Wrong Place to Build

While I can overlook some of the spurious “historical” tidbits in “Sam Is Your Man for Downtown,” (Aug. 3), I must comment on one point. As one who cares about San Diego history, I am appalled at the suggestion to build a shelter for transients on Marston’s Point.

George Marston served as park commissioner for several years and gave most generously of his time and money to the work of creating a park out of 1,400 bleak and barren acres. Besides other contributions, Marston gave the city almost 16 acres for inclusion in Balboa Park. (The recent addition of the family residence as a gift from his daughter, the late Mary Marston, brings the total to over 20 acres of park land donated by the Marston family.) In 1902, at his own expense, George Marston brought Samuel Parsons Jr., a nationally known landscape architect and park expert, to San Diego for consultation.

As a token of appreciation, in November, 1924, the park commission named the area in the southwestern corner of the park Marston’s Point. In a letter of thanks, Marston noted that in 1902 the area had been the “ugliest hill of the whole 1,400 acres.” He went on to recall the words of a friend: “Marston, you better give this up. It’s a natural home for cactus, coyotes and jack rabbits, but it ain’t no park and never will be.”

The problem of the homeless is a very serious matter, for them and for all of us, and the current situation at Marston’s Point is certainly deplorable. We need to continue to work on solutions, but a comment such as the one recorded in the article is (even if intended only as a flippant remark) completely off base.

In view of the current controversies over the Balboa Park plan (not to mention all that has happened there over the years in the name of “progress”), it seems appropriate to close with a few words from a letter George Marston sent to a local paper some years ago. In 1925 he wrote: “ . . . the time is coming when the building of hospitals and schoolhouses or even libraries and museums must cease or else we shall have a city there instead of a park.” More than 60 years later San Diegans might do well to consider those words with care.

MAUREEN O’DONNELL

San Diego