San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, along with the Gardens of Golden Gate Park and the Friends of the Japanese Tea Garden, will celebrate the restoration of the iconic pagoda in the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park. This event will include taiko drummers, a speaking program, and a traditional celebratory ceremony. 

About the restoration
For the pagoda, all of the carpentry, roofing, and masonry work was completed in-house by Rec and Park’s structural maintenance crew.  Carpenters removed rotting wood from the interior and exterior of the five story structure, uncovering Japanese characters indicating some of the pagoda’s original components were salvaged from shipping containers. The carpenters replaced some of the damaged wood with 100-year-old redwood salvaged from two water storage tanks at Camp Mather. Roofers re-shingled the pagoda’s five roofs, while painters restored its orange trim to vibrancy. Traditional bells and giboshi adorn the pagoda for the first time in decades. All were custom-made in Niigata, Japan. Carpenters documented the layout of the badly damaged spire’s copper adornments before creating a new spire from a recycled Douglas fir flagpole, painstakingly turning it on a 16-foot lathe to shape its taper to replicate the original.

The pagoda restoration is the first half of a $2 million restoration that also includes a redesign of the surrounding landscaping and repairs to the wooden Long Bridge, which we estimate will be completed in Fall of 2023.

The 107-year-old pagoda’s restoration is part of a larger renovation of the 127-year-old Japanese Tea Garden. The second phase of this renovation project includes a redesigned pagoda landscape and repairs of the wooden Long Bridge, with anticipated completion in late 2023. 

WHO: 

• Consul General of Japan in San Francisco Yasushi Noguchi 
• SF District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar 
• SF Rec and Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg 
• SF Rec and Park partners 
• Japanese American community members 

WHEN: 

• Wednesday, September 28, 2022 
• Event begins at 5 p.m. 

WHERE: 

Japanese Tea Garden, 75 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park

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