Nature lovers unite to save trees and sod fields in S.F. Crocker Amazon/ McLauren Park: ‘This is the last stand’

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Miscellaneous information regarding the Crocker Amazon Park they want to convert into an artificial turf field. Please join us at the meeting on April 26 to voice your opposition to this.

Rec Park has announced the date of the third community meeting
They will have the posters of the project renderings for the public to review and project team members will be there to answer questions. Our Keep Crocker Real team will also be onsite with a counter proposal we call the People's Plan. There are rumors the Lorax will be there. Come see for yourself.

Session 1: Sunday, April 26, 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.
Session 2: Sunday, April 26, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Location: Crocker Amazon Clubhouse (Moscow St. at Italy Ave.)

We need a strong community presence at both sessions to ensure our voices are clear and heard.

Lastly, you can also sign our petition and complete the action created by one of our collaborators, In Defense of Animals.

If you haven't been keeping up, here are a few media articles about what we've been up to:

It’s a (plastic) turf war at Crocker Amazon, and Chyanne Chen is caught in the middle

San Francisco Rec Park has a racism problem.

Amid protests over $50M park makeover, S.F. supervisor calls for more public input

San Francisco Giants-Backed Crocker Amazon Turf Plan Sparks Protest At FanFest

In solidarity,

Keep Crocker Real

There is a petition on Keep Crocker Real site- which, I suppose, you have all (or most of you) signed (a year ago?). If not - maybe do it now?

https://nextdoor.com/p/xqLTMpSZKnh_?utm_source=share&extras=NTQzNzYx&utm_campaign=1776119703516&share_action_id=f1d8dfcd-dacd-40a8-913c-7cda8e5ad6eb

Chime in, if you are on Nextdoor?

I'm told that Giants have people outside of SF to write/sign their petition - so it's OK for people outside of SF to sign/write as well.

It would be absolutely marvelous if this toxic project can be stopped. 

Thank you for the ideas of echoing NextDoor posts!

We found out this weekend that the Rec/Park Commission is going to accept the Giants’ donation for the plastic fields at the Thursday Commission meeting. They’re doing this BEFORE the promised third community meeting, meaning any future community meeting will be a performative exercise. They said they’ve done extensive out reach and have out performed us in terms of support-opposition letters, 325 to 191. We need to get more people sending in opposition letters.

In Defense of Animals is helping us out with a campaign to support our position so it would be great to promote that.

San Francisco: No! Artificial Turf Burns Paws & Destroys Habitat Wild Animals Need to Survive idausa.org

TO: Chyann...@sfgov.org, recpark.c...@sfgov.org, daniel...@sfgov.org, Board.of.S...@sfgov.org, When you email CC your local Supervisor, advocating for due process and transparency.

D1 Chan | Chan...@sfgov.org
D2 Sherrill | Sherri...@sfgov.org
D3 Sauter | Saute...@sfgov.org
D4 Wong | Wong...@sfgov.org
D5 Mahmood | Mahmoo...@sfgov.org
D6 Dorsey | Dorse...@sfgov.org
D7 Melgar | Melga...@sfgov.org
D8 Mandelman   | Mandelm...@sfgov.org
D9 Fielder | Fielde...@sfgov.org
D10 Walton | Walto...@sfgov.org
D11 Chen | Chen...@sfgov.org

Suggested copy: 

I am writing to urge you to protect Crocker Amazon Park from a proposal that would replace its natural open space with a fenced-in artificial turf sports complex.

The plan proposed by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department in partnership with the San Francisco Giants and team owner/Trump donor Charles B. Johnson is being framed as a "gift." However, many neighbors did not ask for this project and do not support paving over meadows, cutting down mature trees, and fencing off large portions of a beloved community park.

Artificial turf also raises serious concerns. Synthetic fields are associated with higher surface temperatures, increased injury rates compared to well-maintained natural grass, and exposure to toxins like PFAS and microplastics. It's particularly troubling that the majority of artificial turf installations have been clustered in neighborhoods already burdened by asthma and environmental justice challenges.

