I decided to start a series of urban sketches highlighting neighborhoods in my hometown of San Francisco and I decided to start in a park of many firsts.

Portsmouth Square is the oldest park in San Francisco and was originally called Plaza de Yerba Buena or simply La Plaza in the pre-statehood days. This was the epicenter of the town and it was here where the first public school was built in 1847. A year before the discovery of gold in Coloma in January 1848.

It was also here that the first American flag was raised.

This seemed like a location worth sketching and the anchor of the spread and my reason for the visit was the monument to the first public school in the Golden State. And as a public educator, and as a student of California’s public schools, I should pay my homage and sketch it.

Also in Portsmouth Square is another statue that I added to my spread. It is titled “Goddess of Democracy”.

This is a smaller replica of a statue erected by activist-artists in Tianamen Square in 1989. The Portsmouth statue was created by Thomas Marsh and dedicated in 1994.

The Goddess of Democracy.