Presidio Pet Cemetery: New Infrastructure Meets Eternal Rest

Doyle Drive is not a particularly famous street in San Francisco, but chances are that if you've ever been to the Golden Gate Bridge, you probably traveled on it -- Doyle Drive the multilane elevated freeway that rises above the former Presidio Army Base to shuttle motorists from the streets of the city to the foot of the bridge.

Built in the 1930s, at the same time as the Golden Gate Bridge, Doyle Drive is now a seismic hazard, so it is being completely rebuilt. But the new construction intersects with the pet cemetery used by U.S. personnel in the days when the Presidio was still a functioning military installation. To preserve the site, the cemetery has been fenced off and left scrupulously undisturbed while a whole world of construction chaos takes place all around it. Quite a spectacle.

Photos by Telstar Logistics

Comments

[Orin Zebest]

Scrupulously undisturbed is a bit of a stretch. If you look at before pictures you can tell that many headstones are now missing or broken. They cut the trees down very speedily and didn't do a great job. Construction workers just don't have the preservation instinct I guess.

[Lynae Zebest]

Hmm. I think "scrupulously undisturbed" is a bit of a stretch. They cut down all the trees in the cemetery, and the workers did quite a bit of damage to the cemetery itself in the process. I was there shortly after the trees were removed, and lots of dirt had been turned up everywhere, and many headstones had either been relocated to random locations, or just plain knocked down and left.

Also, because the trees were removed, many of the underbrushy plants have grown by leaps and bounds due to the increase in sunlight. As a result, many headstones/gravesites (including that of my beloved pufferfish) are now covered up. Between the turned earth and the new plant growth, many gravesites are virtually impossible to find, short of, well, digging them up again.

It seems like the guy who's supervising the work has done a relatively decent job, but I think in the early stages, the people actually doing the work weren't properly instructed as to the vulnerability/importance of the site.