MORE Woodward's Gardens

...opened a hotel downtown on Sacramento Street, the What Cheer House, that became very popular. Sailors in particular enjoyed staying there and liked Woodward so much that they brought him gifts from around the world that began his life-long love of collecting.

His next venture was the purchase of a large piece of property, about 6 acres, stretching from Mission street to Valencia street, 13th to 15th streets where he built the family home and added his collection of plants, animals and art. Locals who visited the property were intrigued and wanted to spend time there so they urged him to open it to the public. Before doing so he went on extensive buying trips to Europe and came back with thousands of dollars worth of more artwork and animal, geological, and plant specimens to develop the location into a more interesting public attraction.

Woodward then moved his family off the property, and officially opened up his San Francisco “Woodward’s Gardens” to the public. The property was two large city blocks in size and included a tunnel under 14th Street, allowing people to walk from one block to the other without having to cross an outside street. Admission was 25 cents for adults and 10-cents for children.

Attractions included the largest and most comprehensive zoo on the West Coast with ostriches, flamingos, monkeys, wolves, bears, lions, camels, kangaroos, alligators, an aviary and seal pits where people could participate in the daily feedings. The gardens also housed four museums and an art gallery as well as extensive geological samples and insect displays, as well as a roller skating rink, “merry-go-round” boats on the lake, and a concert pavilion. One of the more spectacular attractions at the gardens was the aquarium. Opened in 1873, it was one of the first aquariums in the world, and was the first ever in America’s West. The building was 110’ long and 40’ wide, and housed 16 tanks.

Eventually Woodward’s Gardens popularity began to fade. RB Woodward passed away in 1879, and his heirs did not try to keep things up to the standards of the garden’s founder. In the 1880’s, Golden Gate Park (San Francisco’s newest public park) started pulling even more visitors away. During the mid-80’s, attendance waned and there were increasing complaints from neighbors about the garden’s “odors and horrible noises.” In 1891 Woodward’s Gardens was closed down forever. In 1893, there was an auction to sell off much of the remaining items from the buildings. Most items went to Adolph Sutro who purchased several thousand dollar’s worth of “stuffed beasts and birds, relics of the past, curios, bric-a-brac, etc.” He also picked up all of the benches, the pipe organ, and several statues – and brought it all over to his new Sutro Baths, where they were on display for many more years.

The Woodward family then split up the land into 39 parcels and auctioned it all off. Woodward’s Gardens was no more. Or was it? We still have a street named after it off 14th near Mission and Woodward’s Garden restaurant is located at Mission and 13th street. And some nights we have been told that people still hear the roar of the lions in that part of the North Mission.

Information on Woodward’s Garden was taken from http://www.sanfranciscomemories.com/woodwardsgardens/images.html and from Professor Max Kirkeberg of San Francisco State University during the 16th St. Neighborhood Association’s annual October History Walk of the North Mission.

MORE "The Labor Temple"

...The May 1916 Union Directory shows 54 unions using this building for their meetings. The bakers and bakery wagon drivers, the bindery women, blacksmiths, butchers, carriage and wagon workers, cigar makers, coopers, horseshoeers, ice and milk wagon drivers, janitors, sail makers, and tailors all met at the Labor Temple. In the atmosphere of the times when American capitalists had an almost religious fervor for business, and office buildings were built to resemble gothic cathedrals (look at the Russ Building at 235 Montgomery, sometime), this building was designated as a haven from the boss, and it was called The Labor Temple. It was the place where workers could come, away from the boss, and the boss's culture. A place where workers could help each other understand the world through working eyes, with a working sensibility. It was the one place the boss couldn't come.

To facilitate this, the Labor Temple had pool and billiard tables, as well as reading rooms, and on the south side of the auditorium, a ladies parlor. On the second floor, the west hallway was the hospital, and the north hallway, the dentist's offices. Medical care at prices workers could afford. In those days, a worker's union membership might be as important as their church or synagogue membership, and the Labor Temple was the center of working class life in San Francisco. Here workers had space for family gatherings, picnics, holiday parties, benefit dances, sports leagues, and theatrical events. The seamstresses might have a dinner with the webpressmen, or the Women's Bindery Union might have a dance with the plumbers. The San Francisco Labor Archives and Research Center has a dance card from just such an event many years ago. The dance card had a silken cord still attached to a slim, tiny golden pencil. The card was partially filled out in a lovely flowing hand. The Labor Archives has an article from the Labor Clarion dated May 19, 1916 which reported that "...a ball for the benefit of a disabled (laundry worker) ...was a financial success, more than $300 was raised. $300 - in a time when union machinists were striking to get $4.50 a day.

The most significant historical events at the Labor Temple took place in July 1934 when the longshoremen and maritime workers led San Francisco workers in the momentous General Strike that changed the labor movement forever. The waterfront workers lived on the fringes of society in conditions that, even for those times, were abominable. The longshoremen had to pay for their jobs on the dock; the seafarers were little more than slaves on the ships. They wanted no more than any worker wants: dignity on the job and off, justice, a living wage. They were willing to strike because their conditions were so bad, they had almost nothing to loose.

The longshoremen and seamen had been out on strike for about three months without much success, few other unions had joined them in sympathy, but the strikers hung on. The shipping companies were determined to bring the strikers to their knees and stop the strike. They had hired armed guards as well as San Francisco police to do their dirty work. For several days there had been fighting on Rincon Hill. On July 5, just outside of the strike kitchen at 113 Steuart, an unnamed policeman fired into a crowd of longshoremen and their sympathizers, shooting several of them. Two died. The deaths of Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise stunned the public. This infamous day in San Francisco labor history became know as “ Bloody Thursday” and galvanized the rest of the unions to support the struggle.

