San Francisco Landmarks

San Francisco Landmark #96: Francis Scott Key Monument De Young Museum and Francis Scott Key Memorial
21 March 2007

San Francisco Landmark #96: Francis Scott Key Monument 2 November 2023

San Francisco Landmark #96: Francis Scott Key Monument 2 November 2023

Monumental Reckoning at the Francis Scott Key Monument 2 November 2023

Monumental Reckoning at the Francis Scott Key Monument 2 November 2023

On 18 June 2021, sculptor Dana King unveiled 350 black rubber sculptures representing the 350 kidnapped Africans who were transported across the Atlantic in 1619 aboard the Spanish slave ship, San Juan Bautista. They were the first slaves brought to the United States.

"The ancestors are Black, the plinth is white," King told ABC 7 in an interview. "The ancestors are going to stand there until their work is done."

San Francisco Landmark #96
Francis Scott Key Monument
Golden Gate Park
Built 1888

This monument, designed by William Wetmore Story and funded by James Lick, was the nation's first memorial to Francis Scott Key.

In 1888, when the monument was unveiled, The Star-Spangled Banner was not the national anthem of the United States. It did not achieve that distinction until 1931.

On Juneteenth 2020, protesters toppled three statues in Golden Gate Park - this statue of Francis Scott Key, a nearby statue of Padre Junipero Serra and a bust of Ulysses S. Grant. The mob also vandalized apolitical statues such as the Cervantes Memorial, the Apple Cider Press, the Sphinx and Leonidas.

A day earlier, a statue of Christopher Columbus near Coit Tower was removed by city workers and placed in storage.

San Francisco Landmarks in Golden Gate Park: Beach Chalet, Conservatory of Flowers, Dutch Windmill, Francis Scott Key Monument, Lawn Bowling Clubhouse and Greens, McLaren Lodge, Murphy Windmill, Music Concourse, Park Emergency Hospital, Sharon Building

California Landmarks in Golden Gate Park: Conservatory of Flowers

National Register Listings in Golden Gate Park: Golden Gate Park Historic District, Beach Chalet, Conservatory of Flowers

The Francis Scott Key Monument contributes to the Golden Gate Park Historic District which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
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