GOLDEN GATE PARK & MAJOR FEATURES

Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of 1,017 acres (411.6 ha) of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles (4.8 km) long east to west, and about half a mile (0.8 km) north to south. With 13 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the fifth most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City, Lincoln Park in Chicago, and Balboa Park and Mission Bay Park in San Diego.

The Music Concourse Area is a sunken, oval-shaped open-air plaza originally excavated for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. Its focal point is the Spreckels Temple of Music, also called the "Bandshell," where numerous music performances have been staged. It includes a number of statues of various historic figures, four fountains, and a regular grid array of heavily pollarded trees. Since 2003, the Music Concourse has undergone a series of improvements to include an underground 800-car parking garage and pedestrianization of the plaza itself. It is surrounded by various cultural attractions, including:


 De Young Museum is a fine arts museum that was opened in January 1921. Its original building had been part of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition, of which Mr. de Young was the director. The de Young was completely rebuilt, and the new building opened in 2005. 

The California Academy of Sciences is the "largest public Platinum-rated building in the world, and also the world’s greenest museum", and also houses the Steinhart Aquarium and the Morrison Planetarium. The Academy of Sciences carries exhibits of reptiles and amphibians, astronomy, prehistoric life, various gems and minerals, earthquakes, and aquatic life. A completely new building for the Museum opened in September 2008 designed by Renzo Piano

Japanese Tea Garden the 5 acres (2.0 ha) Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. The garden was designed by Makoto Hagiwara for the 1894 Midwinter Exposition, including still-standing features such as the Drum Bridge and the tea house. Subsequent additions included a pagoda and Zen garden. It is one reported site of the introduction of the fortune cookie to America.

 

The Conservatory of Flowers is one of the world's largest conservatories built of traditional wood and glass panes. It was prefabricated for local entrepreneur James Lick for his Santa Clara, California, estate but was still in its crates when he died in 1876. A group of San Franciscans bought it and offered it to the city, and it was erected in Golden Gate Park and opened to the public in 1879. In 1883, a boiler exploded and the main dome caught fire. A restoration was undertaken by Southern Pacific magnate Charles Crocker. It survived three earthquake of 1906 only to suffer another fire in 1918. In 1933 it was declared unsound and closed to the public, only to be reopened in 1946. In 1995, after a severe storm with 100 mph (160 km/h) winds damaged the structure, shattering 40 percent of the glass, the conservatory had to be closed again. It was cautiously dissected for repairs and finally reopened in September 2003

The San Francisco Botanical Garden was laid out in the 1890s, but funding was insufficient until Helene Strybing willed funds in 1926. Planting began in 1937 with WPA funds supplemented by local donations. This 55 acres (22 ha) arboretum contains more than 7,500 plant species. The arboretum also houses the Helen Crocker Russell Library, northern California's largest horticultural library.

The AIDS Memorial Grove has been in progress since 1988. In 1996, it was designated a national memorial by an act of Congress, becoming an affiliated area of the National Park System. The Grove's former executive director and current board member, Thom Weyand, has said that "part of the beauty of the grove is that as a memorial which receives no federal money, it is blessedly removed from the fight over the controversy of AIDS."

Stow Lake surrounds the prominent Strawberry Hill, now an island with an electrically pumped waterfall. Rowboats and pedal boats and e rented at the boathouse. Much of the western portion of San Francisco can be seen from the top of this hill, which at its top contains one of the reservoirs that supply a network of high-pressure water mains that exclusively supply specialized fire hydrants throughout the city.

Two bridges connect the inner island to the surrounding mainland

BAY BRIDGE

The bridge consists of two sections of roughly equal length; the older western section connects downtown San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island and the newer eastern section connects the island to Oakland. The western section is a double suspension bridge. Originally, the largest span of the original eastern half was a cantilever bridge. During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a section of the eastern section's upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck and the bridge was closed for a month. Reconstruction of the eastern section of the bridge as a causeway connected to a self-anchored suspension bridge began in 2002; the new bridge opened September 2, 2013 at a reported cost of over $6.5 billion, and is currently the world's widest bridge, according to Guinness.
Artwork
the bay lights is the world's largest LED light sculpture, 1.8 miles wide and 500 feet high. inspired by the Bay Bridge's 75th Anniversary, its 25,000 white LED lights are individually programmed by artist Leo Villareal to create a never-repeating dazzling display across the Bay Bridge West Span through March 2015.

 Impact
The Bay Bights is a monumental tour to force eight times the scale of the Eiffel Tower's 100th Anniversary lighting. Shining from dark until 2:am for two years. it will impact over 50 million people in the Bay Area, with billions more seeing it in the media and online. By conservative estimates,$97 million dollars will be added to the local economy.

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