In the San Francisco Chronicle today, John King writes about New Deal public projects in the Bay Area.  Gray Brechin has channeled his longtime interest in this history into the California’s Living New Deal Project, an index of public works by the WPA and other agencies across the state.  Naturally there’s an interactive map, so you can drill down to your neighborhood.  Out here on the foggy margins of San Francisco, for instance, there’s a golf course, two shooting ranges, and many features of our storied zoo.  But other projects are more picturesque.  I’ve mentioned one of our branch libraries here before, a beautiful example of the synthetic “Spanish” style.   My favorite, though, for sentimental reasons and more, is the Rose Garden in Berkeley.  On the bay side of Euclid Avenue in the hills, an amphitheater drops through ring on ring of rose-beds, focused at once on the tiny “stage”, large enough for a wedding, and on the Golden Gate beyond.

Photo by Flickr user sailor ripley used under a Creative Commons license.

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