Koret Quad

If Mission Bay is going to become a proper neighborhood, which I doubt it will, then it needs dedicated parks and other sundry green spaces.
If Mission Bay is going to become a proper San Francisco neighborhood, which I know it never will, then the City and County of San Francisco needs to buy and/​or designate blocks and parts of blocks and lots as parks that can never be sold to real-​estate developers, because real-​estate developers are good at building out-​of-​scale buildings in neighborhoods and are even better at destroying the character of said neighborhoods.
Really, can you imagine what the City and County of San Francisco would have become if some wise old dudes hadn’t designated the eight complete square blocks that now comprise Alta Plaza Park and Alamo Square Park as parkland that wasn’t for sale? Can you? Would those few extra shekels the City and County of San Francisco could have made in the 1850s if it had sold those plots really have been worth the lack of beautiful places to stretch out and relax?
UCSF may be creating Mission Bay in its own image, but at least it got Koret Quad mainly right. And in case you’re keeping score at home, Koret Quad was funded by the same family trust that funded USF’s Koret Center, the Koret Children’s Quarter in Golden Gate Park, the Koret Family House for the families of children with cancer, and probably lots of other places that I don’t know about. I guess it’s great for your descendants to spend all the money you hoarded over your lifetime on things you could have just donated to when you were still alive, but doesn’t it kind of make you look bad when you or your descendants insist that everything is named after you? What kind of a God complex do you or your descendants have? Are you really that insecure about your own choices in life that you insisted on having your name inscribed on something other than your tombstone? Give without counting the cost and without spending time and money patting yourself on the back for giving. Or just don’t accumulate that much money over your lifetime. Choices, choices.
As a green space, Koret Quad is big, surrounded by neat little pine trees, and home to a huge sculpture that’s disquieting and perfect for the hillock it’s perched atop. There are lots of benches and blocks and block benches to sit on, and people were grilling with family and friends when I visited this past Wednesday just after work.
So why only three stars? Well, it’s a drought, so I didn’t get the full effect of the green space. It’s more of a brown space now, and I don’t mind that, but I think they went overboard in separating the grass from the places to sit. They could have placed some of those benches on the grass without ruining it as open space. And they really need a playground. Open space is fine, but it’s not a big enough open space that they can really get away with omitting anything for curious kids to climb – except for the hillock.
And despite what UCSF and a lot of rich donors may want you to believe, this park is open to the public, as is most of UCSF, both in Mission Bay and on Parnassus. Look, you’re a California taxpayer, so you help fund all the UC campuses. Don’t ever let anyone try to convince you that you don’t belong here. You do. We all do.
Public spaces for the people.