Washington Square, at Filbert and Stockton streets, is “one of the City’s first parks, established in 1847,” according to San Francisco Recreation and Parks. Sidewalk cafes and Saints Peter and Paul Church border the park. It hosts festivals, free movie nights and other events, and on a sunny day it fills with picnickers and dog walkers.
A short history
According to Wikipedia, Mexican rancher Juana Briones grew potatoes and raised cattle in the area before surveyor Jasper O’Farrell laid out the square in 1847. The square was originally a full rectangle reaching Powell Street. Columbus Avenue was cut through it in 1873–75, and the small Marini Plaza across the avenue was left separate. The park was a refuge during the Telegraph Hill fires of 1894 and 1901. In the 1950s, a community committee pushed a redesign that created the lawn, Lombardy poplars and bench-lined paths that remain today.
The Franklin statue’s secret
The Benjamin Franklin statue stands on a temperance fountain donated in 1879 by Henry D. Cogswell, a dentist who had made a fortune in land speculation. FoundSF recounts that Cogswell sealed a lead time capsule in the base. In April 1979, Mayor Dianne Feinstein led its opening. Inside were an 1872 Harper’s Magazine, an almanac, 14 newspapers in several languages, coins, a tin of mints, and a note from a 14-year-old who predicted steam-powered flying machines. A new capsule was placed in the base, and an inscription says it is to be opened in 2079.
On screen and on the page
The church and square appear in Dirty Harry (1971). Chapters of Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America are set there, and so is Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “The Old Italians Dying.”
Make a day of it with City Lights, Vesuvio and Coit Tower.