Woodward Gardens
Duboce and Woodward Street
Mission/South of Market
On January 19, 1873, 12,000 people showed up at Woodward’s Garden in the Mission District to watch Frenchman Gus Buislay and a small boy soar aloft in a hot air balloon. The man who made it happen was Robert B. Woodward.
Woodward had made his fortune in the grocery store business. In 1849, he opened a store right off the waterfront to serve the ever-increasing number of people flooding into the Port of San Francisco for the Gold Rush.
With the acumen of a savvy businessman, he realized the ’49er economy was moving from supplies to service, and so in 1852 Woodward opened What Cheer House, a hotel and club for men known for its good food, safe accommodations and no alcohol policy.
Two women stand ready to enter the reptile house at Woodward Gardens in 1880. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
Woodward’s family left Providence, Rhode Island, in 1857 to join him in California. Woodward purchased four acres of land and a house that had belonged to General John C. Fremont. The property was located on the west side of Mission Street between 14th and 15th Streets. He and his family lived in Fremont’s house while he worked to construct a mansion on one of the many hillocks in the area.
A year-long shopping trip to Europe would necessitate the construction of a gallery and conservatory on his property. Here he could show off the copies of famous sculptures he had had made, as well as paintings and other curiosities he had collected. But the true show piece of Woodward’s estate was its fantastic gardens.
Woodward began these gardens during the original construction of the house. Supplied in 1861 with plants, animals and artifacts from Europe, soon the gardens came to be referred to as the Central Park of the West. In 1864, he opened the estate to friends and acquaintances.
As the garden’s fame spread, members of the public began to stand outside for hours on Sundays, hoping to get a peek of the grounds. In 1866, with a little nudging from his daughter the grounds were open to the public. Woodward moved his family to the Napa Valley and dedicated his time to expanding his San Francisco Woodward Gardens for the enjoyment of its visitors.
Woodward Gardens Art Gallery 1836 (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
Recognizing the need for a constantly changing array of attractions, Woodward once again headed to Europe, bringing back crates of items ranging from the fashionable to the odd. Sailors he had befriended over the years also brought him curiosities from around the world.
It was said that Woodward Gardens held the finest zoo on the west coast, with camels, zebras, buffalo, deer and even kangaroos. There was also a bear pit that held both grizzlies and black bears.
In 1873 Woodward opened an aquarium with sixteen tanks that held from 300 to 1000 gallons of fresh or salt water. The lighting of the tanks allowed visitors to see marine creatures in their natural environment. Visitors were entertained by the crabs, lobsters, shark, cod, flounders, rays, and the occasional ink-spitting octopus.
An amphitheater-that held 5000 people-presented shows featuring Delhi Fire-Eaters, Japanese Acrobats, Roman chariot races and Major Burke and his Rifle Review.
Camel Rides at Woodward Gardens 1880
Woodward’s home became the Museum of Miscellanies-a pair of 10,000-year-old mastodon tusks graced the front door. The house contained a mineral display as well as fossils and zoological specimens. At one point park goers could view the “largest gold nugget ever found” from the Sierra Butte mine, a privilege they purchased with an additional .25 cents.
There were several restaurants on the grounds, and, just like What Cheer House, they did not serve alcohol.
General Ulysses S. Grant visited the Garden in 1879. That same year Robert B. Woodward passed away. Although his sons took over the running of Woodward Gardens, they lacked their father’s showmanship and could never match his enthusiasm for the place.
When the park closed in 1894, all the artifacts were sold at auction. Developers stepped in, graded the land, divided it into 39 separate lots and sold them-to become homes for the working class of San Francisco.
Plaque on the outside of the now closed Woodward Gardens Restaurant, plaque is now missing. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
While many people have never heard of Woodward Gardens, or could not conceive of a four-acre park filled with such wonders and curiosities in the Mission District, some signs hint to its existence. Today, Woodward Gardens Restaurant sits at the corner of Mission and 13th. Alas, the restaurant has no wandering ostriches or playful seals.
Looking Northeast from Robert Woodward’s house, 1865. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
The Mission Street Entrance to Woodward Gardens, 1862. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
Woodward Gardens, 1874. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
Gus Buisley’s balloon often bumped the windmill when ascending. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)
The plaque at the site reads: This artwork is inspired by the history of Mission Bay, a 5,000 year-old tidal marsh that was once the habitat of a rich array of flora and fauna. Growth of the city in the 19th century brought shipyards, warehouses and railroads and this part of the bay was eventually filled with sand and dirt from nearby development, as well as debris from the 1906 earthquake. The five panels that form Shadow Kingdom evoke this layered history. Ship masts intersect with topographical and architectural references. Some of the plants and animals that once lived here, like elk, beaver, salmon, sandpipers and pickle weed are also depicted. When viewed from a distance the sculpture takes the shape of the California grizzly bear, a species that last roamed San Francisco in the mid-1800s. As the sun arcs across the sky, these once endemic species are projected as shadows onto the terrain they once inhabited.
Adriane Colburn was the selected artist for this project. She holds a BFA in Printmaking, from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997 and a MFANew Genres from Stanford University, 2001.
Colburn describes her work: In my practice I seek to reimagine maps and photographs of places (and networks) that are obscured by geography, scale or the passing of time. At the core of this is a fascination with the way that our attempts to make sense of the world around us through maps, data and images result in abstractions that are simultaneously informative and utterly ambiguous. I create my installations by transforming images through a system of physical removal, cutting out everything except imperative lines, thus creating constructions that are informed by voids as much as by positive marks. Through this cutting and display, an intricate array of reflective shadows results. All of my projects are based heavily on research and have a strong connection to place. My work tends to have a fragile appearance, however, my recent projects are constructed primarily of steel and aluminum, giving them a high level of permanence while maintaining their delicacy.
