large number of citizens subscribed five dollars a month, each, for the support of other classes. The Golden Gate Kindergarten Association was organized, and in ten years there were forty-six kindergarten classes supported entirely by endowments and subscriptions. Mrs. Cooper’s annual reports were distributed and read wherever the English language is spoken.

After the death of Mrs. Cooper’s husband, she still continued her management of the kindergarten schools, her daughter Hattie meanwhile supporting the family by giving music lessons. Mrs. Cooper steadily refused to receive a dollar for services, though persistently urged by the officers of the association to accept a salary. Once when I urged her to yield to the wishes of the association, she replied, “This is the Lord’s work, and I feel it would not be blessed if I received pay for it.” She held frequent consultations with me about any new undertakings, and is no person living who knows more fully than myself the extent of her labors, and the wealth of philanthropic devotion and Christian self-sacrifice that she brought to the work of training, reforming, and educating the children of the poor in San Francisco. Her sad and sudden death cast a gloom over the city in which her great work was accomplished.

This sculpture is of a small child with a squirrel and cat at her feet. It was carved by Jack Moxom. According to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park by Christopher Pollock:

“A rainy spring day in 1923 witnessed the dedication of a cast-concrete pool with inlaid bronze lettering dedicated to Sarah B. Cooper, creator of the first kindergarten of the West and one of the most influential women of her time. Retailer Raphael Weill, owner of the White House department store, had spearheaded a memorial effort in 1912 when he met Cooper’s cousin by chance on a steamer trip, but the project lay dormant for several years until the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association accomplished the good deed.

The subject of the original statue, by native San Franciscan Enid Foster, was a child standing by a pool. A newer figure (shown here) was carved of red sandstone. Proposed in 1934, the replacement figure was sculpted in 1939 by WPA sponsored artist Jack Moxom, a Canadian by birth who was an architect and a painter.

“Moxom’s life-size sculpture of a naked girl with a cat and a squirrel at her ankles was modeled after Moxom’s younger sister. Moxom had no sculpting experience and in an interview for the Archives of American Art New Deal and the Arts project Moxom recalls the challenge of creating his first sculpture. “But one of the errors, beside the kindness of hiring me, was that I bought a type of sandstone that darkened to a bloody red when the water hit it and while it was beautifully flesh colored in the studio or in the shed, it wasn’t the moment the water hit it. I kind of pretend it wasn’t that bad, you know, but this little girl of six looked kind of pregnant too. And it had the typical square noses, remember in those days every nose was square. I thought there was a law about noses. Noses just came down with a good flat bridge on them. Now who did we get that from or was it my own … ?” (SF Uncovered)

Now neglected, the pool is filled in with dirt. One can still read around the rim, In Memory of Sarah B. Cooper.

This badly neglected sculpture is administered by the San Francisco Art Commission.

Carl G. Larsen. Chickens to Jet Fighters

Sunset District 2 Responses »

May 022013

Larsen Park
19th Avenue at Ulloa
Sunset District

This plaque can be found on the corner of 19th Avenue and Ulloa. The plaque was done by M. Earl Cummings in 1913 of Carl G. Larsen.

Cummings has appeared prominently in this website for the many sculptures he has done around town.

“In the late 1800s, many speculators began buying land in the Sunset District. By the early twentieth century, landowners in the area included Michael deYoung, Fernando Nelson, and Adolph Sutro. But one of the largest land owners, Carl Larsen, also had other ties to the district.

Larsen did not live in the Sunset District, but he owned a business and a lot of land in the area. Sometimes called the “Gentle Dane,” he donated land for parks in the Sunset and probably would have given more to his city, but underhandedness after his death prevented any further gifts.

Carl Gustave Larsen was born in 1844 in Odense, Denmark. He came to San Francisco in his late 20s and worked as a carpenter. In 1879, he started the Tivoli Café downtown at 18 Eddy Street. In 1905, he moved across the street, constructing his own building at 50 Eddy Street. A popular restaurant, the Tivoli Café was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Undaunted, Larsen rebuilt and opened the Tivoli Café and Hotel Larsen.

