80s that it had other plans for the location, the navy and the island moved it to museum in district one. During this, sotomayor passed away. He died believing that the fountain was under restoration. In his obituary, the paper called him San Franciscos novel laureate. This was the last photograph taken of the fountain before it was dismantled. Engineers determined rather than moving it in one place, the fountain would have to be cut along mortared joints. Tida is the steward owner and caretaker of both the covarrbias murals and the pacific fountains. Five of the six murals have been lovingly preserved. One has been missing since the 60s, which is sad, but the rest are preserved, while the fountain languishes with a certain amount of pathos on the island. San francisco should be proud that this fountain recognizes the citys recognition of the pacific as a united a unity of economic and cultural partners. San francisco recognizes that community and gave it breathtaking vision in the world fair, especially in the art of that fair. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for your great presentation and who else is coming . [inaudible] okay. Yes maam. Just say who you are. Good morning. My name is claire isaacs. I was director from the San FranciscoArt Commission from 1983 to 1990. I also ran an art center for the city of los angeles and did Education Programs for San Francisco museum of modern art, and im here to speak about the artistic quality of this great work of art. Ive also been president of the Treasure Island museum twice and remain on the board. This is a 25year saga, the saga of this beautiful fountain. Antonio sotomayor did something thats not been done before. He made a terra cotta map of the world as seen from the pacific using the colors found in nature. The oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams are all glazed in blue. You may notice in the last slide that the areas around the pacific shoreline are in light blue and then graduates to dark blue to insinuate depth. In the middle of this, there are several charming whales spouting from their spouts as they do in the ocean. Its a wonderful work of art. Its an important work of art and would do so much to Treasure Island to have it restored and placed in a spot for so many to enjoy as it was so many years ago. There isnt much left from the fair, just buildings one, two, and three, but this would be something for everybody to enjoy left from the fair and everybody to enjoy. The city has been wonderful in taking care of its works and art and this would be a great triumph that people would like to see for miles around. One last thing. Sotomayor was a wonderful artist. He did paintings and drawings as well as pen and ink including this wonderful fountain. Please help us put this fountain back together on the island. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Are there other speakers . Good morning. Im retired admiral john biddulph. I had the honor of living in nimitz house on Yerba Buena Island. I am here today in my capacity as a member of the Treasure IslandMuseum Advisory council. Following the 1989 loma prieta earthquake and in the process of inspecting the island for damage, i came across a fencedin area containing colorful ceramic tiles, and their beauty caught my eye. Research revealed they were part of the Pacific Basin fountain from the 1939 worlds fair. As a history buff and an art aficionado, i wanted to preserve these facts and have the terra cotta tiles repaired and installed in front of building number one. I like to see myself as the stepfather of this fountain. I requested special funding to make this happened, but i retired before my effort came to fruition, and apparently, my successor did not pursue it any further. During that inspection, i also came across several additional art objects, including the pacific unity sculptures and assured their preservation. Six of the sculptures are now in front of building one. For your information, immediately following the earthquake, i was responsible for leading the major rescue and recovery effort in the greater bay area with more than 10,000 navy and marine more personnel. Upon my retirement from the navy, the mayor appointed me director of emergency services, and i am responsible for building the emergency command and Communications Center on turk street. I strongly support the preservation and restoration of this historic and beautiful fountain for future generations. And your name, please, sir, for the record. Im retired general john bitoff, bitoff. Thank you. Any other speakers . Good morning. My name is dan heilbeck. My company was retained by the museum to perform a Feasibility Study on reconstructing the fountain, so im here to talk about that. The fountain contained roughly 610 pieces of terra cotta, and of that, 60 of them no, 70 of them remain. And most importantly, the remaining pieces are the most important pieces that makeup the topography of the Pacific Basin. The pieces that are missing are the pieces that you will see around the perimeter of the fountain, which are relatively plain pieces that are easily refabricated. So we authorized a study to talk about that. As a result, that, we started to develop some repair strategies for it because as was mentioned before, when the fountain was reconstructed, the pieces were remortared together again, which led to some damage when they were disassembled in 1984. The repair of terra cotta is a fairly straightforward process. Its been done several times in the city throughout the years, and over the years, myself and other companies have developed techniques to repair ter terra cotta spalls and nicks and stuff like that. So from a reassembly standpoint, reaassembling the fountain is not hard. We had a contractor give us an estimate that focuses strictly on reassembling the fountain. We dont know where the fountain would be rebuilt, whether it be in its own dedicated area, would it