Back in 1870, it was just dunes in a part of the city dubbed the Outer Lands. 150 years later, Golden Gate Park is the crown jewel of San Francisco. Home to world-class museums, gardens, and events that draw millions of tourists each year. It’s also where locals go to work out and hang out. In honor of the parks’ 150th birthday, we're taking you on an audio tour of "San Francisco’s backyard."Subscribe on NPR One, Apple Podcasts, or Radio Public.Add this podcast to your favorite player using this RSS feed.
We're heading to the far west side of the Bay Area for our last stop on the tour... for now. And, we're going back in time. At the end of the 19th century, when Golden Gate Park was just a few decades old, engineers built a pair of windmills to irrigate it. They harnessed the power of the ocean winds to pump water through the barren sand and nourish the verdant landscape. Over time the windmills fell into disrepair and slowly disintegrated. But, in the early 21st century, some visionary San Franciscans decided to rebuild them. We’ll hear that story from Niels Swinkels.
2 Jul 2020
Roam Over To The Bison Paddock
We’re heading out from the ponds of the Golden Gate Casting and Angling Club. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to our next stop. As we approach John F. Kennedy Boulevard, again, we come across a site you won’t find on any map — but one that locals return to year after year. About 30 feet up one of the park’s majestic tall trees, there’s a great horned owl nest. Every year, the owls return to the same spot. Right now, though, we’re crossing the street to see some much bigger creatures. We’re going to the bison paddock. For well over a century, Golden Gate Park has hosted a herd of these 900-pound hoofed and hairy beasts. They were originally brought in as part of a nationwide conservation effort. So why are they still here? Laura Klivans gets some answers from people who care for the bison in their home on the west side of the park.
28 May 2020
Cast A Line At The Angling Club
We’re down in the wilder spaces of the park, now. The lower side, with its hiking and mountain bike trails, its hidden gardens, its untamed forests...
21 May 2020
Put The Wind In Your Sails At Spreckels Lake
Most of the cultivated features of Golden Gate Park are found on its eastern side. Now we’re heading for the wilder west — an area more frequented by locals than tourists. And as you’ll see and hear, there’s plenty to discover. There are lots of grassy areas here where people like to picnic. It gets foggier ... and we pass by one of Golden Gate Park’s more dramatic features. It's a waterfall cascading down from a man-made hillside, right next to an overpass. We continue on, under the bridge, and down the hill. The creek running alongside us eventually feeds into a lake with plenty of birds in it. That's where we're going today: Spreckels Lake. Reporter Hannah Kingley-Ma introduces us to its visitors.
14 May 2020
Nose Around The Rose Garden
We’ve just left the Shakespeare Garden, in a thicket off 9th Avenue. We're going to head back toward the north side of the park, and to get there, we'll take a circuitous route down a hill into the parking garage serving the California Academy of Sciences and the DeYoung Museum. Soon we’re back in the sprawling music concourse. We go down a path to the left of the Japanese Tea Garden until we get to John F. Kennedy Boulevard, where our destination is just across the street. It’s a garden. Sheer Elegance. Wild Blue Yonder. Lady Elsie May. Daybreaker. Although these might sound like romance novel titles, they’re actually names for different species of the flower of romance, the rose. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park has one whole acre of land dedicated to roses. Reporter Chris Hambrick follows the scent.
7 May 2020
Reflect In The Shakespeare Garden
Now it’s time to head out from the music concourse to a place that’s even more timeless. We climb up stairs as we head south, around the California Academy of Sciences, into a wooded area...
27 Mar 2020
March To The Beat Of The Golden Gate Park Band
We just got a fun workout with the swing dancers on John F. Kennedy Drive. Now, let's catch our breath and wander into the Music Concourse. As we walk along Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, we can see the California Academy of Sciences in front of us, with its skylights and living roof. To our right, the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum looks like a copper-clad battleship beached in the middle of a forest. In between the two cultural attractions is an open-air, oval-shaped plaza with many levels. If you walk down to the other end of the concourse, you’ll find yourself at the bandshell. This is the Spreckels Temple of Music and it's home to the Golden Gate Park Band. The band has brought life to the park every Sunday between April and October every year since 1882. Reporter Steven Short went strolling in the park and here’s what he heard.
20 Mar 2020
Swing Over To Lindy In The Park
Now, let's climb the steps up and out of the hollow and turn west along John F. Kennedy Drive. The flower garden before the conservatory is full of blooms and people lounging on the grass. It’s a nice, flat walk to our next stop, and we can just see it up ahead. In San Francisco, you don’t have to go to a stuffy nightclub or a formal classroom to learn how to swing dance. If you want to learn the Lindy Hop, you can learn in the great outdoors. Reporter Carolina Hidalgo, who is originally from Chile, was surprised to find the group dancing in full daylight on one of her walks in Golden Gate Park.
13 Mar 2020
Groove On Down To Tunnel Jazz
We started our tour at the Conservatory of Flowers. Now, we’re back outside. As we walk along the path back toward the street, we see flower beds laid out before us, in fact, there’s a huge clock set into one of the gardens, embedded amongst the blooms. Then, we walk down some steps, and before us, there’s a tunnel. If you’re here on a Saturday, you might hear a sound emerging from it. It’s jazz! Laura Klivans introduces us to the people making the music.
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