When the main road through Golden Gate Park, John F. Kennedy Drive, was closed to traffic in the early days of the pandemic, it quickly became a favorite spot for walkers, runners, cyclists, parents and kids seeking a break from Zoom — pretty much anyone sick of being cooped up at home. Though it was, as one journalist wrote, a “carless paradise,” it still felt like a space for cars where pedestrians were merely allowed.
Visit JFK Promenade today — as it has been rechristened — and it’s starting to feel truly different. It’s not just that cars are finally and officially gone (barred by voters in the November 2022 election), but that it’s slowly morphing into something designed for human scale and pace. A joyous space that puts people at the center, that invites us bipeds in with fun and art and music and yes, gigantic dachshund heads.
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The creative force behind much of this transformation is public art impresario Ben Davis. Davis’s usual medium is light; he uses lightbulbs the way Christo used fabric. Through his non-profit Illuminate, Davis has delivered spectacular public works, such as draping the Bay Bridge in 25,000 LED white lights, lighting up the Castro with a luminous Pink Triangle for Pride Week, or painting the Conservatory of Flowers with a psychedelic light show to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
Frustrated by the protracted debate over whether to ban cars from JFK, he offered his services last summer to Rec and Park in advance of the November vote. He wanted to show voters what the space without cars could be. Park officials granted him a permit – recently extended to the end of 2023 — to start experimenting on the 1.5 mile stretch of pavement.
I met Davis recently on JFK to talk about his efforts. Tall and lanky and exuding cool, he pulled up on a carbon-frame bicycle exquisitely decorated with a filigree of black lines — brought with insurance money after three other bikes were stolen, he explained somewhat apologetically. “It’s a better bike than I’ll ever be a rider, but beautiful.” We settled into a pair of the yolk-yellow Adirondack chairs that he’s installed in all the grassy areas lining the drive. Yellow is a recurring theme in his design for the space which he has dubbed the Golden Mile. A former adman, he thinks that’s a “stickier” name than the slightly fusty-sounding Promenade.
Ben Davis: “My connection to the park runs super deep.”
Davis has an artist’s eye and a city hall insider’s knack for cutting red tape. Armed with $500,000 in funding — half from the city and half from private donors — his vision for the Golden Mile has taken shape at a record pace. He commissioned artists from the Paint the Voice collective to cover the pavement at select spots with bright colorful murals. The most important, he said, was the one near the tennis courts, which cuts through all the controversy over who the space belongs to with the stark declaration, “We are on Native Lands.”
He procured a trio of Doggie Diner Heads that now straddle the pavement — silly sentinels that broadcast “this is a fun place.” At Burning Man, he spotted a set of giant alphabet blocks that spell out LOVE. Now they’re sunk in a meadow near the Conservatory of Flowers, a backdrop for selfies and a climbing challenge for people of all ages.
Artist Mark Deem of the Misfit Toys group spent years dreaming up the LOVE blocks. Davis managed to win city approval and get them moved to this meadow in less than a month — mach-speed by the usual standards.
Inspired by the moveable chairs in Parisian parks, he brought in 100 of those bright yellow Adirondack chairs. “They’re heliotropic,” Davis said. “They follow the light.” People can move them to stay in the sun, or to pursue solitude or to bundle up for companionship. When I first saw the chairs, I was sure most would be stolen in no time. Park officials had the same fear. While a few have strayed, most remained tethered to the area and are used all the time. “They send a powerful that is no longer a place of passage. This is a place of lingering destination,” he said.
Folks are lingering, too, at the Living Room, a station set up by Rec and Park that features a ping-pong table (BYOP — bring your own paddles), a cornhole set, benches and push-pin-shaped plastic chairs that you can sit in and twirl around. A little further west is a spot sheltered by potted trees with chairs drawn in a circle around a piano. (It’s covered at night and when it rains.) There was a beer garden in one meadow in the fall, (“so wholesome and sweet it would give you cavities,” said Davis), and for a brief while, a poetry station in front of the Conservatory of Flowers. One of the Park rangers set up the wooden nightstand with a note instructing “Take a Poem, Leave a Poem.” People did.
