Palm Gratitude

At long last, Los Angeles is getting some respect from San Francisco, the city that loves to think of itself as vastly more beautiful and infinitely more sophisticated than its neighbor to the south.

Casting about for a signature landscape element for its first grand boulevard, the city settled on none other than the palm tree, a much-maligned symbol of Los Angeles and a rarity in this land of redwoods and sequoias.

A storm of controversy erupted when the city announced four years ago that the palms would march in a double row down the twin median of the Embarcadero, a three-mile stretch of roadway that frames San Francisco’s historic port.

It was, some critics charged, cruel irony that the city would choose to adorn what was envisioned to be the jewel of its urban renaissance with a tree so closely identified with its crass southern rival.

The Embarcadero was slated to become a chic, European-flavored promenade after spending years as a scarred roadway running under the raised Embarcadero Freeway.

The $1-billion redesign, which got underway after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake led to the razing of the freeway, was aimed at opening up breathtaking views of the San Francisco Bay and the Oakland Bay Bridge.

It was to be an extension of the south-of-Market Street urban redevelopment that transformed what once was a wasteland of flophouses and pawnshops into a hip urban neighborhood.

The four-lane Embarcadero was broadened to make room for the double median strip and for streetcar tracks. New sewage, water and electric systems were installed. Vintage, acorn-shaped street lamps were added.

The planning process drew plenty of public comment, recalled Martha Ketterer, landscape architect with the Department of Public Works. But no single element of the redesign caused more controversy, more raucous debate, than the decision to plant the double row of Canary Island date palms.

Talk of placing the palms brought protesters racing to public hearings to decry a choice they associated only with what they saw as the materialism and tackiness of Southern California.

“Even in their natural habitat, even adorned with coconuts, palm trees seem trashy,” Richard Allen, a San Franciscan publicist, sniffed in an op-ed page piece written at the height of the debate. “In San Francisco, they look uncomfortable, too.”

Despite such contemptuous comments, the city stuck to its guns and proceeded with the planting. Now, the southern end of the Embarcadero is lined with a double row of the stately palms, their thick trunks stretching 35 feet into opulent crowns of green fronds. And the city is preparing to plant dozens more on the north end, between the Ferry Building and Fisherman’s Wharf.

When the project is completed, more than 200 palms will grace the roadway, at a cost of $1.5 million.

Even with only a partial planting, some of those who grimly predicted that the palms would turn the waterfront into a Santa Monica wannabe are changing their minds.

“I think they look fine,” said landscape architect Tito Patri, one of many who testified against planting the palms. “Majestic is a good word for them.”

Majestic?

During what was dubbed the great palm frond fracas, the trees were called anything but majestic. They were denounced as havens for rats, lice and fleas. One respected former city planner described them as “aggressively self-assertive, even narcissistic.”

Others said they were more appropriate for a set for “Miami Vice” or a street in San Diego than in San Francisco, a city that sometimes sees itself as more of a European outpost on the western American coast than a part of California.

“You have to admire people who love their city so much they get worked up about palm trees,” Rob Morse, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, wrote as the controversy raged. “Only God can make a tree, but only San Franciscans can make such a big deal over them.”

Isabel Wade, then head of the San Francisco Tree Advisory Board, recalled her sense of foreboding when the city’s landscape architects put forth the notion of the palms.

“I said: Forget it. I knew that it was politically unacceptable. I knew that there would be a problem,” Wade said.

But soon she was won over by the arguments favoring the trees.

Their tall trunks would not block views of the bay. Their fronds would not rain leaves on the streetcar tracks passing beneath them. Their grand scale would fit the grand size of the Embarcadero. They were resistant to disease and big enough to withstand the waterfront winds that would bend slimmer trees.

Finally, it was the beauty of the palms that swayed most of the harshest critics.

“I haven’t heard a peep of criticism, now that they’ve gone in,” said Wade. Because she is a member of Friends of the Urban Forest and active in efforts to plant more trees in the city, “people call me about tree things,” she said.

“I am getting fabulous comments now about those trees, about how grand they look. We finally figured out what it takes to have a grand-looking boulevard in San Francisco.”

Among those most relieved over the outcome is Ketterer, the landscape architect responsible for the Embarcadero streetscape.

Although Ketterer won an award in 1995 from the U.S. Department of Transportation for her design, she took a lot of heat when it was proposed in 1992.

She has a three-ring binder stuffed with letters to the editors of San Francisco newspapers, news stories and columns devoted to critiques of the palms.

“People said it would be the Los Angelization of San Francisco,” said Ketterer, a native San Franciscan. “San Franciscans hate being compared to L.A. We just consider ourselves so superior. They are the beach. We are the bay.”

Things got so bad, Ketterer said, that she found herself searching through the San Francisco library archives to demonstrate to her critics that palms did have a place in the city. She produced historic photographs of palms along Dolores Street in the Mission District, in Union Square and on Treasure Island.

She pointed out that palm trees were brought to California by Spanish missionaries, and that the Canary Island palms on Treasure Island are probably older than any of their counterparts in Los Angeles.

In Victorian-era San Francisco, other supporters argued, palms were often planted at the gateways of gardens.

“When Los Angeles and Santa Monica were dirty cow towns, palm trees were tremendously in vogue in Victorian times,” Darold Petty, of the city’s chapter of the International Palm Society, told the arts commission during one public hearing. Petty now believes that the stately appearance of the palms is a vindication of sorts.

“We did triumph over a lot of virulent, negative sentiment in order to get them planted,” said Petty, a carpenter who claims to have some 35 species of palms in his small garden. “But we don’t care what the general public thinks. We don’t have proselytizing zeal.”

And indeed, palm opponent Richard Allen says he still thinks the palms are a bad idea.

“I went down there the other evening,” Allen said. “It looks like ‘Hawaii Five-O.’ The palms look like big corncobs with fronds on top. They darken the street. I just don’t like them.”

The trees in place seem to be thriving, largely because of the warmer temperatures along the Embarcadero and the care and attention the city is lavishing on them. Ketterer has retained a palm tree expert to counsel her on how to keep them healthy.

“I told him these trees just had to work,” Ketterer said. “After all we went through, they could not fail.”