Currently The Friends of Larsen Playground are aggressively fundraising to bring a jet plane back to the park. The goal is to raise $130,000 by June 1st. Visit their Facebook page to find out how to help. Thanks!
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By Woody LaBounty
Western Neighborhoods Project
Larsen Park, two blocks between 19th and 20th Avenues between Ulloa and Wawona Streets, was donated to the City by Danish-immigrant-turned-successful-businessman Carl Larsen in 1926.
Current Sunset residents know the green lawns, baseball diamond, tennis court, basketball court, and Charlie Sava Pool. Sunset residents in the 1950s and 1960s swam in the “modern” Larsen Pool, and remember the military airplanes that sat on the land, one at a time, for years, unique life-sized toys for children to climb over and sit in.
In 1926, when Larsen donated this park to the city, Mayor James (“Sunny Jim”) Rolph thanked him on the steps of City Hall proclaiming that Larsen would “be remembered in company with other benefactors, who have accumulated great wealth within our boundaries and were inspired to reciprocate with gifts to the commonwealth.”
Larsen Park was unique in that two spaces were set aside as “out-of-door card rooms,” one for men and the other for women. The outside card rooms and soccer field are long gone, but the tennis court and baseball diamond remain, now accompanied by a basketball court and an indoor swimming pool.
A memorial to Larsen stands at the 19th Avenue and Ulloa Street corner of Larsen Park. The bronze plaque, mounted on a large stone, displays a bust of Carl Larsen sculpted by Melvin Earl Cummings, who also sculpted Sather Gate at UC Berkeley. Below the sculpture, the plaque reads, “Carl G. Larsen has generously given these two blocks to the city of San Francisco for park pleasure purposes.”