While he has been trying to create a sense of joy and fun, the immediate goal has been to slow down the pace of the place. “Drive” signals 35mph; “Promenade” something more leisurely. The message now is aimed at cyclists, which, according to Davis, in the absence of cars became the “alpha predators” of the space. In the early days of carless JFK, speeding cyclists were a threat to those enjoying the mildly transgressive thrill of walking or running down the middle of a road.
Thus, the Doggie Diner heads were plonked mid-road – you have to squeeze the brakes. Likewise, the pianos and the ping pong table and the mammoth wooden whale breaching out of the asphalt and the many other attractions that obstruct and create congestion. It seems to be working. Most cyclists (as well as scooter riders and skaters) now roll along at a reasonable speed. All of which helps recalibrate what Davis calls the “social contract of the space.”
“Suddenly, the vulnerable are invited in: the baby carriage you see right here, the person walking the dog, the child throwing the ball, the senior stopping to read the Doggie Diner Head sign…Ninety-nine-plus percent of the people are going the right speed and we didn’t put in a single sign. We didn’t say go slow.”
As David and I sat in our yellow chairs, a steady procession of people ambled along the road. A group of teenagers clutching plastic bags from Amoeba records scrambled to the top of the LOVE blocks. Davis took it all in with a satisfied, slightly proprietary air. “It just makes me happy to see a higher functioning place that’s more generous, more accessible.” People are looking each other in the eye; they’re smiling, he observed. “We’re all sort of in love with our city.”
A few weeks later, on beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon — the kind of day that always draws throngs into the park— I rode my bike the length of this still-evolving place. I started by the set of massive yellow chimes strung under the 19th Avenue overpass. They’re arranged in Pentatonic scale and meant to be played, though the hammers sometimes go missing. Flashes of bright pink and green and scarlet passed below as I rode over various murals. A small crowd was gathered around the piano near the road into Stowe Lake; it looked like someone had just stopped playing. A father and son were batting a ping pong ball back and forth at The Livingroom while others lounged on the benches. A young woman was taking a selfie with one of the Doggie Diner heads. I passed the slow-moving Rec and Park shuttle that trundles the length of JFK to transport people to attractions like the museums. The swing dancers — a longtime Sunday staple — were bopping near the Music Concourse. The skate park was jammed with people of all ages line-skate dancing to Michael Jackson. The lawn on by the Conservatory was thick with picknickers sprawled out on the grass, like a scene from a 19th century photograph.
I stopped at the eastern end where just beyond the concrete barricades a line of cars snaked along Kezar Drive. There’s a big yellow circle on the pavement, with yellow chairs within a circle of potted gingko trees (chosen for their yellow leaves) and, weather permitting, a yellow little free library. It’s a waystation for people to stop and rest either on their way into or out of the park. The formal name is “You Are Here,” Davis had told me, though he also calls it The Golden Dot.
One of the staff of the Botanical Garden’s library was preparing for the monthly “Story Time.” She said she never knows how many people will actually show up for the readings. “You know how it is with young children. Maybe they wake up on the morning and don’t want to go.” A woman carrying a backpack that contained her foster cockatoo, Elvis, sat down for a brief rest. Another woman who’d been reading began asking her questions about the bird. A cyclist stopped to check his phone and get a drink of water. A man in a tie-dye shirt walked by pushing his toddler daughter in a stroller. “This used to be a place for cars,” I heard him tell her. “Now it’s for bikes and walkers and roller-skaters.”
(Car)Free At Last
Love the reminder, Walter and I have walked up and down the Promenade and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for spreading the word, it makes the city more livable.
I had no idea about any of these pandemic era installations! Also, I love the idea of cycling alpha predators...virtually undetectable if not for their little bells.