Rooted in the Working Class Since the 1930s

Crocker Amazon Playground: A Rare Cultural Landscape Under Imminent Threat

Crocker Amazon represents one of San Francisco's most significant New Deal-era public works landscapes. The mature Monterey cypress trees and open grass meadows stretching nearly 40 acres were planted by WPA workers during the Great Depression. They were employed through the New Deal's State Emergency Relief Administration The concrete bleacher buildings at diamonds one and two are the only WPA-funded structures of their kind ever built in San Francisco.

William G. Merchant designed the space in four quadrants, an internal axis road lined with trees, pedestrian pathways, sport courts and bleacher buildings with Art Deco fourishes. The site was planted with Monterey Cypress trees expressly chosen by Superintendent John McLaren to serve as windbreaks enabling the recreational use he envisioned for the southern neighborhoods of San Francisco. When it opened in 1941 it was the city's largest dedicated recreational facility.

During World War II the Navy converted the park into Fleet Hospital No. 113, a receiving hospital for personnel returning from the war. The Navy preserved the park layout and the trees. The Cultural Landscape Report from 2024 documents the park's historical significance under both the National Register Criterion A/1 (for its association with the New Deal and its WWII naval hospital use) and Criterion C/3 (as a distinctive New Deal recreation facility and a unique William G. Merchant design). The bleacher buildings retain integrity of location and association, design, materials, and workmanship. Crocker Amazon Playground has genuine historic importance.

Article 10 of the Planning Code

Crocker Amazon Playground is within the scope of Article 10 of the Planning Code for designating buildings, sites, and landscape features as City Landmarks. The Cultural Landscape Report commissisoned in 2024 found that the two WPA bleacher buildings in Diamond 1 and Diamond 2 retain integrity of location and association, and partial integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship, and feeling. These structures — the only WPA-funded concrete bleacher buildings of their type in San Francisco — merit separate evaluation as potential City Landmarks in their own right.

Due to the tree removal, bleacher destruction and artificial turf installion (10 acres) in 2008, the park no longer “retains sufficient integrity” to be a cultural landscape under the National Register or California Register but those are different from being recognized by San Francisco. Given Crocker Amazon Playground's well-documented historical significance, the Planning Commission can and should designate it as a City Landmark.

Since 2012, the Commission has explicitly prioritized landmark nominations reflecting communities, landscapes, and sites underrepresented in the City's landmark record. Its 2020 Resolution No. 1127 centers preservation on racial and social equity. Crocker Amazon Playground meets the criteria: it is a cultural landscape (not merely a building) within the ethnically diverse Excelsior and Crocker Amazon neighborhoods and the Pacific Islander Cultural District.

The Threat/What SF Rec and Park Plans to Do to It

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, in partnership with a Giants Community Fund subsidiary called Crocker Amazon Project LLC, has proposed a $50 million renovation of the park that would:

Replace 20 acres of historic open lawns with synthetic artificial turf, covering three-quarters of the park's active recreation area in plastic;

Remove over 100 mature trees, including the WPA-era cypress and eucalyptus that have defined the park's character for nearly 90 years, nearly eliminating all nature and wildlife and the biodiversity corridor connecting McLaren Park to San Bruno Mountain;

Enclose most of the park with chain-link fencing, transforming what is today an open, accessible, multi-use community landscape into a restricted baseball complex that will be locked down outside of scheduled league play;

Introduce PFAS-containing plastic materials that shed microplastics and leach forever chemicals into the air and water;

Install stadium lighting for night games, with light spill onto surrounding homes, disrupting the nocturnal patterns of bats, birds, and insects;

Expand the parking lot from 81 to 145 spaces to accommodate tournament buses and travel teams.

Diminish the neighborhood livability.

Once the WPA-era trees are felled and the historic natural grass fields demolished, none of what makes Crocker Amazon remarkable will survive. The cultural landscape cannot be restored.

Our Request

We respectfully request that the Historic Preservation Commission:

1. Place Crocker Amazon Playground on the Commission's agenda as a discussion item at the earliest available hearing, so that the Commission may weigh in on the preservation implications of the proposed renovation before CEQA review concludes and before the Recreation and Park Commission and Board of Supervisors consider project approval;
2. Review and provide guidance on the site's historic significance as documented in the January 2024 Cultural Landscape Report, and assess whether the site and/or its WPA-era bleacher buildings are appropriate candidates for City Landmark designation under Article 10 of the Planning Code;
3. Advise SF RPD and the Planning Department that the proposed renovation raises significant issues under the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, and that the removal of character-defining features — including WPA-era trees, the open grass playing fields, and the historic spatial organization of the park — would be inconsistent with those standards;
4. Consult with the Planning Department's Landmark Designation Program regarding the viability of a community-sponsored Article 10 nomination, and provide guidance to Keep Crocker Real on how to advance that process before irreversible demolition begins.

Crocker Amazon does not have the institutional advocates that protect the landmarks downtown. It is a neighborhood park in one of San Francisco's most underserved and under-recognized communities. Its New Deal history, its role as a community commons for Pacific Islander, Latino, Asian, and working-class families, and its irreplaceable ecological value as part of the McLaren Park–San Bruno Mountain green corridor all deserve the Commission's attention before it is too late.

Here's how you can help before it's too late:

• Contact the San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission.
  Commission Secretary at Commissions.Secretary@sfgov.org
  Landmark Designation Program at CPC.Landmarks@sfgov.org.
• Contact your Supervisor and the Mayor.
  The Board of Supervisors has final approval authority over the project — their votes will decide whether Crocker Amazon is saved or demolished.
• Attend the public hearings.
  The project still requires approval from the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission and the Board of Supervisors. When hearings are scheduled, showing up matters. Join our mailing list to be notified when hearings are announced.
• Spread the word.
  Most San Franciscans — including most people in the surrounding neighborhood — don't yet know what is being proposed for Crocker Amazon. Talk to your neighbors, your colleagues and your preservation networks.