QUARTERLY MEETING

May 18, 2010 | Park Chalet, Golden Gate Park

Mark your calendar for the next meeting: Tuesday, August 17, 2010. Location to be announced.

1. Chalet Recreation Field:

   Katherine Howard of the Golden Gate Park Preservation Alliance showed us the field area and noted that the project currently has four fields instead of six, but they're each bigger than they were before. The plan calls for elimination of all the Myoporum around the fields which are classified as shrubs despite being large, screening specimens. Roy Leggitt has visited the site and written an arborist report. One concern is that trenching for the new lights along the railroad bed would damage root systems enough to cause existing cypress trees to be considered hazardous and require removal. The lights are expected to be on daily from before sunset to 10pm.

   While at the site, we noted that the existing fields are in disrepair and discussed other uses that occur on the site such as tai-chi and people letting their dogs run free within the enclosure. The Golden Gate Park Preservation Alliance is considering commissioning landscape architects to perform studies of what the area could become so that maybe those in favor of the current plan and those against it can come to some consensus. Someone mentioned the idea of holding a design contest. Cathy Garrett commented that it would be best not to stop the project but rather to make it the best it can be in light of its cultural landscape status. It is a space that should be actively used though with modifications that are sensitive to its history.

   Mary Nelson noted that the field documentation she has been doing with Cate Bainton since February 2010 is HALS No. CA-49-A. The soccer complex area at Golden Gate Park is the "A" designation, leaving B, C, D, etc. for other documentation projects in the rest of Golden Gate Park. There is survey information on the HALS website that does not include the 1937 aerial photograph. San Francisco Library will not release certain documents for publication into the public domain, so Mary suggested that a drawing be produced to diagram that aerial, referencing the 1937 aerial and comparing it to the 2004 USGS aerial photo of the same area. Mary also volunteered to produce this drawing. Chris Pattillo noted that a possible method for mitigation of this site's development could be to require that the developer pay for full documentation. Mary said that the short form is done and has been submitted. Steven Quiñones-Colón, a photographer, has volunteered to do the photography. Ed volunteered to meet contact Steven in June to show him the area to be photographed.

2. Berkeley Women's City Club:

   Chris Pattillo showed the group some of the progress that was made with a team of seven volunteers in May to document the plantings, courtyards, and side yard on the property. She also showed the group a copy of a Julia Morgan architectural drawing. There will be a plan to return to the site to pick up loose ends, all are welcome to join. The visit to this project has been blogged, giving credit where credit is due: http://halsca.blogspot.com/2010/05/berkeley-city-club.html

3. HALS Inventory Forms:

   In June, inventory forms will be transmitted to the Library of Congress. There is a new format for the forms, which will be available in time for the ASLA conference in DC this September. HALS NCC has generated several (36 so far) completed inventory forms. DC has also asked us to provide release forms for the material provided to date. Chris notes that the new inventory form is much easier to use than the previous version. The new form is up on the website: http://halsca.org/links.htm

4. Theme Park Challenge:

   Chris Pattillo said that the response to the theme park challenge was somewhat disappointing but that there are a few submissions coming in from various states around the country. Paul Dolinsky has committed to posting the winning submissions that will be on display throughout the expo.

5. Gretchen Hilyard's Cultural Landscape Foundation discussion:

   Gretchen and The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF)'s San Diego-based project manager, Melanie Macchio, will work together to share information between HALS NC and TCLF. TCLF is working on building a database of cultural landscapes throughout the United States called What's Out There. The purpose of the database is to develop a searchable historic context for landscapes throughout the US. It is searchable by location, designers, type, and a variety of other criteria. This is a great opportunity for HALS to partner with other organizations working towards similar goals.

   Gretchen will begin by transferring some of the information from the completed HALS fiches into the What's Out There database format. We will continue discussion about how we might be able to add a step to the HALS fiche methodology/process in the future to ensure that our information is fed into the database. http://tclf.org/landscapes

6. Other items:
   • Chris reported disappointment with the lack of sessions with cultural landscape content for the ASLA convention planned for Washington DC in September. Paul Dolinsky has put together a good tour for Friday and there is one other session that sounds interesting. Chair, Janet Gracyk floated the idea of a HALS NCC annual meeting/ party - Lake Chalet in Oakland at Lake Merritt, 17 August 2010.
   • Membership list is being managed by Melissa Mourkas in Sacramento, she is doing a great job of trouble shooting the membership list and finding people whose e-mails are not working.