Two new projects that need your help
As the Centennial of the Panama Pacific International Exposition enters into its seventh month, and a busy Fall season ahead at many of the region’s most significant institutions, many individuals are putting together their own PPIE100 celebrations, and two of these efforts need your help! We are pleased to feature two exciting efforts that are in the works and looking for support from the PPIE100 fans. Click below to learn more about a great project at the Conservatory of Flowers and another one related to Houdini, who made a famed appearance at the PPIE in 1915.
A Floral Tribute to Celebrate the PPIE Centennial
Donna Ewald Huggins, Laura Ackley, Zoe Heimdal, and Carol Jensen are raising funds to create a floral tribute to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition on the front lawn of the remarkable Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.
Funds raised will purchase the flowers/plants used, and pay for the installation and maintenance during the upcoming months. Planting will take place in October of this year.
John McLaren, famous Superintendent of Golden Gate Park who helped transform the area from a sea of sand dunes to one of America’s greatest urban playgrounds, served as Chief of Landscape for the PPIE. There his creative wizardry was on full show.
At the Exposition, flower gardens changed their blooms overnight, 70-foot tall trees thrived where a deep lagoon had lapped just three years before, and an imposing, 20 foot tall, eight block long wall of living green ice plant served as the main façade.
Golden Gate Park, still under McLaren’s stewardship in 1915, advertised the PPIE with a glorious bed of flowers, which read “San Francisco Welcomes the World” in brilliant, blooming letters.
After 1915, trees, plants, and decorative items from the Fair, including sculpture, benches and urns, were moved to the Park where they remain today. Thus it is only fitting to commemorate the centennial of this classic San Francisco celebration.
Support their project here.
The Official Houdini Séance 2015
Take part in — and support — The Official Houdini Séance 2015: a day of science, history, escapes, and magic … on Halloween!
“What would be more wonderful to me than to … converse with my beloved mother?” So wrote the 50-year-old Harry Houdini in A Magician Among the Spirits two years before his own death on Halloween, 1926.
On Halloween of this year, October 31, 2015, The Official Houdini Séance will take place at San Francisco’s Brava Theater as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. Magician Robert Strong will lead Wonderfest, Bay Area Skeptics, and the Pan-Pacific International Exposition in presenting a day of science, history, escapes, and magic.
Support this project here.