I recently came across this brief tour of the San Francisco Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park made by two journalism students at San Francisco State University.
Students Mike Bebernes and Josh Levine jumped on a guided tour of the gardens in late March with a woman that bucked the usual docent stereotype:
The thought of a San Francisco Botanical Garden docent brings to mind an elderly, woodsy person with decades of history in the forest or a botany student giving tours to pay tuition… Genevieve So bucks that notion. She is young, works in software and has no history with the gardens. She is just someone who volunteers her time because the gardens grabbed her.
The fact that a person like So, with no previous relationship with the gardens, would dedicate her time as an ambassador speaks volumes about the power of the San Francisco Botanical Gardens.
Enjoy the tour – you might pick up a few new things along the way. Better yet, head out to the Botanical Garden and walk around. I think it’s one of the city’s best kept secrets.
Sarah B.
It’s important to know the threat the gardens (the Strybing Arboretum) are under from the Botanical Garden Society which is trying to have the City impose a $7 entry fee.
Here is some information:
Golden Gate Park founder and Arboretum designer John McLaren and Helene Strybing must both be rolling in their graves! McLaren, who had envisioned a vehicle- and building-free oasis, would be aghast at the high ticket prices and corporate commercialism of our museums, the ugly gashes marking the entrance to the Warren Hellman parking garages, the Segway “tours,” and the very idea of astroturfed playing fields at Ocean Beach. He would be amazed that the once-free museums, Tea Garden, and Conservatory of Flowers, who faced hard times after Prop 13, are now cash cows. Likewise, Helene intended the Arboretum, whose creation she funded in her 1926 will, as a sanctuary which would remain free for all.
Phil Ginsburg, absentee Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Director of Recreation and Parks, is trying to force a $7 entry fee on Arboretum visitors, having packaged this together with a $2 Coit-Tower surcharge. Provided they can prove residency, San Franciscans will not have to pay but we can expect this to change. Widespread community protest and outrage last year is the only reason Recreation and Park modified their previous plan to charge residents a $5 fee while soaking tourists for $7.
The gardens are to become more and more Disneyfied: Plans include turning the “Demonstration Gardens” into a “special exhibitions” area, install “high-end” coffee carts, and institute corporate-sponsored “free days.”
It is unclear who will foot the considerable costs needed to install kiosks, change signage and promotional materials, print tickets, pay for staff, and conduct audits. A further unknown is how this will pan out financially. Three of five entry gates will be permanently shut. The social loss will be immense and mulitgenerational.
The first San Franciscans got wind of this was at the February 18th Recreation and Park Commission meeting when the Department’s Katharine Petrucione claimed that charging $7 will bring RPD an astonishing $250,000 net. We’re hoping to someday see the math, especially since only last year RPD was claiming that a “nonresident” levy would bring in $150,000 after expenses. Should the fee be rejected, Katherine laid it on the line: three gardeners from the Arboretum will be fired — a clear (and successful) attempt at blackmail!
Astonishingly, the Botanical Garden Society has engaged BMWL, a lobbying firm with clients such as AT&T and Bechtel, who have lobbied members of the the Board of Supervisors (arriving with Society trustees in tow!) and organized “Save the Garden” astroturf rallies. The Society has a budget of $3 million and considerable clout within San Francisco’s ruling elites. What can we do to counter their influence? Contact the Supervisors, Mayor Newsom and Phil Ginsburg (831-2704) and demand a public meeting.
The Arboretum is a special place where tourists and locals may meet in a utopian commons — an area free of ID cards, gates, and unreasonable restrictions. We should enshrine the principle that access to our biological heritage is a common right—one guaranteed to all, regardless of one’s skin pigmentation, passport, age, sex, or ability to pay. Future generations will thank us for it.
Join the Facebook group to protest the fees:
http://tinyurl.com/noarboretumfees
Sign the petition:
http://tinyurl.com/savestrybing!
Join our Yahoo! “Keep the Arboretum Free” group:
http://tinyurl.com/yahoo-arboretum