Golden Gate Park vs. Central Park

Just some features in GGP:

de Young Museum
Academy of Sciences
Conservatory of Flowers
Arboretum
Japanese Tea Garden
Windmill
The Pacific Ocean

golden gate easy

The Pacific really isn't a feature of GGP, but it's right at the western end. (xp)

Sheltered west coast provincial lurves SF, votes GGP == me.

Central Park is nice, but I don't know it that well, and there are just so many great things about GGP. I figure someone has gotta have a good thing or two to say about CP.

Oh, GGP has bison, I almost forgot!

vvv sad that the panhandle lost its bandshell tho.

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8286/imageuploadimageec5.jpg

I voted GGP just to rep the yay area even though I like CP slightly better...cause I'm guessing it's not gonna be close.

Central Park is nice, but I don't know it that well, and there are just so many great things about GGP. I figure someone has gotta have a good thing or two to say about CP.

it offers a brief and underwhelming respite from the filth and din of NYC.

Central Park's pretty overrated. Prospect Park and Fort Tryon Park are both better than that.

Golden Gate in the summer, Central Park in the winter. And don't pretend Dolores Park beats GGP.

The Presidio does though!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i dunno, I like GGP and all and I live here, but Central Park is kept up more and seems nicer to me on the whole, also, it has a zoo in it.

the GGP museum complex is pretty bitchin' but I live in NY and, y'know, the Met. And ice skating.

The answer kinda depends on how you conceive the question. GGP is definitely wilder and typically more beautiful, two things I favor, but those are accidents of nature - this is not SF vs Manhattan - and an urban park (a questionable designation in its case, perhaps) is not a wilderness. As a product of humanity, Central Park wins hands down for its conception and construction and adoption. Perhaps this is equally an accident of culture and history, but I think CP is simply more important and useful to NYC than GGP is to SF, so it's gonna get my hometown vote. The diversions also lean in CP's favor:

art museums - CP easy
gardens - GGP
natural history museums - CP? (AMNH/Rose Center/CP Zoo at least equal to Academy of Sciences/bison, then throw in the rest of the history museums lining CP)
lakes - CP by a little (but not if you count the ocean)
recreation - CP (ice skating, etc.)
structures - tie (windmill vs carousel, dairy, etc.)
culture - CP (Summerstage, Shakespeare in the Park, etc.)

Cosmo is otm with the winter/summer thing

golden gate park easily.

The SF Zoo is very close to GGP, but I'm not sure a zoo counts in anyone's favor. The buffalo area in GGP is kinda cool, but it's not very zoolike either. Does CP actually art museums inside its boundaries, like GGP?

OK, it's not that close, on reflection.

the greatest art museum in the United States is within the park borders, facing the street on one side

http://www.outsidelands.org/moreNeighborhoodPhotos.php?n=Golden_Gate_Park

Has a nice photo of what GGP used to look like, sand dunes.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

TAKE THAT!

Seriously though these are both beautiful parks.

Good to hear proponents of CP hold forth on its virtues, even if I'm still on the GGP side.

Golden Gate Park is quite great though I myself voted for Central Park, it is also great!

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wow

i think a lot of nycilxors are brooklyn partisans and aren't that invested in cheerleading for central park. prospect park would do better probably

prospect park has too many negroes

Frederick Lawl LOlmsted

I think CP is simply more important and useful to NYC than GGP is to SF

otm

SF / most parts of the Bay Area are a lot more tree-nature-happy than the NY metro area (no duh.) Marin county, Tilden park etc. are not only easily accessible, they're also visible from SF. Because of this, GGP doesn't have the same urban oasis feeling that CP does - the area around GGP sorta blends in with the green, whereas the contrast is what makes CP so immediately striking.

On the other hand, if you judge them just as isolated parks and not within context, GGP is probably prettier. Also CP's contents are sorta pragmatic, whereas GGP's filled with a lot of charming wtf shit.

anyone who voted golden gate is fucking retard fyi

wtf?

i love central park -- first time i went to new york it was covered in snow, and it felt vaguely magical tramping through it.

didn't enjoy it as much the next time, mainly because there was some shitty band playing and you could hear it all over the park.

I've gotten more action in Central

overshare