AQUATIC PARK HALS CA-113 San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park HALS CA-113 Area bounded by Hyde Street and Van Ness Avenue on the East and West and the Aquatic Cove and Beach Street on the North and South San Francisco San Francisco County California PHOTOGRAPHS COLOR TRANSPARENCIES WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS FIELD RECORDS HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240-0001 HISTORIC AMERICAN LANDSCAPES SURVEY AQUATIC PARK HALS No. CA-113 Location: Area bounded by Hyde Street on the east and Van Ness Avenue on the west and the Aquatic Cove and Beach Street on the north and south San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, San Francisco, San Francisco County, California Aquatic Park is located at latitude: 37.806415, longitude: -122.423978. The point represents the center of the bathhouse and was obtained in December 2015 using Google Earth. The datum is WGS84. There is no restriction on its release to the public. Present Owner: National Park Service Present Occupant: National Park Service Present Use: Recreation Significance: Aquatic Park is located on a sheltered cove of San Francisco Bay, flanked on the west by Fort Mason and on the east by Hyde Street Pier where the historic ships administered by the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park are anchored. The current site is comprised of the original Aquatic Park (largely built by the Works Progress Administration), Municipal Pier, the Bocce Ball Courts at the southwest corner, Victorian Park to the east, and the cable car turnaround at the southeast corner. The story of the creation, development, and construction of San Francisco’s Aquatic Park is characterized by persistent advocacy by citizens groups, lack of funding, and tensions between public and private interests. Ultimately, citizen’s groups championing Progressive Era ideas of preserving outdoor space for public recreational use triumphed over private industrial development and military use. In the early twentieth century, groups of private citizens, like the Recreation League of San Francisco, and women’s groups, such as the Women’s Auxiliary of the Recreation League and the North Beach Vittoria Colonna Club, lobbied the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and effectively pushed several bond issues for funding the creation of an aquatic park at the site to public vote, although none were successfully passed. When the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club, the Ariel Rowing Club (later the San Francisco Rowing Club before its 1977 closure), and the South End Boat Club (now the South End Rowing Club) were forced from their locations elsewhere in the city and established their boathouses at the site, they too AQUATIC PARK HALS No. CA-113 (Page 2) joined the efforts to create a park. The advocacy of these groups in preserving the cove for recreation provided a significant counterpoint to the private industries already established in the area, the dumping activities taking place after the 1906 earthquake and fire, and the activity of the State Belt Railroad, who erected a trestle across the cove in 1914, among other development pressures. By the late 1910s, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors had begun acquiring the necessary land for a park in response to public demands. The board contracted with John Punnett to develop a general design of the park that would serve as the basis for a design competition in 1920. Architects John Bakewell, Arthur Brown, and John Bauer collaborated on the 1923 plan commissioned by the Board of Park Commissioners. Actual construction was delayed until the Works Progress Administration supplied the necessary $2 million in funding to make the park a reality. John Punnett was again retained to create the final plan of the park, while William Mooser III, descended from a long line of well-known San Francisco architects, designed the buildings in a Streamline Moderne style that complemented the waterfront location. The interior of the bathhouse, the centerpiece of the site, was finished as a Federal Art Project by a number of significant artists, including Hilaire Hiler, Sargent Johnson, and Beniamino Bufano. The landscaping complemented the modernity of Mooser’s designs for the bathhouse, bleachers, convenience stations, and loudspeakers, characterized by lawn with plantings defining the foundations of structures and curving pathways traversing the park. Yet even with federal funds, the project incurred delays and cost overruns, and it was eventually turned over incomplete to the city of San Francisco in 1939. World War II further delayed decisions about what to do with the park, but by 1950, Karl Kortum and the San Francisco Maritime Museum Association had identified the park and bathhouse as the ideal site for the museum. Although Kortum’s ambitious plans for a park dedicated to all forms of transportation were not fully realized, the San Francisco Maritime State Historical Park was established on Hyde Street Pier in 1956. Kortum also guided the