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The San Francisco Art Commission budget for this project was $193,000. The piece sits at the entry of a 453-unit development by Equity Residential, on the edge of what is now called Dagget Park.
The Park Emergency Hospital
The architect was Newton J. Tharp. The San Francisco ran his obituary on May 13, 1910:
Themes in his work have included “making the invisible visible”, with many sculptures focusing on topics such as magnetism, the carioles effect, secret messages, and mysteries of atomic reactions.
Overflow X is a stainless steel sculpture by Jaume Plensa.
The Bethlehem Steel Office Building, also known as Building 101, was designed by San Francisco architect 
Building 101 was designed as a new main office building in 1917, at this point Bethlehem Steel was growing by leaps and bounds with two factories, the one at Pier 70 and another in Alameda, just across the bay.
The center of the park is a large body of water, it was called the prairie river by Caldwell. The intent was to emulate the melted glacial waters that had cut through the Niagara limestone. The curved shape gives the illusion of a larger space with views and scenery continuously changing.
A second story, that comes down through Paul Finfer, a student of Caldwell’s, is of three men that would not only have a impact on Chicago and the world of architecture, but on Caldwell’s career itself.
On the piers flanking the entry to Frank Lloyd Wrights 1898 architectural studio in Oak Park, Illinois, sit these two pieces, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and executed by Richard Bock.
Bock spent three years at the Berlin Academy studying and later at the Ecole des Beaux Arts School in Paris. In 1891 he returned Chicago to establish a permanent sculpture studio. Almost immediately upon Bock’s return to America, he received three major commissions and for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, he sculpted major architectural works for the Mining and Electricity Exposition Halls.
Architect, Stanford White, of the New York firm of McKim, Mead and White, designed the monument’s base. He added the long, curving exedra bench to encourage visitors to sit and enjoy the statue,
According to the Chicago Parks Department:
This whimsical fountain is known as both the Eli Bates Fountain and “Storks at Play”.
The figures for the fountain were cast by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company of New York.
In 1888, Stanford White helped MacMonnies win two major commissions for garden sculpture, a decorative Pan fountain sculpture for Rohallion, the New Jersey mansion of banker Edward Adams, and a work for ambassador Joseph H. Choate, at Naumkeag, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
In 1894, Stanford White brought MacMonnies a commission for three bronze groups for the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza.
With this sculpture Lorado Taft has Columbus standing, arms crossed, facing the Capitol. He is flanked by an American Indian, representing the “New World” facing West and a bearded elderly man representing the “Old World” facing East. In front of Columbus is Discovery leading the way, and above Columbus is a globe of the world surrounded by American Eagles.
In May 1907 a commission was formed for the memorial fountain headed by prominent members of the Senate and William Howard Taft (no relation), who was Secretary of War at the time and served as committee chairman. Upon agreeing on the location for the fountain, a call for designs was requested by artists from America, Italy and Spain. The reason for the three countries stemmed from the committee idea that “if it should be from the hand of an American, the land which Columbus gave to the world; from an Italian, the land which gave Columbus to the world, or from Spain, the land which made Columbus’s achievement possible.”
Lorado Taft initially conceived a sculpture carved from granite or Georgia marble, however, the trust only allotted enough funds for a concrete structure.
Lorado Zadoc Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois, in 1860 and died in his home studio in Chicago in 1936.
Taft’s body of work is impressive. Some notable sculptures around Chicago include Eternal Silence and The Crusader both at Graceland Cemetery, and Fountain of the Great Lakes at the Art Institute. He also sculpted the Columbus Fountain at Union Station in Washington DC.
The Eternal Silence, (also called Eternal Silence or Statue of Death) marks the grave of Dexter Graves, who led a group of thirteen families that moved from Ohio to Chicago in 1831, making them some of Chicago’s earliest settlers. Graves died in 1844, seventy-five years before the creation of the statue, and sixteen years before Graceland Cemetery was founded; his body was presumably moved to Graceland from the old City Cemetery. The funds for the monument were provided in the will of his son, Henry, who died in 1907. The will provided $250,000 for a Graves family mausoleum, they received the statue instead.
The statue was sculpted by Lorado Taft and cast by a Chicago foundry owned by Jules Bercham.
I visit the Adams Memorial whenever I am in Washington D.C. This hauntingly beautiful sculpture is one I can never tire of. It is by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Jacob Adolph Holzer was a Swiss artist who worked for Tiffany as chief designer and art director, he was responsible for the design and execution of the Marquette murals.
Holzer’s works include: in New York, the lobby of The Osborne, 205 West 57th Street. In Boston, the Central Congregational Church, 67 Newbury Street (1893), and perhaps the Frederick Ayer Mansion, Commonwealth Avenue (1899–1901). In Chicago, the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington Street, as well as the Marquette Building. At Princeton, his mosaics of subjects from Homer fill the rear wall of Alexander Hall. In Troy, New York, his stained-glass east window and baptistry mosaics can be seen in St Paul’s Church.
These four bronze plaques sit above the entry doors of the Marquette Building in Chicago. They were done in 1895 by Henry MacNeil (1866-1947). At the time MacNeil shared a studio in the building with painter Charles F. Browne.
After attending one of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows at the Worlds Fair he began depicting the American Indian throughout his art.
Perhaps his best known work is as the designer of the Standing Liberty quarter, which was minted from 1916 to 1930, and carries his initial to the right of the date.
The sculptures were removed when the building was remodeled into the Asian Art museum and sold to a private collector by the City of San Francisco.
