PAGE ONE -- S.F. Treasure's Sad Decline / Decades of neglect take their toll on city landmark

GG PARK AERIAL/20JUN97/MN/FRL: The Golden Gate Park looking east from over ocean beach. Chronicle photo by Frederic Larson. GG PARK AERIAL/20JUN97/MN/FRL: The Golden Gate Park looking east from over ocean beach. Chronicle photo by Frederic Larson. Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close PAGE ONE -- S.F. Treasure's Sad Decline / Decades of neglect take their toll on city landmark 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

Golden Gate Park, one of the world's great urban treasures, is quietly withering away.

Old age, natural disasters, chronic overuse and political neglect have ravaged the fabled park to the extent that it no longer provides the sylvan retreat from urban life that the original planners envisioned.

Today, the park suffers from the same intractable problems that plague the rest of San Francisco: homelessness, crime, traffic woes and lack of money.

Administrators, historians, gardeners and other city employees who have worked in the park for decades say that if the problems aren't addressed soon, the park's very future will be at stake.

"We're struggling to keep our head above water," said Kevin Shea, a city gardener for 34 years. "But we've been struggling for more than 10 years, and we can't continue to survive at this rate. This place is going down the toilet in some parts."

More than three-quarters of the century-old forest is in fair or poor condition. The park's 14 lakes and ponds leak more than 500,000 gallons of water every day; most will have to be drained to repair their disintegrating bottoms.

Homeless camps have taken over one entire section of the park. Other areas of the park are virtually off limits to families concerned about gay cruising.

Drug addicts leave hypodermic needles in children's play areas; last week a child was stuck by a hypodermic needle while playing in the park. In some instances, needles have been inserted in hoses apparently to stab gardeners and prevent them from watering near homeless encampments.

Two weeks ago a homeless woman was stabbed to death in the park by a homeless teenager. A week later a homeless man was shot to death near an entrance to Kezar Stadium.

Many of the park's signature attractions are still in need of repair from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and fierce winter storms of recent years.

Waiting for as much as $20 million in storm repairs, the Conservatory of Flowers is now listed on the World Monuments Fund's 100 most endangered cultural heritage sites. Trustees from the earthquake-damaged M.H. de Young Museum finally decided simply to pack up and leave the park, and the California Academy of Sciences may not be far behind.

One thing is clear: Golden Gate Park faces dramatic changes in the coming decade as fiscal realities will almost certainly require a greater role for the private sector -- at the same time that the park may lose some of its most famous cultural institutions.

Mayor Willie Brown says the park has been largely ignored by city politicians for the past three decades and suffered further from the recession that struck California in the 1970s and 1980s. Brown believes the park will have to welcome more commercial entities in order to pay its way in the future. "Golden Gate Park suffers from inadequate funding," Brown said. "Today we have to think about how our parks earn their money without denigrating their use. We've got to think entrepreneurially."

Many of the most heavily used areas in the park still provide glimpses of the botanical wizardry that have delighted visitors for more than a century. Today, the area fronting the conservatory is now spectacularly in bloom, and many other attractions like the recently renovated Beach Chalet are packed with tourists from around the world.

CULTURAL, RECREATIONAL ATTRACTION

Park officials estimate that the park attracts 15 million visitors a year, although the figure may be much higher, park workers say. On free museum days in the summer, the California Academy of Sciences alone gets close to 20,000 visitors.

The Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates that the park generates an economic benefit to the city of more than $500 million per year.

But dollars alone cannot measure the park's broader value: the recreational, educational, environmental and cultural amenities it has provided to millions of adults and children for almost 125 years. On any given day, the park is crowded with thousands of joggers, bikers, sunbathers, soccer players, in-line skaters, fly-casters and dog lovers.

Off the main drives, however, lies evidence of the park's silent struggles: widespread erosion turning some trails to sand dunes; fallen and dying trees, all but ignored because of personnel shortages; and car parts, unwanted furniture and raw garbage dumped among the overgrown brush.

Yet in recent years, City Hall has responded to the problems facing Golden Gate Park with bureaucratic indifference and political posturing.

Critics say the park has lacked a clear vision ever since the death in 1943 of Superintendent John McLaren, who ruled the park with an iron hand for more than five decades.

