Cayuga Park is a small park and playground in San Francisco, located at the edge of the Cayuga Terrace neighborhood. The history, location and aesthetics of the park make it unique among the parks of San Francisco.
The current aeshetics of Cayuga Park is largely the creation of Demetrio Braceros, an employee of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. Demetrios has worked on the park for over twenty years, transforming a barren landscape into a park that features lush vegetation, several trails and "themed gardens" and, most prominently, over 100 figurines, totem poles and statues as well as several observation decks, all carved from wood by Braceros himself.
After emigrating from the Philippines in 1973, Braceros originally worked for a San Francisco law firm, but soon applied for a job as a gardener at the Recreation and Park Department. In 1986, Braceros was assigned to the 4-acre (16,000 m2) Cayuga Park, with the mission to "change the atmosphere" [1] .
Braceros himself said about the state of the park when he took it on, "there were prostitutes, drug dealers and crime. People got killed up there ... I thought to myself, how can I help this place?" [2].