Yerba Buena Gardens: Neighborhood Playground or Visitor Destination?

I'm catching up on posts from my travels this summer and wanted to write about my visit to Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco.

The campus-like space reminds you a bit of what Seattle Center could be if it were surrounded by denser housing and office space and sat on top of a convention center. Yes, there are major differences, but there are also similarities. They are both large-scale public spaces with some open space removed from the street and/or at different grades from the street, and I imagine they could feel empty, even a bit spooky after dark without constant programming and good lighting. They also both host similar civic amenities.

On this particular July day, it was a vibrant place, full of people enjoying crisp sunshine on their lunch breaks, kids playing at the playground, and families visiting the various amenities on site. These include a carousel, a playground (Play Circle), an indoor ice skating rink, a small bowling alley, and a daycare center.

In a city like San Francisco, and in most of the cities I am visiting, it can be difficult to determine tourists with children enjoying the space versus residents with children enjoying the space. Here are some key differences I have noticed along the way, noticeable in the photos below. In this photo, for example, these are most likely tourists because of the extreme amount of gear they are carrying in the stroller and the fact that they are looking around at the scenery. They also kept a pretty close watch on their kids, which is understandable in an unfamiliar place.

Compare that to this photo below, where the two moms were deeply engrossed in a conversation while their children ran around and played behind them. There were times when the girls were out of their sight, but the mothers didn't seem to care. Clearly, they had been there before and were not worried.

Next up it was off to the playground, which sits on top of the convention center, close to the entrance to the Children's Museum and directly adjacent to the skating rink and bowling alley. It is a safe place for kids to run around as there is no risk of them running into the street. It has plenty of room to run around, and different types of playground equipment, from climbing structures to slides to elaborate sand boxes.

Here it was a bit harder to tell tourist from local. Also, as in the case of the Boston Children's Museum, there are locals that use this space as their backyard, and pseudo-locals who live in the San Francisco metro area that come to the museum once or twice a year. One large group at the playground was clearly a summer camp program (discernable from their brightly colored matching "Summer Camp" T-shirts) that had come to ice skate or bowl, and made a stop at the playground before boarding the bus back home. Others were clearly tourists, breaking out maps while their children ran off some steam.

The ice skating rink felt like the most local venue of all. Certainly there were people hosting birthday parties, but they did have an extensive program of lessons, hockey practices, free-skating sessions and the like for people that lived in the area. There were children there on their own, presumably dropped off by parents or allowed to walk there for the afternoon free-skate.

This all begs the question: how do you create a large civic open space that is both friendly to tourists with children and serves the local public in a meaningful way? The Yerba Buena ice skating rink started to feel that way, but could have been better with more amenities targeted at residents. A recreation center, a gymnasium, or a swimming pool could go a long way to bring locals to the space more regularly.

I think the same could be said for Seattle Center. Including amenities catering to local residents, and not just event-related venues, would make it part of the local fabric. Creating a place where local residents go on a daily or weekly basis increases the safety and efficiency of the space. The Center School (an Option High School) begins to do this. Is there more to be done on the campus? Will the new SODO NBA Stadium and aging Key Arena present opportunities for rethinking Seattle Center?