Today, the park doesn't even have a permanent general supervisor to oversee the park and other areas in its jurisdiction, including the Panhandle, the Great Highway and Park Presidio. The position was formally abolished during a recent departmental reorganization.

MASTER PLAN UNRAVELS

Five years ago, the city's Recreation and Park Department began working on a master plan to focus on the park's most pressing problems. But a subsequent environmental review of the plan did not address the needs of the de Young Museum and the Academy of Sciences because those institutions are managed by the city's Fine Arts Commission.

The omission infuriated museum officials. By recommending closing numerous park roads and entrances to reduce traffic and congestion and thus restricting access to the museum, the master plan actually encouraged museum trustees to seek a new site along the Embarcadero.

The question now is what effect the museum's departure will have on the Academy of Sciences, which feeds off museum traffic and could lose money if it remains the sole commercial attraction at the east end of the park.

"Some people have been quite vocal in their desire to shut down this part of the park," said Evelyn Handler, executive director of the academy. "We can't survive without access. The park should be for everyone, and total access means that you can't divorce families from their automobiles."

The park's public profile has increased under Mayor Brown, but by all accounts its budget was one of the first to be cut under previous administrations.

Following the passage of the tax-cutting Proposition 13 in 1978, Mayor Dianne Feinstein began the practice of funding programs that maintain the most-traveled park thoroughfares while cutting corners on the less visible areas. Mayor Art Agnos paid little heed to the park's problems. Mayor Frank Jordan's Matrix program effectively drove many homeless from downtown San Francisco into the park.

"I don't think there was any commitment to Golden Gate Park on the part of the last mayor," Brown said. "There was a shortage of money over the years, and the two areas where the sacrifices have been made have been in Muni maintenance and park maintenance. That was the order of the day."

In five of the past six years, the Recreation and Park Department's budget was cut by an average of 10 percent per year. Golden Gate Park currently operates with an annual budget of $9.8 million.

Critics who want more money set aside for the park compare its budget with the more than $4 million the city spends each year to operate and maintain Candlestick Park, the concrete monstrosity loathed by fans and athletes alike and now awaiting the wrecking ball.

CONTINUAL STAFF CUTS

Indeed, money or the lack of it lies at the core of most of Golden Gate Park's problems -- as well as in the city's 130 neighborhood parks. Those parks also suffer from staff and equipment shortages. On most days, for example, there are only 3 people assigned to mow all the public lawns, athletic fields and meadows in the city.

The number of gardeners and other key personnel in Golden Gate Park has been dramatically reduced in recent years.

In 1977, a year before the passage of Proposition 13, the park had 133 maintenance workers. In 1994, the staff had been cut to 99, and staffing levels have continued to decline through attrition. The gardening staff now hovers around 75.

Although the park's master plan calls for a substantial increase in park workers, there is currently no city funding available.

Whole sections of the park are no longer maintained because of the shortage of staff and equipment. Many of the gardeners are charged with taking care of a minimum of 15 acres -- essentially by hand. In one section in the western end of the park, nine gardeners share one small Cushman cart to move dirt and tools. On one recent day, there were only only four trucks and four drivers to serve the entire 1,017-acre park.

"The park operates on crisis management," says longtime gardener Doug Martino. "Everything is always deferred and nothing is ever fixed. It's almost impossible to get any of the equipment, tools or support we need to do our jobs."

Maintenance is critical in man-made Golden Gate Park. The artificial habitat requires constant attention in order to sustain itself.

"This is a very fragile ecosystem," said Tom Mrakava, a gardening supervisor. "And we're starting to lose some of it because of the amount of use and abuse the park gets."

The park's magnificent cypress, pine and eucalyptus forest is succumbing to disease, old age and natural disaster as well as a 60- to 80-year gap in planting new trees.

Forestry experts say the vast majority of the park's 30,000 trees are in fair to poor shape. Reforestation workers have been trying to plant up to 1,000 new trees a year to replace the senescent forest, but severe storms in the past three years have left gaping holes in the forest's canopy.

BOND MEASURE, DONATIONS

In 1992, city voters passed a $76 million bond measure that earmarked some money for planting new trees. But virtually all of the bond funds will be spent to repair the park's failing infrastructure. The bond money will fix underground irrigation, sewage and electrical systems, repair the leaking lake bottoms, and rebuild several damaged structures.

