Bayview Park, San Francisco
| Bayview Park | |
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Bayview Park encompasses the hill immediately behind Candlestick Park
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| Type | Natural Area (San Francisco) |
| Coordinates | 37°42′55″N 122°23′34″W / 37.7152613°N 122.3926708°WCoordinates: 37°42′55″N 122°23′34″W / 37.7152613°N 122.3926708°W |
| Area | 46.63 acres (18.87 ha) |
| Created | 1915 |
| Operated by | San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department |
| Open | daily, 5am – midnight |
| Public transit access |
  Le Conte; Line 8;  Bayshore
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| Website | sfrecpark |
Bayview Park (sometimes Bay View Park) is a 46.63-acre (18.87 ha) park in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood of southeast San Francisco. The park's land is mainly occupied by a large hill named either Bayview Hill or Candlestick Hill, west of the former site of Candlestick Park and east of the Bayshore Freeway; it is prominently visible from both. The hill was initially proposed as parkland by Daniel Burnham in his 1905 Burnham Plan for San Francisco as Visitacion Park, but the park was not created until 1915. Prior to that, the title to the land was held by the Bay View Land Company, which intended to erect luxury houses on the site. After plans for housing fell through, it was proposed to create a pest house on the site in 1902 until the Crocker Land Company donated adjacent land to the city to block plans for the pest house. KYA (1260 AM) opened a studio and 5000-watt radio transmitter on the hill in 1937, and further development of the area occurred in 1958, when part of the hill was quarried to create fill and land for Candlestick Park. Currently, the park receives relatively few visitors to what is considered one of the best-preserved remnants of pre-Columbian open spaces in San Francisco.
Evidence of Native American settlement is given by a shell mound noted in 1910 near present-day Harney Way, just south of Bayview Park, by Nels C. Nelson. Although the mound was leveled during subsequent land development, later auger tests suggest significant and intact shell midden deposits continue to exist below grade. As Nelson noted during a 1910 excavation of the site, the so-called Bayshore or Crocker Mound (designated CA-SFr-07) was the largest of the 10-12 mounds in the Hunters Point area, covering an area of 11,400 square metres (123,000 sq ft) to a depth of 5 metres (16 ft). Nelson's 1910 excavation of 488 cubic metres (17,200 cu ft) of CA-SFr-7 showed the midden contained more than 28 burials.
The hill and land that would become Bayview Park were granted to José Cornelio Bernal as part of the Rancho Rincon de las Salinas y Potrero Viejo by Governor Protem Manuel Jimeno in 1839.
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Wikipedia