Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1910s 1

Added 18th Mar 2022 by Beth Dobson (Archives and Programming Assistant, DCD) / Last update 18th Mar 2022

Maud Allan 467 51 2008-1-30.jpg
Maud Allan 467 51 2008-1-30.jpg
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Felix Cherniavsky - News Clippings 1910s 1

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Maud Allan Research Collection
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File : April , 1910 Blue Mountain , as Mt. Sutro was then called . This time it wasn't children , but Sutro's staff of 60 gardeners who planted the 1.2 million trees all by hand , six feet apart , 1210 to the acre . Planting of the forest started about 1895 , around the same time that building had begun on the 26 acres on the south slope that Sutro had donated to the University of California as a new site for its school of medicine . He had a personal interest in the Toland Medical College , as it was then called . His daughter Emma had gotten her medical degree there . ( So dense did the forest grow that at one time the trees were over 150 feet high . For years , wild animals roamed the area and threatened Golden Gate Park below . During the Thirties , a log ging camp was set up there and 435 men were employed to fell 180 trees a week and to operate a sawmill on the edge of the woods . It was the world's only urban logging camp . Operation came to an abrupt halt in 1934 when somebody got careless with a campfire that roared into the only forest fire ever recorded in city limits . Today , dwarfing the remaining eucalyptus trees , a 65 - story Tv tower , San Francisco's tallest landmark , will soon be built atop Mt. Sutro . ) While Sutro had legitimate right to his title of " father of tree - planting , " there are those who would take the bloom from it . They point out that his interest in conservation stemmed from an act of the legislature that provided a five - year tax exemption on property converted in to forest land . But there are others who claim he could have paid a lot of taxes with the $ 30,000 it cost to transform that eyesore on the crest of the City into a four - mile sea of green , waving trees . If tree - planting and bathing were wholesome then so was the exercise of patriotism . Thanksgiving Day 1887 , sev cral hundred school children joined Sutro and a procession of civic dignitar ies as they marched behind the Presidio band up the hill on 16th and Ashbury Streets to a peak at the geographic center of the City , part of his vast San Miguel rancho property that would henceforth be known as Mount Olympus . There was a colossal Statue of Liberty , which Sutro had purchased in Belgium some months before and had imported here in sections . Sutro's lady with the lamp faced east , in the direction of her sister in New York's Bedloe's Island , so that " the lamp of liberty might glow from coast to coast . " The statue was a gracefully draped female on a huge pedestal , her right arm uplifted holding a torch from which an electric light would illuminate the area at night and be seen for miles around . He addressed his remarks to the chil dren of the Sanchez School under whose protection he entrusted the statue . Elo quently he talked about the beauty of the view from the base of the statue . He pointed out the various localities all around the Bay visible from the peak . Then he said , " May the light which shines from the torch of the Goddess of Liberty inspire our citizens to good and noble deeds for the benefit of mankind , and , as this hill is in the center of the peninsula , may San Francisco in future days be the center of civilization , prog ress and enlightenment . " The electric light in Liberty's torch was very shortly extinguished at the re quest of seamen coming into port . They mistook the beam as a navigation aid and were setting their course straight for Mt. Olympus . The " solid granite " of the statue turned out to be plaster , and today all that remains of the monument to free dom is ( prophetically ? ) the base on which it rested . And two years ago , citi zens anxious to preserve the magnificent view the way Sutro had intended , lost a battle with the Board of Supervisors to enlarge the tiny park on the heels of high - rise developers . At Sutro Heights , the Greek goddesses and the iron toadstools are gone , but the magnificent setting that so overwhelmed the man and his daughter is still there in all its beauty for the citizens of the City to appreciate . ( Emma Sutro Merrit continued to live at the Heights until her death and then the land reverted back to the City , as was her father's desire . ) On Seal Rock , the sea lions are protected on their perch because Congress , at the dogged insistence of Sutro , passed an act granting the Rocks to the City and County of San Francisco " in trust for the people of the United States . " In the Presidio and in the groves be hind U.C. Medical Center the trees re main . In the Richmond and Sunset dis tricts , acres and acres of homes that might never have been built are there be cause Sutro had held down the sands with ground - hugging shrubs . And , though Sutro Baths has long ceased to exist ( as it had two openings , so it had two closings -- George Whitney shut the doors quietly in February 1966 , but its final ending was a spectacular blaze several months after ) , the stub bornness of its creator still hovers over the site . Whitney sold the land to Robert Fraser , the real estate developer who built the Fontana apartments at the foot of Bay Street , who in turn sold the 121/2 acres to a Philadelphia firm . Two years ago , citizens fearing a sim ilar obstructed view for Pt . Lobos , suc cessfully petitioned for a bond election to have the City purchase the land . The bond election failed . The Planning Com mission , supported by the Sierra Club and California Tomorrow , still wants the City to take over the land for public recreation . But Assistant Zoning Com missioner Robert Passmore isn't hope ful : " It's a matter of priorities as to where monies should be spent . " I - 31