I strongly support renovating Crocker Amazon Park, but doing so the right way:

- Yes to meaningful community input.
- Yes to natural grass fields and open green space.
- Yes to preserving mature trees and the park's character.
- Yes to space for seniors, families, cricket players, dog walkers, and youth sports alike.
- No to expanding toxic artificial turf.
- No to increased traffic, noise, and late-nightly bright field lighting.
- No to privatization and fencing that limits access.
- No to cutting down the majority of existing trees.

Please stand with neighborhood residents and protect this city treasure. Invest in improvements that enhance public health, environmental justice, and shared access, not in plastic infrastructure that narrows and intensifies use.

Sincerely,

In addition, this is an historic park but I can’t get any of the historians or Historic Preservation Commission to pay attention.

HPC Public Comment 4/1/26

 

Commissioners,

I’m writing on behalf of Keep Crocker Real (www.keepcrockerreal.com), a grassroots community organization representing residents of the Crocker Amazon and Excelsior neighborhoods, to submit public comment on an urgent historic preservation matter and to request that Crocker Amazon Playground be placed on the Commission's agenda for discussion and review.

CROCKER AMAZON PLAYGROUND: A WPA-ERA CULTURAL LANDSCAPE UNDER IMMINENT THREAT

Crocker Amazon Playground (Geneva Avenue & Moscow Street, San Francisco, CA 94112) is one of San Francisco's most significant surviving New Deal–era cultural landscapes. Constructed between 1934 and 1941 with over $938,000 in Works Progress Administration (WPA) and State Emergency Relief Administration (SERA) funding — the largest WPA investment in any single San Francisco playground — the park was designed by William G. Merchant (1889–1962), a master architect recognized for his distinctive contributions to San Francisco's built environment. Its design, spatial organization, axis road system, WPA-era concrete bleacher buildings, and mature tree canopy (planted by WPA workers and preserved through the site's use as U.S. Naval Receiving Hospital No. 113 during World War II) together constitute a rare and irreplaceable cultural landscape.

The City and County of San Francisco's own Cultural Landscape Report (Architectural Resources Group / Denise Bradley Cultural Landscapes, January 2024) finds Crocker Amazon historically significant under National Register and California Register Criterion A/1 for its association with New Deal–era park construction (period of significance: 1935–1941) and its WWII naval hospital use (1944–1945), and under Criterion C/3 as an exemplary New Deal recreation facility and a unique example of William G. Merchant's design work.

THE THREAT

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department (SF RPD), in partnership with the San Francisco Giants and the Giants Community Fund, has proposed a $45 million renovation of the park. The project, currently in CEQA environmental review, would:

• Replace approximately 20 acres of historic natural grass playing fields with plastic (artificial) turf;
• Remove over 100 mature trees, including WPA-era trees that have defined the park's character for nearly 90 years;
• Enclose most of the park with chain-link fencing, converting an open, multi-use community landscape into a restricted baseball complex;
• Introduce PFAS-containing plastic materials that will leach microplastics and forever chemicals into the stormwater and San Francisco Bay — compounding existing environmental justice burdens on a low-income, communities-of-color neighborhood within the Pacific Islander Cultural District;
• Expand parking and install stadium lighting, further diminishing the park's historic character and neighborhood livability.

The project's construction start date is listed as 2027–2028. Once the WPA-era trees are felled and the historic natural grass fields demolished, the cultural landscape cannot be restored.

ARTICLE 10 OF THE PLANNING CODE AND THE COMMISSION'S JURISDICTION

Crocker Amazon Playground falls squarely within the scope of Article 10 of the Planning Code — the citywide framework governing City Landmark designation for buildings, sites, and landscape features throughout San Francisco. Article 11, by contrast, applies exclusively to downtown Conservation Districts and has no bearing here.