The bond measure was designed to finance needed repairs for which private donors weren't likely to contribute, several of its drafters say. But although benefactors aren't anxious to give money for such mundane projects as new sewer lines, they aren't exactly lining up to provide for the park's higher-profile needs, either.

By almost any standard, in fact, Golden Gate Park is woefully underrepresented by the private sector. In the past several years, the park has raised about $1 million in private contributions a paltry figure when compared with the park's economic and cultural worth to the city. Donors to Central Park in New York City, by comparison, have given an average of $10 million per year since 1980.

"The park has been here more than 100 years and yet the city has never dealt with the problem of coming up with steady funding to maintain it," said Deborah Learner, the park's longtime planner.

The park's main fund-raising foundations have rarely moved beyond the middle-class neighborhoods that surround the park. Only recently have park fund-raisers expressed a desire to go after some major private donors to deal with the cash crisis.

Interviews with people who have worked in Golden

Gate Park for decades make one thing abundantly clear: The park is suffering from problems that could not have been foreseen by its visionary builders. McLaren, who became park superintendent in 1890, certainly couldn't have predicted the park becoming a commuter thoroughfare, as more and more drivers use park roads as alternatives to crowded streets on weekday mornings.

COMMUTING THROUGH THE PARK

John F. Kennedy Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, the park's two main thoroughfares, are choked with traffic during the morning rush hour. Park workers say it is not uncommon to see cars traveling at more than 60 miles per hour on John F. Kennedy Drive with some drivers deciding to pass on either side of an auto.

Nor could the original park planners have anticipated the eastern end of the park serving as a parking lot for commuters who cannot find adequate parking on city streets.

"We're dealing with elements never envisioned for this park," said park reforestation supervisor Jane Herman.

"Who would have thought back in McLaren's day that one of our chief gardening concerns would be having to deal with the homeless."

On any given week, as many as 1,000 homeless people are living in the park, with most of them in the Alvord Lake area near Stanyan and Haight streets, according to weekly surveys conducted by supervisors and gardeners in every section of the park.

Although small groups of homeless people have camped in the park almost since its creation, their ubiquitous presence in the park has become one of the most visible -- and damaging -- symbols of the city's inability to find a lasting solution to the numbing homeless crisis. Park gardeners say they must spend at least part of every day cleaning up refuse left by the homeless. They also say that many of their attempts to move the homeless from the park have not been backed by the city.

"I love the park and I love what I do, but on most days I spend my time picking up garbage and acting as a police officer," one exasperated veteran gardener said.

In the past year, gardeners and police officers worked together to reclaim a part of the Oak Woodlands near McLaren Lodge that has become a major homeless encampment. The homeless had dug into the side of a hill and literally filled it with furniture. Gardener Shea said the area had become a "shooting gallery" for junkies -- one day, two gardeners found more than two dozen hypodermic needles.

THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT

The increasingly hostile homeless population, as well a growing number of drug addicts, are only part of the growing crime problem in the park.

Each year, tens of thousands of dollars' worth of plants are lost to people who come to the park and dig up trees and plants. Eagle-eyed horticulturists have located hidden exotics and carted them away in the dead of night.

Last year, one person spent months attacking a series of newly planted trees, Herman said, killing them by carefully scoring the trunks with a knife and then breaking off the main leader branch.

In May, a man was arrested for destroying more than 40 rose bushes. Park security workers said the man simply said he was upset "because certain kinds of rose bushes shouldn't be planted together."

Critics say the city simply doesn't provide sufficient police to patrol the park. Two patrols each from the Richmond and Park stations are on duty in the park until 7 p.m., when security is turned over to the park's own patrol unit. That unit has been hit by staffing cuts in recent years. At any given time at night, only three park officers patrol the sprawling park as well as the city's 130 neighborhood parks.

Park activists applaud the desire of city officials to address some of the park's problems in the master plan, but they say the long-term neglect, onslaught of disease, age, overuse and an annual cash shortfall will make the next few years critical for the future of the park.

"At one time every inch of the park was maintained, but now what you see is a facade," said one longtime tree-topper. "If we don't increase our efforts, we'll end up with a place that looks like the site before it was planted -- shrubs and sand dunes."

