Update: San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Commission voted Jan. 18 to officially rename Golden Gate Park’s Stow Lake. Its new name, Blue Heron Lake, celebrates the great blue herons that have nested at Stow Lake since 1993.
After San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar initiated a renaming process for Golden Gate Park’s Stow Lake this year, we turned to The Standard’s readers to see how they felt about the potential renaming options.
Readers chose from a list of more than 20 names that were crowdsourced from San Franciscans by Melgar’s office following a modern reckoning with the antisemitic views held by Stow Lake’s namesake, William Stow, a 19th century San Francisco lawmaker.
In total, The Standard received 3,336 votes with the majority going to Blue Heron Lake (985 votes). In second place was Strawberry Lake (346 votes), and in third place was Turtle Lake (303 votes). See a full breakdown of the top 10 picks below.