We acknowledge that the January 2024 Cultural Landscape Report concluded that the site does not currently retain sufficient integrity to meet the threshold for National Register or California Register eligibility as a cultural landscape, due to incremental changes over the decades, mainly the demolition of the park for 10 acres of plastic soccer fields in 2008. However, eligibility for the National or California Register is a distinct and higher bar than designation as a San Francisco City Landmark under Article 10, where this Commission exercises its own local judgment and discretion. The CLR's integrity findings do not preclude — and should not be read to foreclose — a City Landmark designation, particularly given the site's well-documented historical significance.

Moreover, the CLR found that the two WPA-era Diamond 1 and Diamond 2 Bleacher buildings 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 constructed in San Francisco — merit separate evaluation as potential City Landmarks in their own right.

We note that since 2012, the Commission has explicitly prioritized landmark nominations reflecting underrepresented communities, landscapes, and sites from geographically underrepresented areas of the city. Crocker Amazon meets all three criteria: it is a cultural landscape (not merely a building), it sits in the Excelsior/Crocker Amazon neighborhood — among the most geographically and institutionally underrepresented parts of San Francisco in the City's landmark record — and it serves a community that is overwhelmingly composed of Pacific Islander, Latino, Asian, and working-class residents within a formally designated Environmental Justice community. The Commission's 2020 Resolution No. 1127, centering preservation on racial and social equity, further reinforces the appropriateness of Commission engagement here.

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 is not a downtown landmark with institutional advocates. 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.

We would welcome the opportunity to present to the Commission directly and are happy to provide any additional documentation, including the full Cultural Landscape Report.

Thank you for your consideration, 

Bob Hall
Keep Crocker Real
www.keepcrockerreal.com

Join NFL Players in Calling for an End to Artificial Turf -  https://secure.everyaction.com/nFugED4PS024K3MzeonwRQ2

Artificial Turf Wars: People Fighting to Protect Their Communities -

https://www.sierraclub.org/loma-prieta/blog/2024/05/artificial-turf-wars-people-fighting-protect-their-communities#

Synthetic Turf is HAZARDOUS -

https://www.beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/synthetic-turf 

Athletes Likely to Have Higher Levels of PFAS after Play on Artificial Turf – Study -

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/15/athletes-higher-pfas-levels-artificial-turf

Science Friday - PFAS Chemicals, And You –

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/pfas-dupont-lawsuit-robert-bilott/

 

PFAS in drinking water linked to increased cancer risk, groundbreaking study finds -

https://usrtk.org/healthwire/pfas-drinking-water-cancer/?mc_cid=bd3a82f858&mc_eid=c8940479cd

 

Scientists reveal PFAS impact on liver function -

https://share.google/yrsWBGPF3ebWQ6GuM

 

Once it was hailed as a drought fix — but now California’s moving to restrict synthetic turf over health concerns –

https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/10/california-synthetic-turf-pfas/

 

17 reasons to avoid fake lawns – how bad is artificial grass for the environment? -
https://www.jackwallington.com/17-reasons-to-avoid-fake-lawns-how-bad-is-artificial-grass-for-the-environment/ 

 Chemical Exposure in artificial turf: What parents need to know -

https://3littleplums.com/blog/chemical-exposure-in-artificial-turf-what-parents-need-to-know

‘Forever chemicals’ may increase liver disease risk in adolescents by as much as 3-fold -

https://keck.usc.edu/news/forever-chemicals-may-increase-liver-disease-risk-in-adolescents-by-as-much-as-3-fold/

PFAS exposure linked to a nearly 200% increase in infant mortality, study finds -

https://www.ehn.org/pfas-infant-mortality

Forever Chemicals Linked to Multiple Sclerosis in Concerning New Study : ScienceAlert -

https://www.sciencealert.com/forever-chemicals-linked-to-multiple-sclerosis-in-concerning-new-study

Microplastics Burrow Into Blood Vessels and Fuel Heart Disease -
https://scitechdaily.com/microplastics-burrow-into-blood-vessels-and-fuel-heart-disease/

 Microplastics that accumulate in the body may 'clog up' immune cells | Live Science -

https://www.livescience.com/health/microplastics-that-accumulate-in-the-body-may-clog-up-immune-cells