About two months ago, the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers reopened after 8 years of closure in Golden Gate Park. This was reported in the local paper, and the history of the conservatory was discussed. The paper (I believe this was the San Jose Mercury News) claimed that the conservatory was discovered packed in boxes in the barn of a wealthy man (James Lick) upon his death. This is allegedly true, but cannot be.

I imagine that when my relatives die, I will sort through their belongings. I expect to find a box filled with old photos, maybe a pile of old magazines, or a stack of manuals for computer programs from the 80’s (Sargon III, MacPublisher II, etc.) that “could be valuable some day.” And what’s this in the back of the garage– oh, why yes, it’s a conservatory! Let’s take it to San Francisco, and in 125 years, the city can spend 25 million dollars renovating it! I lift it out over the unassembled steel mill and the folded-up baseball diamond cover, and we’re off to the city!

On the other hand, James Lick did endow a high school in San Francisco by the name of Lick-Wilmerding with enough cash for it to be tuition-free for 77 years. If you’re doing things like that, maybe storing a collapsible metropolitan attraction in your barn is small potatoes.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2003 at 12:20 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.