be on a hilly site or a flat site and things like that. Theres also issues regarding whether or not it would be dry or wet, whether it would actually contain water and have spouts as the original fountain did. However, to get some idea of what Something Like that might cost, we also prepared a very outlined scope of work, mimicking where it was in Pacific House for 50 years on the island. We had that commissioned by lee saller and associates, and they estimated that cost would be approximately 1 million, but theres many assumptions in that. Moving forward, the aspect of contemplating the reconstruction of the fountain is to determine where it would be built, what sort of context it would be within, whether its a standalone item, whether its incorporated with some other features, you know, retail and things like that or theres endless possibilities, but that would be a very important part towards moving forward is determines where it would be placed on the island and to what environment. So any way, just to summarize, to literally just just reconstruct the fountain is quite feasible, but in order to move forward, we need to find a place for it and how you would like to use it on the island. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Other speakers . Chair richardson, committee members, thank you very much for your attention to our presentation on the Pacific Basin fountain. We know your name, sir . Im sorry. Walt pilowski, Treasure Island museum. The historic important is clear. As youve heard me say so many times before, Treasure Island has these wonderful threats of history that continue in the present and into the future. And visitors to the fountain will not only be able to see the art and the history and the themes to the fair but the relevance to San Franciscos place on the pacific rim and the concerns we have today looking at china and korea. This fountain will have meaning that any visitor can find in it. The this is now or never for the fountain. We have a big island. Its in the process of being recreated. There must be space somewhere on the fountain on the island for the fountain. We certainly would love to have input into that discussion, but there are a lot of players and a lot of interests, and thats a discussion beyond our thinking today. There is funding for art on the island. There is a road map this preliminary study gives you and the developers a road map to start the discussion to begin thinking about the issues. It was generously funded by the Historic Preservation fund of the office of economic and workforce development, so all the pieces are here, probably for the last time in the fountains history, except for one critical piece, and that is your support. This fountain needs a champion, and that champion has to be tida. You are the owners and the stewards of those wonderful pieces of history, the covarrubias murals and the sotomayor fountain. You are the missing piece of the puzzle, and we need your help. Thank you. Well, thank you. Any other speakers . Yes, sir. My name is harvey smith. Im a local his totorian, and a project advisor to the living ideal. I have a support letter for you, but i just want to add a few more points that actually are are not in the letter. And i want to focus on the the aspect of the fountain that is that the and the whole fair, which was it was dedicated to peace. And i think thats something in todays world that we we need more reminders of. We need mormon umts to piece. San francisco played a key role with hosting the fair and five year years we need more monuments to peace. San francisco played a key role with hosting the fair and five years after that. We have other pieces, so this remaining work and the sculptures, i think are important for people to see. I also want to point out that this is not ordinary ter terra cotta. This is manufactured by glady mcbean, a company established in Northern California in 1875, and the company is still around. So i think that the fountain also evokes something thats intanable, and that you probably know, one of the nicknames for the island is the magic island, particularly during the fair. And i think this island evokes some of that magic, and i think its important for people to understand where their community has come from, and i think that theres a very critical important significant legacy thats in Treasure Island. And i think the more that we do to commemorate that, the more that enriches not only Treasure Island, but all of San Francisco and the bay area and beyond. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other speakers . [inaudible] there would be Public Comment. Are there any other speakers . Yes, sir. Go ahead. I im riley dody. Im a member of the board Heritage Foundation which is a National Foundation dedicated to the research and preservation of architectural ceramic. I want to comment on glady mcbeans work on the pacific fountain and its other work. I think im speaking to people with a pretty good sense of this but it deserves to be highlighted. Te the fountain was produced in the final phase of the companys glory years. Over several years, the company had manufactured facade elements for several of the citys prominent buildings. Skilled workers fabricated molds of various shapes. In all, glady mcbean supplies material for over 900 prom mentnent buildings in the city. Im just going to do a list of particulars. Daniel bernham, blakewell and brown, g. Albert lyinsburg, th call building, the hearst building, southern pacific building, the hobart building, San Francisco public library, now the asian art museum. Metropolitan insurance building, standard oil building, mark hopkins hotel, mission high school, pacific telephone and telegraph, the roost building, Saint Georges building, the opera house. The pacific fountain was glady mcbeans final major San Francisco commission. It capped off a remarkable recess m resume of work. Thank you, sir. Are there any other Public Comment . I do not see any. Let me at the all for taking the time to come out very early this morning to and your passion and the historic records. And i think just what can i say . Just to we extend our gratitude to you. Let me also take this opportunity here for all of you and for those that are watching, mr. Bilowski, your leadership on the Treasure Island museum, you are constantly up here advocating and working religiously, if i can say that. Youre conducting workshops, youre educating people. Let it be known that we consider the pacific fountain in our work plan of Treasure Island. We continue to support the museum. Why . Before we developed that island into what it needs to be, it had the history. And the history, when we look at Treasure Island as a point of destination, what are people coming to see . Yeah, later on, they might come in to look at the open space and all of that, but the historical landmark that we have, the art that we have, are going to be displays of attraction. When we were going out to look at this, we didnt mention no, its going to be a county place that people can come and learn about the bay area and history, so we already are supporting Treasure Island museum with particular to this art, yes. There will be extensive discussion. In fact, mr. Bilowski of record and on record on several occasions, weve been asking you and youve been updating us about the lost art of mr. Covarrubias. Ive been asking you is there going to be a movement into finding that lost art because we do know ultimately some lost arts do show up mysteriously. No, that is a passion, no. We do have a mission to produce art. Were going all over the world, regionally, locally, and everywhere, and im sure these individuals here are well versed in public and world art. We value historical things, and im sure collectively when we get to this discussion, we will talk about that. Our president talks about historical things all the time. So at this time, i am going to open this item for discussion. I see commissioner lei to start this off. Thank you. Commission okay, yeah, you can go in. You guys switch. Commissioner shen . Thanks for coming and educating us about this, bringing it to our attention and also doing a lot of the legwork and providing the analysis, which is really helpful. I think many of us here feel the same way about history and art as being important values and components of a vibrant community, and this does seem like a very rare occurrence of art and history kind of all mixed in one. This is an informational item so im just mostly going to be asking some questions to better understand the situation. Im not sure which one of you has worked on the analysis more, but i have a few questions related, so if someone can maybe standup to the penal codum . So i think the report basically assumes or is leaning towards an outdoor installation . And im just wondering what the advantages are with an outdoor to an indoor installation, and im just wondering if thats a concern to the group . Well, historically speaking, we cant bring that up. We just thought that should be considered for budget purpose. And since there is no site right now dedicated for the fountain, in order to come up with a number, we just made the assumption that it would be an outdoor site that mimicked the corridor pacifica where it existed until 1984. Specifically, i think thats something the committee would do in the planning process to try to figure out where it would best be cited. Were not advocating for a site. However, i did bring up the issues of citing just so you can just to come up with a budget number for planning because as an architect and engineer, the most important unit of our business is the dollar, and so thats an important thing to be considering when youre planning. In a broader sentence, though, the indoor site would protect the components of the fountain much better. It would not be subject to weathering and the like. However, outdoor would be fine. The fountain existed 50 years where it was at, and ter terra cotta is used on buildings often. Maintenance will have to be provided for, but outdoor can be used. Is that something you were considered, outdoor was a longterm solution, but maintenance would have to be considered. Yeah and , and if youre considering an indoor setting, you would have to plan it from the beginning which would be easier to install. And where was the corridor pacifica . What is that planned for, that area . [inaudible] yeah. It would be at the northern end of what currently is the job corps property. Would you like to step up to the podium so the audience at home can hear you . Sure. Its right next to where mercy is. Its to the east of mercy. Thats where it was, and the reason the navy said they had to move it was they wanted to pave it. Theres essentially a parking lot there. Oh, its where the parking lot is currently. Yeah. That was my next question, is why they had to demolish it in 94. So thats helpful. And then, this next set of questions is more directed to director beck. So where are we currently in our public art budget because i know that weve already selected a lot of the public artists for the major art sites that weve identified. No, i can answer that, commissioner shen. Art and i are on the committee and we are still on the going process. We have some sites were looking at, and like everything were looking at, there are some proposals that were looking at. Every art, skrculpture, etc. , will have to be looked at, so thats what were doing now. I remember about six months ago, we went through adopting the art plan and finalizing some plans for art park. Yes. People have made a number of proposals, and the committee has come back. We have not made any selection because you have this primary space, and what weve done is sent out some proposals to some artists to tell us about the concept. It its still at the conceptual stage now. And commissioner, you can jump in. We have a compre