Why is it so hard to get a good look at Chaplain William D. McKinnon’s face on his monument in Golden Gate Park? How could the McKinnon Monument Committee and the San Francisco Parks Commission have disagreed so strongly over whether or not that statue should even be in the park?
The monument, made of white Italian marble, was planned to serve as a fountain for people and horses, according to Chris Pollock’s book on Golden Gate Park.
Although the current baseball season isn’t its normal self, you can go to Golden Gate Park and visit the monument that celebrates baseball to conjure up some feelings of baseball nostalgia.
Ulysses S. Grant’s bust was seen as underwhelmingly smallish when first revealed in December 1896. A San Francisco Planning Commission report from 2005 on Golden Gate Park for the National Register of Historic Places said that patriots seeing the Grant monument would “feel their breasts swell with pride.” How could attitudes change so strongly that the bust was angrily pulled down in 2020?
When America faced healthcare challenges during the Civil War, Starr King rallied Californians to pitch in. In 1862, King made fundraising speeches and raised more than $1 million on behalf of the United States Sanitary Commission canvassing California and the whole Northwestern coast up to Vancouver Island …
Kinen Carvala looks back at the history of the Beethoven statue in Golden Gate Park.
Kinen Carvala helps give the women pioneers of the west some of the credit they deserve.
Link to “Looking Back,” a column by Kinen Carvala exploring stories about the history of San Francisco’s west side.
A statue near the Academy of Sciences celebrates Robert Emmet who is described on the statue’s base as “Irish patriot executed in Dublin.”
By Kinen Carvala Entering Golden Gate Park from Stanyan Street heading west, visitors might notice a huge monument that sits atop a large stone pedestal on the right side of JFK Drive, […]
The memorial has two life-size bronze statues of characters from Cervantes’ most famous novel, “Don Quixote.” The titular protagonist and his sidekick Sancho Panza are both kneeling and looking up at a larger-than-life bust of the author.
Amundsen’s goals were to survey the Magnetic North Pole (which compasses point to) and sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, which required passing north of Canada through the dangerous Northwest Passage, a task which had never been successfully done.
On Aug. 25, 2018, a solemn ceremony was held in the discreet Heroes Grove in Golden Gate Park, where the 18-ton granite Gold Star Mothers’ Rock stands more than eight feet tall, honoring San Franciscans who gave their lives in World War I. The ceremony highlighted the newly installed additional stones referenced Nov. 11, 1918, the date of the armistice, which was the inspiration for Veterans’ Day.
