Queer Places:
Dorothy W. Erskine Park, 7 Martha Ave, San Francisco, CA 94131
Dorothy Ward Erskine (July 29, 1896 - September 21, 1982) was a UC-Berkeley
graduate and longtime activist in urban and regional planning. Today, Erskine
is best known for her role in the founding of People for Open Space, which
eventually became the Greenbelt Alliance. She was a member of the Northern
California branch of the National Committee for the Defense of Political
Prisoners, as were Noel Sullivan
and several other local intellectuals and artists.
Langston Hughes later joined the
branch.
A native of San Francisco Erskine lived in San Francisco. She was the
daughter of Dr. Florence Nightingale Ward, and of Dr. James
William Ward. Florence Nightingale Ward (1879-1919) was one of the first
female surgeons in the early years of the 20th century, and opened her own
hospital in San Francisco. Dorothy Ward Erskine's sister, Jean Ward Wolff,
also became a doctor, as did Dorothy Ward Erskine's daughter, Florence Ward
Erskine. Erskine’s grandparents emigrated from Ireland in the
1850s. Erskine’s mother raised her as a single parent and was a prominent
homeopathic physician who ran a hospital in San Francisco while raising her
children (and occasionally taking them on epic trips to Japan and
Europe). Erskine attended Miss Burke's School and the University of California at Berkeley. She met her
husband, fighting liberanl attorney Morse Erskine, while still a student and
married him in 1918. They had two children: Florence Ward Erskine and John Morse Erskine.
She was a successful writer and editor whose works included Russias
Story, a text on the Soviet Union and The Big Ride, the story of Anza's
founding of San Francisco.
She referred to herself as a "professional volunteer" and was a tireless
worker for the environment.
Her work was largely responsible for the formation of the San Francisco
Housing Authority.
In the 1940s she helped create the San Francisco Housing and Planning
Association and later worked with the San Francisco Planning and Urban
Research Association (SPUR). In 1938, when the national legislation for public
housing had gone through in Washington, she formed a kind of economic study
group. This was privately financed, but among the things that were done was a
survey of Chinatown by about eighteen people who signed up. Among those were
Martha Gerbode. Other people involved were Alice Griffith and Elizabeth Ash,
who pioneered in the housing field for many years, and actually formed the San
Francisco Housing Association and helped in passing the first legislation
after the first earthquake of 1906, to prevent jerry-building in the
reconstruction of San Francisco.
Her efforts resulted in the formation of Point Reyes National Seashore and
parklands in San Pablo and the watershed area on Angel Island.
She was a key figure in the creation of the Bay Conservation and
Development Commission (BCDC) to preserve the bay. After the sensational third
U.C. Extension conference, when people were aroused and alarmed, a meeting was
called to save the Bay. That night Mel Scott was there and Jack Kent and all
of them, including Erskine, again – the same group of people. The meeting was
called by Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick (it was her house) and Sylvia McLaughlin.
They were all connected with the University of California. They wanted to do
something about saving the Bay because Berkeley at this time proposed to fill
the tidelands for two or three miles out into the Bay and build a big
industrial complex of one kind or another.
In 1954, hoping to escape from the increasing urbanization of Fairfax,
Elsa Gidlow bought a 5-acre property in rural Marin County near Muir
Woods. The
property had been found by Roger Somers and his wife Mary, but they did not
have the funds to make the purchase. Despite
the inability of single women to obtain credit at the time, Gidlow was able
to borrow funds, after her friend Dorothy
Erskine collateralized the
loan.[38] Gidlow
and
Isabel Grenfell Quallo
shared the property, naming it Druid Heights.
In 1958, Erskine co-founded the Citizens for Regional Recreation and
Parks (CRRP), as an organization to protect parks and recreational areas in
the Bay Area. In the late 1960s CRRP became the People for Open Space,
committed to preserving all sorts of open recreational space on a regional
basis. By the 1980s, the POS had merged with their affiliated Greenbelt
Congress to become the Greenbelt Alliance, which promoted what is now call
livable neighborhoods—walkable places to live, with shops, parks, and homes
that have good access to transit. Protecting open space was a key part of the
movement, coupled with local activism.
The Dorothy Erskine Park is located at the top of Baden Street. Poised on
the edge of a rocky outcropping, the small park affords great views of the
southeast of San Francisco, from among a grove of eucalyptus trees—though
without even the amenity of a bench from which to enjoy the vista. A tiny
patch of undeveloped land, it has peaceful views of India Basin and the Bay
beyond. Dorothy Erskine Park was dedicated in February 1979, attended by
Dorothy Erskine herself, along with Mayor Dianne Feinstein. Local realtor Ken
Hoegger, active then in the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, was master of
ceremonies.
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