ABOUT THE SERIES

Today The Chronicle begins a comprehensive, three-day look at Golden Gate Park:

TODAY

-- NEGLECT: Years of neglect and abuse have left the park a shambles

TOMORROW

-- POLITICS: The tangled machinations of City Hall are a prime reason the park is in trouble

WEDNESDAY

-- FUTURE: New York City's Central Park offers a model for recovery"Destroy a public building and it can be rebuilt in a year; destroy a city woodland park and all the people living at the time will have passed away before its restoration can be effected."

William Hammond Hall, 1871 park superintendent

"We're struggling to keep our head above water. . . This place is going down the toilet in some parts."

Kevin Shea, gardener

"Today we have to think about how our parks earn their money without denigrating their use. We've got to think entrepre-neurially."

Willie Brown, San Francisco Mayor

"If we don't increase our efforts, we'll end up with a place that looks like the site before it was planted. Shrubs and sand dunes."

Park tree-topper (unnamed)

"We're dealing with elements never envisioned for this park. Who would have thought back in McLaren's day that one of our chief gardening concerns would be having to deal with the homeless."

Jane Herman, Park reforestation supervisor

"Let me counsel you, in general terms, to remember that your park is not for today, but for all time -- so long as you have a city."

Frederick Law Olmstead in a 1886 letter to the San Francisco park commissioners

-- Erosion has become a serious problem in some areas. Heavy foot and bike traffic have stripped vegetation off slopes.

-- Lacking parking and road access on weekends, the de Young has decided to leave the park, and the Academy of Sciences may not be far behind.

-- The Conservatory has bee closed to the public since a December 1995 windstorm damaged the building and destroyed a third of its collection. Restoration cost: $20 million.

-- Homeless camps have taken over this area and elsewhere. On any given week, as many as 1,000 homeless live in the park.

-- The park's historic monuments, including the Tea Garden's 207-year-old bronze Buddha, have been abandoned by the city and are in bad need of restoration

-- The windmill is currently abandoned and in need of serious repair

Restoration cost: $862,000.

-- The park's long-neglected West End has become a popular area for gay cruising, which has frightened away other park users.

-- The park's 14 lakes leak 560,000 gallons of water a day. Most of the 1992 bond proceeds are going to repair the park's water system.

-- Heavily damaged by recent storms, Mclaren's prized rhododendrons are also badly infected with oak root fungus.

-- Frail Forest: Weakened by old age, the park's forest is succumbing to disease and winter windstroms. Trees over 20 feet tall in the park: 27,192 Trees lost between 1980 and 1993: 6,150 Trees lost in winter stroms 1995-present: 2,000

WHAT'S CRIPPLING THE PARK

NATURAL DISASTERS

-- 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged M.H. de Young Museum and other park structures

-- 1995 winter storms caused an estimated $20 million worth of damage to Conservatory of Flowers

-- Virulent disease threatening the park's 5,000 pines

OLD AGE

-- Most of a $76 million bond measure will be spent to repair irrigation and sewer systems

-- More than 75 percent of the park's forest is in fair or worse condition

-- Park's 14 crumbling lake bottoms leak more than 500,000 gallons of water per day

MODERN URBAN PROBLEMS

-- Homelessness: As many as 1,000 people sleep in the park in a given week

-- Crime: Two people have been killed there in the past two weeks

-- Drug Use: Addicts leave hypodermic needles in playgrounds and elsewhere

POLITICAL NEGLECT

-- M.H. de Young Museum may be relocated because

of accessibility problems, unaddressed damage

-- Park budget slashed in five of the past six years by an average of

10 percent per year

-- Position of park supervisor abolished in recent department reorganization

$3,186,000: annual park revenue . $500 million: estimated economic benefit to San Francisco from visitors to the park . 15 million number of annual park visitors . $9,850,000: annual park budget . 160,000: number of plants in conservatory of flowers before December 1995 100,000 number of plants after the storm of Dec. 11-12, 1995 . 133: park gardening maintenance staff in 1977 99: park gardening maintenance staff in 1994 . 38: number of monuments and statues in the park . 59 percent portion of forest in fair or worse condition in 1980 75 percent portion in fair or worse condition in 1995