Cultural Landscape Report for Upper Fort Mason, Golden Gate NRA, Vol. II, Treatment

Beagan, Christopher; Foulds, H

The Fort Mason Historic District is a ninety-one and one half-acre unit of Golden Gate National Recreation Area located at the northern tip for the San Francisco peninsula. The district is bordered by Van Ness Avenue to the east, Bay Street to the south, Laguna Street to the west, and by the San Francisco Bay to the north. The Fort Mason Historic District is comprised of Upper Fort Mason, the sixty-eight and one half-acre area addressed in this report, and Lower Fort Mason, which encompasses the historic thirteen-acre San Francisco Port of Embarkation. Lower Fort Mason is operated independently as the Fort Mason Center under a long-term lease agreement between the National Park Service and the Fort Mason Foundation. A separate cultural landscape report was completed for Fort Mason Center in 2009. Today, Upper Fort Mason is the headquarters of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and an important portal to the larger park. The site is significant for its role in United States military history and includes a collection of resources that trace the evolution of military landscape planning and architecture over a one hundred year period (1855–1953), inclusive of the American Civil War, the Indian Wars of the American West, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean Conflict. The prospect afforded by Upper Fort Mason’s natural topography made the site a strategic location for settlement and defense, and significantly influenced past development and use of the landscape. The landscape reflects its historic character through the views and vistas, buildings and structures, circulation patterns, vegetation, and myriad of small-scale features related to United States military stewardship. However, since the end of the period of significance, the landscape has lost some of the military qualities due to a decline in maintenance at the end of military occupation, new accommodations for public use, and natural growth and decline of vegetation. This report establishes a plan for landscape treatment to ensure that the historic character of the site will be preserved and enhanced. Over the past four decades, the National Park Service has cared for the Upper Fort Mason landscape, undertaking improvements consistent with National Park Service policies, guidelines, and standards, as well as park planning initiatives. However, since the property was decommissioned as a United States Army post, daily visitation has decreased from its height under active military use. This decrease has resulted in both a decline in landscape maintenance expectations, as well as a decrease in maintenance funding. Consequentially, day-to-day maintenance issues, such as trash removal and lawn mowing, are well attended to, while many larger cyclical landscape maintenance issues, such as regular tree pruning and replacement, have been deferred. Treatment recommendations included in this report are intended to help park managers address the following broad issues identified during project scoping: · Incremental loss of historic specimen trees, · Inconsistent vegetation management, · Encroachment and closure of historical and strategic views, · Hazardous and inaccessible historic garden spaces, · Poor condition and diminished visitor experience, · Accommodating new and appropriate uses, · Opportunities for interpretation and public engagement, and · Balancing natural and cultural resource values.

Cultural Landscape Report for Upper Fort Mason, Golden Gate NRA, Vol. II, Treatment

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