development of the lots east of the original Aquatic Park at the Powell-Hyde-Street cable car turnaround into Victorian Park in the 1960s. In contrast to the modernism of the original Aquatic Park landscape, Victorian Park was inspired by the city’s Victorian architecture, reflected in the use of decorative iron work, cobblestone paving, and gardens. Aquatic Park is nationally significant, therefore, as a representative example of Progressive Era ideals about the importance of publicly- available recreational spaces within cities. In addition, Aquatic Park has been designated a National Historic Landmark due to its masterful AQUATIC PARK HALS No. CA-113 (Page 3) architectural and landscape design, the integrity of the Streamline Moderne buildings, the rareness of a complex of buildings designed in this style, and the bathhouse art work. Historian: Justine Christianson, Heritage Documentation Programs, 2015 PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. Physical History 1. Dates of establishment: 1919-39, Aquatic Park; 1960-61, bocce ball courts; 1962, Victorian Park 2. Landscape architect, designer, shaper, creator: San Francisco’s Bureau of Engineers retained John M. Punnett, principal with Punnett, Parez, and Hutchison, as consulting engineer on the concept for the proposed Aquatic Park in 1920. Punnett designed a site plan that served as the basis for a design competition for the park that same year. Architects John Bakewell, Jr., Arthur Brown, Jr., and John Bauer developed another plan for the park in 1923 at the request of the Board of Park Commissioners. Punnett later revised the Bakewell, Brown, and Bauer plan and created the final plan for the Aquatic Park.1 San Francisco architects Edward Frick, George Cantrell, Horace Cotton, Ernest Weihe, and Lawrence Kruse all designed early plans for the proposed park. Frick and Weihe both attended the École des Beaux Arts and worked for Bakewell & Brown until the company dissolved in 1927. Brown then partnered with Frick while Bakewell partnered with Weihe. In 1941, Weihe, Frick & Kruse was established. Their work includes the San Francisco Hall of Justice and the National Memorial of the Pacific in Hawaii.2 Three area architects, John Bakewell, Jr., Arthur Brown, Jr., and John Bauer, collaborated on the 1923 concept, although their work undoubtedly drew upon earlier plans. John Bakewell, Jr. and Arthur Brown, Jr. were partners, forming Bakewell & Brown from 1906 to 1927. Both were University of California graduates who had studied under Bernard Maybeck and attended the École des Beaux Arts, where Brown had been awarded the “highest prize open to foreign students.” In 1912, a San Francisco newspaper remarked that the two had “forged steadily to a commanding position among western architects.”3 Bakewell and Brown designed several buildings for the Panama Pacific International Exposition, Berkeley City Hall, the San Francisco Savings Union, and buildings at Stanford University. They also won the design competition for San 1 James P. Delgado, “A Dream of Seven Decades: San Francisco’s Aquatic Park,” reprinted from California History, The Magazine of the California History Society, 64, no. 4 (Fall 1985): 8, 10; “Cultural Landscape Report, Aquatic Park, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park” (National Park Service, Pacific West Region, 2010), 15, 18. 2 Weihe, Frick & Kruse Collection, 1917-1976, Online Archive of California, www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf8j49p0h0/entire_text/, accessed December 2015. 3 Both quotes from “Plans for New City Hall Decided Upon,” San Francisco Call, June 21, 1912. AQUATIC PARK HALS No. CA-113 (Page 4) Francisco’s City Hall (now a National Historic Landmark). Arthur Brown served as the associate architect for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition from 1912-15 and later was a professor of architecture at the University of California and lecturer at Harvard. Brown later formed Arthur Brown, Jr. and Associates, responsible for Coit Tower, Federal Triangle in Washington, DC, and several buildings at the University of California-Berkeley, where he was chief architect and planner from 1936-50. Bakewell’s later work with his firm Bakewell & Weihe included two federal buildings in San Francisco and the Potrero Terrace Housing Development in San Francisco.4 The Punnett and Bakewell, Brown, and Bauer plans served as the basis for the layout of the park, but the actual structures were designed by others. Engineer Frank G. White prepared the plans and specifications for the new Municipal Pier. Punnett, Parez and Hutchison designed the pier’s concrete parapet walls, curbs, and seats. The plans for the buildings within the park (bathhouse, bleachers, convenience stations, and speaker towers) were drafted by William Mooser III and civil engineer Elmore Hutchison, who was also a principle of Punnett, Parez and Hutchison along with John Punnett. Mooser III hired his father, William Mooser II, as consulting architect to oversee the construction of the park buildings through Punnett, Parez and Hutchison.