Edward P. Von der Porten, who together with Hall was a member of William Penn Mott’s planning team when Mott was special representative of the Secretary of the Interior, said Mott envisioned a historical museum and interpretive center where visitors would learn about the Presidio, from early settlement to the present. Mott “strove to bring the greatest benefits to the American public,” he said, while “the museum is designed as a dominating structure which would visually overwhelm the entire Main Post area, robbing it of its historical integrity. Its site was obviously not selected for its practicality--accessibility, traffic, and parking--but for its presence and for the vistas from its windows and plazas. It would appeal to well under 10 percent of the public at the cost of preempting the park’s premier public space.”

The Presidio Child Development Center was represented in force, pleading to remain, and two parents stepped up to speak way past the bedtime of the children they carried drooping over their shoulders. This is the only public school in the city to accept toddlers. Seventy percent of its children are from low-income families and 50 percent have English as a second language. It has a waiting list.

As the board members sat expressionless above them, several people expressed the view that their voices would not count. “This meeting tonight is just a show, a place for common people like me to vent. The real decisions are made elsewhere.” “Many people here believe you have already made your decision. If that is indeed the case, then what you are doing is very dishonorable.”

“That structure has no more place on the parade ground than in colonial Williamsburg,” said Robert Laws, a retired attorney. “Pay attention to us. It’s going to be a long, hard process, and it’s utterly unnecessary.”

In contrast to the emotional pleadings of the project’s opponents, some advocates sounded contemptuous. “All they [the Fishers] want is to pick the spot,” said one woman toward the end of the meeting, and suggested an analogy: Say Uncle Charlie wants to give you a Rembrandt, with only one condition: that it be hung above the fireplace. But that spot is occupied by a painting by a college roommate who took an art course while in dental school. Some will want to keep the roommate’s painting.

Angrily, a man urged: Write your congressman to change the requirement that the Presidio, a national park, needs to pay for itself. Without that “we wouldn’t have to bend to the will of a few wealthy men who want to put their offices and museums in the national parks.”

The Trust agreed to extend the comment period to September 19, then to November 17, and to hold another public hearing November 13.

The struggle over the future of the Presidio is ongoing. Will the Main Post be a living historical museum where everyone can get a taste of the past and consider the future in light of that past, or will it become a busy “theme park” with crowds flocking to unrelated new museums, hotels, and to shops and cafés in converted historic military buildings? This is a crucial chapter of a long story, another opportunity for the citizenry to chime in.