Plenty of land was available in the Outside Lands in the late 1800s. Larsen’s first venture into real estate was in 1888, when he bought one block in the Sunset at an auction. He continued to buy land in the area, and by 1910 he owned fourteen entire city blocks and lots that totaled about nine more blocks. At this time, all of the land was sand dunes. Few of the streets were cut through, and accessibility was difficult.

As time passed, Larsen sold or donated parts of his holdings. Well-known structures that sit on land once owned by Carl Larsen include St. Cecilia’s Church on Vicente Street and the (former) Shriner’s Hospital on Nineteenth Avenue.

Larsen’s Chicken Ranch

Larsen operated a chicken ranch on one square block bounded by Moraga and Noreiga streets, Sixteenth and Seventeenth avenues. Each morning, a horse-drawn carriage took eggs from the chicken ranch to the Tivoli Café downtown, probably along the only through road in the Sunset, the Central Ocean Road. Tivoli Café ads boasted, “Fresh eggs from Sunset Ranch EVERY DAY.”

Once a year, at Easter, the Larsen chicken ranch hosted a large party for the neighborhood, with open bars and tables of food. Some reports say that these annual parties got out of hand and were discontinued in 1913.

Local Activism

Larsen lived downtown, but he was very involved in the Sunset neighborhood. He was a member of the Sunset Improvement Club and the Nineteenth Avenue Boulevard Club, a group that lobbied for a macadamized road and beautification along today’s Nineteenth Avenue, from Golden Gate Park toIngleside. In 1900, this group raised money to plant “bunch grass” on the west side of the newly macadamized Nineteenth Avenue.

Although he worked for civic improvements and streetcar service to the area, Larsen was not completely happy when his efforts were successful. To help pay for the Twin Peaks Tunnel, a tax assessment was made of Sunset landowners, who would benefit the most from the tunnel’s construction. What happened at this point is not clear. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Larsen owed about $60,000 and filed an unsucessful protest with the city. The newpaper said that to pay his assessment, Larsen sold many of his lots to the city and to private bidders on May 22, 1914. However, Block Books from 1915 and 1920 show Larsen owning most of the same Sunset land he owned in 1910. In More Parkside Pranks and Sunset Stunts, George Stanton wrote that Larsen did not have enough money to pay the tunnel assessment and “died a broken hearted man.” However, according to the Chronicle, the Larsen estate was worth close to $800,000 when he died.

Navy Jet – 1960′s Photo:Richard Lim F-8 in 1975 Larsen Park Photo: Gary Fong

Land Donation

Larsen is best remembered as the donor of Larsen Park, two blocks between Nineteenth and Twentieth avenues, between Ulloa and Wawona streets. Current Sunset residents know the green lawns, baseball diamond, tennis court, basketball court, and Charlie Sava Pool. Sunset residents in the 1950s and 1960s swam in the “modern” Larsen Pool, and remember the military airplanes that sat on the land, one at a time, for years, unique life-sized toys for children to climb over and sit in.

In 1926, when Larsen donated this park to the city, Mayor James (“Sunny Jim”) Rolph thanked him on the steps of City Hall proclaiming that Larsen would “be remembered in company with other benefactors, who have accumulated great wealth within our boundaries and were inspired to reciprocate with gifts to the commonwealth.”

Larsen Park was unique in that two spaces were set aside as “out-of-door card rooms,” one for men and the other for women. The outside card rooms and soccer field are long gone, but the tennis court and baseball diamond remain, now accompanied by a basketball court and an indoor swimming pool.

A memorial to Larsen stands at the Nineteenth Avenue and Ulloa Street corner of Larsen Park. The bronze plaque, mounted on a large stone, displays a bust of Carl Larsen sculpted by Melvin Earl Cummings, who also sculpted Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. Below the sculpture, the plaque reads, “Carl G. Larsen has generously given these two blocks to the city of San Francisco for park pleasure purposes.”

Larsen also donated land at the southern edge of Golden Gate Heights. Golden Gate Heights Park (or “Larsen’s Peak”) rises 725 feet above sea level, one of the city’s highest hills.

Larsen’s Death and Disputed Will

Carl Larsen died on November 5, 1928. He was remembered as generous both to the City of San Francisco and to his employees at the Tivoli Café. Newspapers reported that the Tivoli Café had been losing money for years before Larsen’s death but that he would not close it or terminate any workers.

