The Making of Golden Gate Park. The Early Years: 1865 - 1906

by Raymond H. Clary

Book by Raymond H. Clary

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, so much i didn't know about the history of Golden Gate Park - who knew that early settlers of the Bay Area had removed so many of the native trees that were here, that there were few, if any, birds left in San Francisco. The planting of thousands of trees in Golden Gate Park is what brought them back - fascinating. The politics involved in getting the Park created, and then keeping it going, is just amazing. Lots of little stories out of newspapers from this era make the story much more intimate - and great photos.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 1 out of 5]

A horrible book. I actually gave up after 50 or so pages, because it's so bad.

First of all, it feels like a regurgitation of historical facts that the author found, thoughtlessly vomited onto the page with little order and no care for whether they're important or not.

Second, the author often introduces topics without giving them a good basis, leaving the reader trying to figure out what he's talking about. (Frequent references to locations within the Park with no corresponding maps anywhere around often made this problem worse.)

Third, the author is terribly biased. He constantly whines about his hobby horse, that Golden Gate Park shouldn't have any buildings and should be exactly as it was planned in 1870. He also pretty bladly states that the people he doesn't like are bad people, without giving much of the supporting evidence (or, heaven forbid, letting the reader decide for himself).