Author: Christopher Pollock, San Francisco's Parks

Learn about San Francisco's parks with Christopher Pollock, author of San Francisco's Parks. This talk, which includes historical photographs, will reveal the stories of the creation of some of San Francisco's parks. From the town square of Portsmouth Square to the formerly Bayside Gilman Playground, previously known as Gilman Beach, the illustrations show the diverse topography of San Francisco. Many of the parks shown may not be recognizable today as they have morphed over time from open sand lots to sometimes multi-level recreation spots. Other highlights will include the wide variety of activities these places host.

In 2016, Christopher Pollock was tapped by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to be their first Historian-in-Residence for all of the city’s parks. With this, Chris brought a layer of history to the department. His initial project was to research and record the history of the department’s 225 real estate assets. His most recent book, published in 2023, is San Francisco’s Parks, a pictorial record of many of the city’s recreation spots. It is the first illustrated publication to bring together the full breadth of public parks administered by San Francisco's Recreation and Park Department. With the 150th anniversary of Golden Gate Park in 2020, he launched the latest version of his 2001 book, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park: A Thousand and Seventeen Acres of Stories. This was preceded by another publication, Reel San Francisco Stories: An Annotated Filmography of the Bay Area, published in 2013, which is about the some 650 movies filmed in the Bay Area since the beginning of talkies.

Christopher Pollock will be joined by the San Francisco Historical Society.

Connect: San Francisco Historical Society