Evidence indicates Larsen wanted to leave some of his estate to San Francisco. A handwritten will, dated July 27, 1909 and found after his death, gave $10,000 to a brother, $5,000 each to his other brothers and a sister, $25,000 to a friend, $25,000 to the Danish Ladies’ Relief Society of San Francisco, and $5,000 to the Boys and Girls’ Aid Society of San Francisco. The remainder, estimated at more than $500,000, was given to San Francisco for a museum in Golden Gate Park.

Some people listed in the will never saw those funds. When the will was discovered, Larsen’s signature and the signature of a witness had been “cut off.” Larsen’s relatives (22 of them, some living in Denmark) disputed the will and, in 1931, Superior Court Judge Dunne declared the will invalid. The friend mentioned in the will received a settlement; the rest of the estate was divided among Larsen’s relatives.

Larsen’s museum was never built in Golden Gate Park, but two Sunset parks—Golden Gate Heights Park and Carl G. Larsen Park—remain as reminders of the Gentle Dane.”

Lorri Ungaretti, is the author of the above history.

As a child I was fascinated with the airplanes that sat in Larsen park. There were three planes in the park over time. The first was a WWII recon camera plane that sat in the park from 1959 to the mid 1960′s. The jet was hauled to the park by G.W. Thomas Drayage and Rigging Company then the Russell Hinton Painting Company and the District Council of Painters Repainted it.

The second plane was a Navy FJ-Fury fighter that sat in the park from 1967 to the 1970′s.

In 1975 an old F-8 Crusader replaced the fighter plane. The F-8 was slung on a Marine Helicopter and flown under the Bay Bridge, a sight that must have been something to behold. From there it was taken to the San Francisco Zoo and trucked to the park. The F-8 was removed on orders from the City as there was not enough money to do lead-paint abatement. That plane was eventually moved to Santa Rosa and restored.

There is an effort to bring back a play structure that mimics an old military jet, donations are being taken at the Larsen Park Jet Organization.

The Masonic Temple – 25 Van Ness

Civic Center 3 Responses »

Apr 262013

Masonic Temple
25 Van Ness
Civic Center

Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville were the architects of this, the second Masonic Lodge in San Francisco.

The first lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and burned down in the 1906 fire. In 1911 the Masonic Temple Association, headed by William Crocker, laid a 12—ton cornerstone (the largest ever in California at that time) for their new building. Two years later a grand parade of 8,000 Masons, with Knights Templar on horseback, marked its dedication.

Cornerstone

An outstanding example of the Beaux-Arts period, the temple is primarily Italian Gothic in design, with a Romanesque—style arched entrance and touches inspired by cathedrals in France.

The entrance is through this elegant and noble portal, under a semi-circular hood supported on corbels formed by the stone figures of lions. The tympanum shows three allegorical figures in relief by New York Sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman (The future creator of the Winged Head Liberty Dime and the Walking Liberty Half Dollar), consisting of three figures of Charity, Fortitude and Truth. Beneath, the lintel is a row of nine smaller figures by San Francisco artist Ralph Stackpole, representing David, Abraham, St. John the Divine, Nathan the prophet, Moses, Aaron, St. John the Baptist, Joseph and Jonathan.

The 1913 Chamber of Commerce Handbook for San Francisco declared, “One of the few buildings in America comparable to some of the good buildings in Europe is the Masonic Temple.” And the 1919 Architectural Review said, “Bliss & Faville’s Masonic Temple is widely known as one of the best Masonic structures, both inside and out. . . . It looks like what it is, and this cannot always be said of lodges and fraternity buildings.”

The sculpture of King Solomon is also by Adolph Alexander Weinman. The canopy itself is adorned with sculptured angels, and with enshrined allegorical figures all done by Ralph Stackpole . The man with the capital represents the Builder: the one with the book, Social Order; the one with the lyre, Reverence for Beauty of the World; the one with his hands on his breast, Reverence for the Mystery of the Heavens.

Walter Danforth Bliss was born in Nevada in 1872, the fourth of five children born to Duane and Elizabeth Bliss. Duane Bliss had migrated out to California from Massachusetts during the gold rush period and had become a partner in a Nevada Bank, which was purchased by the Bank of California. Later Duane formed a partnership with Bank of California President, Darius Ogden Mills, in the Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. This successful venture secured the education of the Bliss’ children, each of whom was sent back to Massachusetts for schooling at MIT.

