Palace of Fine Arts

The Palace is the one building left from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and the city's own papers show it being used for almost everything except what it was built for. The Board of Park Commissioners' index for 1938 alone lists Christmas lighting approved, an offer to rent a concession, regrading and resurfacing put out to specification and two contracts awarded, lighting for the exposition year, a change in telephone wiring, an automobile show, a Christmas tree, and use as a roller rink. Its origin is in the art record: a 1936 study of California artists describes work hung at the Palace of Fine Arts during the Exposition and a bronze medal awarded there by the Exposition committee, and the Third Jury-Free Exhibition held there in 1921 as the talk of that year's art world. The Recreation and Park Commission's later minutes show the same pattern of outside support the site still runs on — a gift of carpeting from the Palace of Fine Arts League, valued at about $7,400, installed at the Little Theater, and a standing commission committee formed on the Palace of Fine Arts and the Science Foundation. The freeway beside it has been the recurring threat: the Doyle Drive Task Force reported in 1993 that the existing road squeezed through a narrow space between the Palace and the Gorgas Avenue warehouses, with roadway and walls blocking views and access, and proposed moving it so that green open space would once again unite the Palace with the Presidio and the lagoon could be reconnected. One contract names the site: Minerva Construction was paid $173,700 in 2018.