The next day (July 6) was the regular Friday night session of the San Francisco Labor Council. The Council members packed the auditorium in the Labor Temple; hundreds more spectators jammed the halls and overflowed onto 16th Street. A growing demand for a general strike was on the minds of the rank and file members. Fourteen unions had already taken action supporting a general strike and others were planning action. Harry Bridges was in attendance and asked for immediate action on an International Longshoreman’s Association (ILA) resolution underscoring its position that the question of union hiring halls “cannot possibly be submitted to arbitration.” The resolution was approved without dissent as was a second resolution condemning Governor Merriam for calling out the state militia. This resolution urged a peace based on ‘simple justice and not military force.”

At this meeting the S.F. Labor Council set up a Strike Strategy Committee to, in the words of the ILA Strike Bulletin, “make plans of a strike that will stop every industry in the city.” The bulletin noted, too, that the council had endorsed the ILA’s refusal to arbitrate the closed shop. Bridges declared, “This is no longer the ILA’s fight alone. Thursday’s bloody rioting has crystallized labor’s attention on the conditions under which the ILA works and labor is demanding concerted action. The Labor Council is definitely behind the marine strike.” On July 9, a funeral procession bearing the bodies of the two slain unionists walked down Market Street. Estimates range from 15,000 to 50,000 in the procession. Thousands more lined the sidewalks. Fearing that sight of police on the streets would incite workers further, City Hall agreed that the strikers would be in charge of crowd control. There was no talking, no sound except a quiet funeral dirge, and the tramp of feet, but the air was electric with that sound. Their deaths - and that march - forged the solidarity that became the West Coast General Strike. The march ended at 17th and Valencia at the mortuary, just two blocks away from the Labor Temple. No doubt many mourners walked over to the Temple afterward to be together. To try to make some sense of what was happening. To decide what to do next.

Although a number of unions, including the Teamsters, had already decided to strike by July 12, the Labor Council’s Strike Committee had not yet formally acted. It was in the auditorium of the Labor Temple where the vote was taken that sent the 175 unions of the SF Labor Council out on strike in support of the Longshoremen and Seafarers. The new General Strike Committee had already written up the motion. You would recognize many of the names on that strike committee: Jack Shelly, A. Noriega, Mike Casey, and of course, Harry Bridges. The strike vote meeting was held on Saturday, July 14, with the strike to commence on Monday, July 16, at 8 am. The S.F. Chronicle of July 15 reported the strike decision inside the Labor Temple in a colorful description: “Amid scenes of wildest conditions, with hundreds of delegates shouting and scores of others in a condition approaching hysteria, labor made the most momentous decision in many years. Throngs mulled about the Labor Temple at Sixteenth and Capp streets during four hours…” Finally, a hod carrier by the name of Joe Murphy made the motion. The historic San Francisco General Strike went on four days, ending July 19, 1934.

The strike was a success, opening the way to end the longshoremen’s and maritime workers’ strikes but extending beyond their demands to change the relationship between worker and boss forever. The maritime workers won the most contested issue, hiring halls with a union selected job dispatcher. Longshoremen won a six-hour day and 30-hour workweek while seamen won an eight hour day. The solidarity with their brothers on the docks shown by the General Strike in San Francisco was heard around America in the midst of the Great Depression. Labor historian David Selvin called it a “new day” when workers acted from a new awareness of common grievances and common purpose, a newly recognized class identity that inspired workers nationwide.

As unions grew larger, stronger and more numerous, the Labor Temple expanded to meet the need, and in 1939 the building got an addition, reaching its current size with room for 40 union offices. But as times changed, the culture changed. The very moment that seemed to presage a golden age for unions was simultaneously sowing the seeds of disaster for the Labor Temple. As unions got richer, it became fashionable for them to build their own - separate - union halls. In the '50's, offices in the Labor Temple went vacant and even though the Labor Council renovated it in 1959, the building had become a financial drain. With only 10 unions still in residence, the Labor Temple was sold in 1968 to repay bank loans and other bills.

Although the new owners renamed the building the Redstone, most old timers in San Francisco still remember it as the Labor Temple. And the labor history within the Redstone Building will always be present thanks to a few San Francisco artists. In 1997 the Clarion Alley Mural Project, named for the Labor Clarion Newspaper, spent several months doing research which culminated in the murals seen in the lobby and first floor of the Labor Temple/Redstone Building. Muralist Aaron Nobles led the project which includes some of the finest labor murals in San Francisco. Susan Greene's mural over the elevator on the ground floor celebrates the Bindery Women's union founded in 1902. Going up the stairs and into the main hall you'll see the 1948 Emporium strike by the saleswomen of Local 1100, and the Chinese women's garment workers strike in 1938, marking their entrance into organized labor in San Francisco. In the main portion of the lobby is the dramatic depiction by Aaron Noble of Dow Wilson throwing out the corrupt Secretary of the Painter's union in 1966. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of the story: next to Dow is the newspaper article, dated April 5, reporting Dow's murder just around the corner on South Van Ness days later.

The inside front wall honors the original Native American inhabitants of this area, the Ohlones, with a bone harpoon tip being uncovered by a construction worker as he digs the foundation of this building. You know he was a union worker. The most prominent labor mural is in the main entrance to the building painted by illustrator and muralist Chuck Sperry. It depicts scenes from the 1934 General Strike described above, particularly the strike vote meeting. Harry Bridges and other members of the Strike Committee are there as well as workers whose names we’ll never know. An inset reproduces a picture of the two men shot at Steuart and Mission Streets on Bloody Thursday. This mural brings you back immediately to that day in July 1934 when a few hundred workers made labor history at the building they called the Labor Temple.