At MIT, Walter Bliss met his future partner William Baker Faville. Faville, more than 5 years his senior, was born in San Andreas, California, but had grown up in western New York State, and had already served an apprenticeship in Buffalo with architects Green & Wicks. Bliss and Faville both left MIT in 1895 and began working at the prominent New York firm of McKim, Mead & White. Although neither appears to have attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, they would have been exposed to its philosophy in New York at McKim, Mead & White and also at the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in New York, of which John Galen Howard was then President.

In 1898 the pair decided to form a partnership and selected San Francisco as the city in which to work.

The freemasons moved from this building in 1958, it is now home to a number of city and county departments, including the San Francisco Arts Commission, the New Conservatory Theatre, and the San Francisco Parking Division.

It allegedly sits along the outlines of a pyramid shape planned for the streets of San Francisco by various influential Freemasons. The shape reflects a prominent Freemason symbol and also the pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States. Supposedly, the first diagonal runs from Market to Mission Streets, the second runs along Montgomery Avenue, and the base is formed by Van Ness. The Transamerica Pyramid sits at the capstone.

Art at the Richmond District Library

Inner Richmond 3 Responses »

Nov 232012

351 9th Avenue
SF Public Library
Inner Richmond

According to Scott Donahue’s website “these sculptures were designed to integrate into the very symmetrical renovate library landscape and building. Each dome is a relief sculpture map. On is the entire Bay Area and portrays a time in history from 15000 years ago to 100 years ago. The other is a close0yo view of San Francisco and the Richmond District from today. The interpretation exaggerates certain features like the mountains and hills and there are little reliefs and images depicting how virtually everyone arrived, or their relatives arrived, to be looking here and now at these sculptures. I say no one is native to San Francisco and even Native American’s relatives had to walk here, or maybe boat here a long time ago.”

Scott holds a BFA from Philadelphia College of Art and an MFA from University of California Davis. Scott is also responsible for the sculpture on the Taraval Police Station in San Francisco.

Titled “Touching Earth” this piece was commissioned by the SFAC for $36,000 in 2007.

Liberty Bell of Mission Dolores Park

Uncategorized 6 Responses »

Jul 182012

Mission Dolores Park

The Mission

The plaque reads:

Mexico’s Liberty Bell

(A Replica)

On the early morning of Sunday September 16th a.d. 1810, Miguel Hidalgo Y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the town of Dolores, in the now state of Guanajuato calling the people to mass and to bear arms against the Spanish yoke of 300 years. The original bell stands now above the central balcony of the National Palace in the City of Mexico where the president rings it at exactly eleven o’clock in the evening of each September 16th in a traditional ceremony called “El Grito” – The “Cry” of Independence

Plaza and monument presented to the City of San Francisco by Lic. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, President of the United Mexican States September 16th 1966

On May 17th, 2009 the San Francisco Chronicle ran this interesting article:

This seems like heresy, given the apartment prices around Dolores Park, but that gloriously hip plot of land connecting the Mission District to the Castro neighborhood was once deemed “cheap” enough to house the dead. According to Charles Fracchia, president emeritus of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, when Dolores Park (then Mission Dolores) was purchased by Congregation Sherith Israel for a Jewish cemetery in 1861, the area was “well out of town.” “There were virtually no residences in around the park,” he said.

Like the 15 to 20 other cemeteries in San Francisco, the graves were moved when property values got too high to justify burial grounds. (Parking lots, on the other hand …) After the city of San Francisco bought the land for nearly $300,000 in 1905, Dolores Park was briefly a refugee territory for people stranded by the 1906 earthquake and the accompanying fires.

Nowadays, the park has become the place to enjoy a sunny afternoon in the Mission. As the wide variety of park visitors indicates – from Latino families to young hipsters to Castro gays – it sits at the intersection of a number of San Francisco demographic groups. And it always has. Fracchia says that even while the park’s two statues – one the Mexican liberty bell and the other of Miguel Hidalgo, the George Washington of Mexico – speak to the Latin American heritage of the area, the immediate environs were a haven for the Irish community for much of the first half of the 20th century. The more things change, the more they remain the same.