Speedway Meadow Renamed Hellman Hollow
City pays tribute to the financier who sponsors the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival
After listening to more than an hour of tributes and emotional testimony Thursday morning, the San Francisco Park and Recreation Commission voted unanimously to rename Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park in honor of Warren Hellman, the ailing financier who has long been one of the park's pre-eminent benefactors.
The meadow will be renamed Hellman Hollow, effective immediately. For a decade, it has been the site of the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, which Hellman bankrolls. (Hellman is chairman of The Bay Citizen but plays no role in editorial operations.)
The new name is a slight twist on the original proposal, submitted by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd earlier this month, to rename the area Warren Hellman Meadow. Supervisors voted unanimously in symbolic support of that proposal last week, but the park commission president, Mark Buell, said he came upon the idea of suggesting the name Hellman Hollow after speaking to several other commissioners before Thursday's commission meeting.
Dozens of city officials, labor and business leaders, local musicians and residents streamed into the City Hall meeting room to offer testimony in support of the measure. Among those present were Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco, who gave opening remarks; Elsbernd; Steve Falk, the Chamber of Commerce president; firefighters' union chief Tom O'Connor; Hugh McDermott, a park supervisor; and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the country singer, who flew in from Austin, Texas. The commission received more than 100 letters of support for the renaming, according to David Lee, a park commissioner.
For his testimony, Phil Ginsburg, the parks director, sang a song to the tune of "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" in honor of Hellman, a casual and eccentric billionaire known for quoting lyrics during conversations and occasionally breaking into song.
The 77-year-old investor is currently hospitalized for complications for treatment of leukemia. He was represented by his sister, Nancy Hellman Bechtel, and his daughter, Patricia Hellman Gibbs, who tearfully gave tribute to Hellman's contributions to San Francisco.
"That the city of San Francisco, as represented by the Board of Supervisors and the Recreation and Park Commission, might choose to confer this name upon one of our city’s treasured meadows is a tremendous tribute to the man who bears it, and is a gesture that is sure to bring blessings upon the city and the people who so name it," Gibbs told the commission in prepared remarks.
Hellman revealed his condition to an audience of several hundred philanthropists and city officials at a fundraising dinner held several weeks ago for the 18th anniversary of the San Francisco Free Clinic, one of his many philanthropic projects. He said he feared he would not be around for the clinic's 20th anniversary.
The idea to rename Speedway Meadow in Hellman's honor arose from that fundraiser, said Elsbernd, who spearheaded the renaming proposal along with Ginsburg and Buell.
Buell's suggestion from the dais to change the name to Hellman Hollow took park department employees by surprise. They had come prepared with a painted park sign reading "Hellman Meadow." In a lighthearted moment, the sign was promptly covered over by a sheet of paper with the proper name scribbled in pen, just in time for the photo op.
"Hellman Hollow seemed more fitting to who Warren is," Buell later explained. "He's a little more whimsical."
"Warren Hellman Meadow seemed a little too staid, too official," Buell said.
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George Smith
What a disgrace!
Hellman has done NOTHING for this City save put in a parking garage, a gash in Golden Gate Park.
His tax-deductible party gives him the opportunity to hobnob with the movers and shakers as well as meet his favorite musicians.
He has his own private compound there, so the 1% (which includes, sadly, our labor "leaders") don't need to hobnob with the hoi polloi.
The one positive thing he has done is give to his daughter's free clinic......
He has done NOTHING for the park and said nothing about the privatization of the Arboretum, etc.
A sad day for San Francisco!
Ann Garrison
Agree 110%.
Ann Garrison
Actually, I forgot Prop C, what Fortune/CNN Money called "The Billionaire Pension Smackdown," http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/02/san-franciscos-pension-smackdown/
Green Bean
Whats sad is your pathetic rant. What has your pot smoking patootie done for this city? Did you know that he gave away almost all of his fortune? How many 1%ers do you know who do that? He is somebody to be appreciate of, not smacked down. I'm sorry you have such a hatred for philanthropy.
Matthew Fassberg
You're full of shit and know nothing of all the money Warren has invested all over the bay area.
Just sayin', you're ignorant.
You don't have to agree with all the positions Warren took acknowledge the good he did.
Recent article about him:
"Warren's talent was in his ability to pick people and in his very high ethical standards," said Tom Steyer, the billionaire founder of San Francisco hedge fund Farallon Capital, whom Hellman hired away from Goldman Sachs in 1986. Steyer was amused by the notion that Hellman's legacy as an arts patron might outshine his accomplishments as an investor: "He probably spent 50 times more energy on that than he did on Hardly Strictly," Steyer said.
"Forbes' website on Monday noted that the only reason Hellman never made the publication's famed lists of billionaires or richest people is because he gave so much money away.
Hellman was one of the most active benefactors in the Bay Area arts scene, contributing needed funds to help out such organizations as diverse as the San Francisco Ballet and Berkeley's Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse.