Day Trip Adventure: Around the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park
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Stroll around the Music Concourse, visit the Japanese Tea Garden, tour the free areas of the de Young Museum, and visit the Shakespeare Garden.
This is part of a series of family-oriented day trip outings around the San Francisco Bay Area I look forward to enjoying with my kids once social distancing and shelter in place isn’t the norm any longer.
Music Concourse viewed from the tower at the de Young Museum by Cody Tolmasoff
Stroll around the Music Concourse — a bonus adventure
I always enjoyed taking a walk around the concourse and through one of the tunnels here (now the entrances to the subterranean parking garages). Looking at all the artists and enjoying the weekend street performers here was always entertaining. Sometimes we would get to see the Golden Gate Park Band perform here, or any number of acts over the years. And if the bandshell was unused, we would always go climb on it to play. Wandering through the columns on either side was fun too — and made for some epic photos.
This part of the park is unlike any other area in the park, and something we wouldn’t have today if it were not for the 1894 Midwinter Fair, a popular World Fair held during the first half of this year. Although most of the structures were removed after the event, we still enjoy several things leftover from the fair today.
Climbing over the moon bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden is a right-of-passage for most kids growing up in the city. You can find it pretty quick once you enter the garden, it’s a steep arching bridge you have to climb almost like a ladder. Follow that with a warm cup of green tea and snacks after traipsing around the garden looking at koi fish, visiting temples, and counting the snails on top of the Buddha’s head — a visit to the garden can be quite a memorable day.
Taking a visit to the Japanese Tea Garden is really taking a step back in time, to see almost the same thing Midwinter Fair-goers enjoyed a hundred years ago. As one of the stories goes, fortune cookies were invented here in the garden to be served along with the tea. Originally the cookies were savory and made on-site using a special iron mold, but quickly hired out a local confectioner to produce larger quantities of the cookies. The recipe was changed to a sweet vanilla version to appeal to western palates, and you can still find a fortune cookie in your bowl of snacks when you sit down for tea in the garden today.
And, since we are visiting gardens, stopping in for a quick tour of the Shakespeare Garden is an interesting introduction to this author. The garden cultivates plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s body of work. This is one of 33 public gardens worldwide that specialize in plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.
Adventure: Around the Music Concourse
Stroll around the Music Concourse
Visit the Japanese Tea Garden
Tour the free areas of the de Young Museum
Visit the Shakespeare Garden
Stroll around the Music Concourse
Roman Gladiator Statue by Willem Geefs, photo by Cody Tolmasoff
The concourse is the primary remnant of the 1894 California Midwinter International Exhibition. At the time, park commissioners wanted to keep Golden Gate Park rustic and natural. A great effort was put forward to hold a World's Fair in Golden Gate Park. The concourse was built and surrounded by temporary buildings and a Firth Wheel (similar to a Ferris Wheel) in the center along with a giant electric light pole. Once the fair was complete, most of the buildings were removed, but the de Young museum remained along with the Japanese Garden. The music venue and the statues around the concourse remained and were added onto over the years. The Roman Gladiator and Cider Press were two from the fair. Have a walk along the top of the concourse and have a look at the various statues.
Visit the Japanese Tea Garden
Moon Bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden by Cody Tolmasoff
The garden got its start as the Japanese Village exhibit for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exhibition. At the time of the fair, Japan still maintained a mostly closed society with its culture mostly unknown to westerners and the Midwinter Fair was an opportunity for Makoto Hagiwara to share his unique culture and its customs. The Village was a blend between east and west.
As the Midwinter Fair closed, and the park began to recover, some Japanese Village structures were removed as McLaren wanted to remove as much of the Midwinter Fair as possible to bring the park back to its original state.
The Japanese Village, however, seemed to fit in nicely with its surroundings. McLaren convinced Makoto Hagiwara to become the permanent caretaker of the village converting it from temporary exhibition to permanent Japanese Tea Garden, now the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States.
Makoto Hagiwara took up residence at the garden with his family, and during his time as official caretaker from 1895 till his death in 1925 would triple the size of the garden ordering koi fish and exotic plants, creating topiary, and eventually obtaining the large ornamental wooden gate from the Japanese Pavilion after the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition closed.
The Fortune Cookie was introduced here at the Tea House in 1914, a specialty from Kyoto, Japan. You would be served a savory cookie (possibly made with sesame and miso) with a fortune inside that would be made on-site in a special iron mold.
As the Tea House had trouble keeping up with the demand for these treats, they contracted with a local confectioner Benkyodo to produce larger quantities for the popular treats. Benkyodo came up with the vanilla version we enjoy today, so it would be more appealing to western palates. You can still enjoy these treats today at the Tea House overlooking the garden as you enjoy a delightful cup of tea.
A terrific spot to spend part of your day wandering around the grounds and climbing over the moon bridge.
Tour the free Areas of the de Young Museum
Sphinx in front of the de Young Museum by Cody Tolmasoff
The de Young Museum is a delightful visit, but with my effort to keep things affordable, today we will talk about the free areas available in the museum. You can also visit the regular collection for free on the first Tuesday of the month.
Drawn Stone — Andy GoldsworthyIn the central courtyard as you enter is a 2005 piece by Andy Goldsworthy called Drawn Stone. Goldsworthy creates a continuous crack running north from the edge of the Music Concourse roadway in front of the museum, up the main walkway, into the exterior courtyard, and up to the main entrance door. Along its path, this crack bisects — and cleave in two — large rough-hewn stone slabs that will serve as seating for museum visitors.
The Hamon Observation TowerThe tower is to the far right as you walk into the main entrance. It is a spectacular glass-walled space with 360-degree panoramic views of downtown San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, the Bay, and the Marin headlands. Keep an eye out for free family events, they usually happen in the tower as well.
de Youngster Studio
https://deyoung.famsf.org/education/de-youngsters-studio
Across from the tower is the new de Youngster studio. A great spot to take the kids with cool hands-on activities and great handouts.
The Piazzoni Murals RoomOriginally hanging in the old SF Main Library, they didn’t fit the collection for the Asian Art Museum, so the de Young made a special space to share these 1932 murals. The mural room is between the bathrooms and the gift shop on the main level.
Barbro Osher Sculpture GardenOn the west side of the main level of the museum is the sculpture garden with many pieces including the Turrell Skyspace and the giant safety pin.
Visit the Shakespeare Garden
Shakespeare Garden, Golden Gate Park by Cody Tolmasoff
This is one of 33 Shakespeare gardens anywhere in the world. This is a themed garden featuring that cultivates some or all of the 175 plants mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare. These gardens also feature quotes from works of Shakespear featuring passages that mention flora and fauna.
You can find the garden between the Academy of Science, Nancy Pelosi Drive, MLK Jr. Drive, and Music Concourse Drive.
Cody Tolmasoff is an author and publisher for Adventuring.in. He is a recovering programmer and a San Francisco native, raising two daughters, and regularly finding new adventures around the SF Bay Area. This article is an excerpt from a book, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park West.
Find him on Twitter @codyo, and read his most recent title Adventures in Getting Out on Amazon, filled with advice on successfully getting your family out for day trip adventures.
Originally published on Medium on 11 May 2020