San Francisco history: John McLaren's statue

Flashback: "It's said that he would ride in his carriage from McLaren Lodge where he lived (now Recreation and Park Department headquarters at Stanyan and the entrance to the park) to visit every part of the park and check up on his gardeners," according to the SF Botanical Gardens' website.

• His disdain of statues in parks was well-documented. He referred to them as "stookies" and preferred to focus on expanding San Francisco's variety of trees and plants, at one point even planting bushes in front of some statues to hide them.

The irony: A statue of McLaren was actually made while he was alive, but he refused to let it be installed until after his death in 1945.

• "To avoid offending the deceased too much, the statue was built without a pedestal, leaving McLaren’s feet firmly planted in the dirt," the SF Examiner wrote.