A view from Black Point in 1870, with Alcatraz Island in the distance. Photo: Eadweard Muybridge, courtesy of University of California, Berkeley
Almost like a more popular younger sister, the Gardens of Alcatraz were selected for a preservation project and have received all of the attention while the older Black Point Gardens across the Bay at Fort Mason, were ignored.
The Alcatraz project was the focus of a partnership in 2003 between the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy (Parks Conservancy), the National Park Service (NPS), and the Garden Conservancy to restore the island gardens that were tended from the 1850s through to 1963. It was a leap of faith to take on the enormous task of clearing 40 years of overgrowth, rebuilding, replanting, and telling the story of the gardens, but the partners could see the garden’s potential through the weeds. Led by project staff, the Gardens of Alcatraz project was the first volunteer program to restore and steward a cultural landscape in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). Now the NPS is aiming to duplicate the success and popularity of that program a...
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