By Thomas P. Campbell : via email (ran in the SFChronicle 11/22/2021)
On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the Bay Area with a magnitude of 6.9. At the de Young Museum, the shock waves inflicted grave damage, leaving the building with a “high potential for partial collapse.” As a result, the de Young
needed to be rebuilt, and despite having a history in Golden Gate Park going back as far as 1894, serious consideration was given to moving the museum downtown. San Francisco residents, however, overwhelmingly supported keeping the museum in its original location. And so it was rebuilt inside the park, where it remains.
Before COVID struck, the de Young drew as many as 1 million visitors per year to Golden Gate Park, including 50,000 San Francisco Unified School District students. We welcomed and continue to welcome low-income visitors and people with disabilities at low or no cost. Every Saturday we offer free admission for San Francisco and the entire Bay Area.
Running a museum in the middle of the city’s largest park, however, while ensuring equitable access to residents in the Bay Area and beyond, is not without its challenges…
The de Young may only be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m., but the museum is a 24/7 operation. Our loading dock receives from 100 to 200 deliveries a week of mail, art works, food and refreshments to our cafe, supplies and services. Vendor, contractor, maintenance and other authorized vehicles need a safe route to the de Young. This activity is only increasing as we return to pre-pandemic operations. Accessing the loading dock that allows us to run the de Young is only possible from John F. Kennedy Drive.
At the start of the pandemic, JFK was closed to provide more open space for nearby residents. As both the city’s and de Young’s operations slowly return to normal, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will decide the future of the road. Before making that decision, however, we ask that the supervisors and the public consider the needs of the museum, and of those who are not so fortunate as to be able walk or bike to access the de Young and the other institutions inside Golden Gate Park.
Despite being forced to close for months and suffering significant financial losses during the pandemic, the de Young was able to retain almost all of our staff. Since capacity restrictions were lifted this past June, however, our visitor numbers have remained at half of pre-pandemic numbers. The only way the museum can now financially recover is to welcome back visitors.
Access is a big issue for many.
The closure of JFK Drive has removed most free and parking spaces for the disabled within a reasonable distance of the de Young, making access for many people much harder, if not impossible. There are proposals to add parking for the disabled in other places in and outside the park, such as the tour bus parking lot by Martin Luther King Drive and on Fulton Street. The proposal is to replace the spaces lost on JFK Drive, but each of these options would reduce accessibility for those who need it, as the spaces would be located farther away, and in the case of Fulton, in a high-injury zone on a heavily trafficked road. We need the parking spots that were lost with JFK’s closure reinstated for people with disabilities, those with disability parking placards, seniors, families with young children and others not able to come to the park without a car.
While it has been suggested there is ample space for parking inside the Music Concourse Parking Garage, many cannot afford to pay its expensive fees. Making the garage more affordable is, unfortunately, a highly complicated process that is outside of the museum’s control. Proposition J, which dictates how fees are handled, requires that any change in rates must first be recommended by the garage board, then approved by the Recreation and Parks Commission, followed by the Board of Supervisors and finally the mayor. Those rates must be sufficient to pay down the not-insignificant public debt accrued during the garage’s construction. The rules do not allow the garage to offer free or discounted parking to those with disability placards or lower-income visitors.
High rates aside, the number of spots the garage provides isn’t enough to satisfy the demand by park visitors. Although it is close to two museums, the garage is not within easy reach of other destinations along JFK Drive. When you’re someone with limited mobility, that extra distance makes it exceptionally challenging, if not impossible, for example, to get from the garage to the Conservatory of Flowers.
Then, of course, there is the loading dock. Making the deliveries we need to sustain the museum has proved incredibly challenging, and sometimes dangerous, on a closed JFK Drive.
In September, San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency officials revealed options for the future of JFK. Two proposals include keeping all or part of JFK Drive closed permanently. But neither of those plans, as currently constituted, grant equitable access to the park, nor sustain the operational needs of the de Young and other park attractions.
For those reasons, we believe reopening JFK Drive to its pre-pandemic status is the only viable choice among agency’s proposed options. Keeping the road open on weekdays, while remaining closed Sundays and holidays year-round — as well as Saturdays for six months of the year — was already a compromise brokered between stakeholders in 2007.
The de Young and its collection belong to the city of San Francisco and its residents. We are proud to serve visitors from all backgrounds across the Bay Area and the world. We all have an obligation to make sure the arts, and the recreational areas on the east end of Golden Gate Park, are accessible to all.
Thomas P. Campbell is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the de Young museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. Posted with permission.