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Photos from Black Friday
Photo du Jour 516
SFist Interviews: John Ortved, Author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History
Back in the 1920s, the Fleishhacker Pool was the finishing touch in "the symbolic 'watering' of San Francisco," and the city of San Francisco had spared no expense. San Francisco banker Herbert Fleishhacker built the opulent public pool for an estimated $1.5 million, a grand amount at that time.
Located in the far southwest corner of the city,just next to the SF Zoo, the pool was the largest swimming pool in the United States, and could (allegedly) be seen from space. Seawater was pumped in from the Pacific Ocean, heating 2800 gallons a minute from 60 to 75 degrees.
What remains today is the pool house, barely recognizable from its glory days.
Flickr photog Kapshure, who snapped the above shots of the pool house, reminisce on the pool house. He explains: "Buttressing the edge of the the pool was the 450-foot-long Bath House — a Mediterranean, Italianate structure with three elaborate entrances, all surrounded by an Ionic order of pilasters. Inside were separate wings for men, women, and children. These wings were naturally illuminated by 22 skylights. Upstairs was a grand restaurant that looked out to the 1000-foot-long pool on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other."
SFist asked Jeff Fleishhacker (i.e., Herbert's great-grand-nephew) about the pictures, the namesake pool and its current condition.
He tells us, "I'd always figured it had been bull-dozed, but I guess not, because they appear to be pics of the derelict pool house of the old Fleishhacker Pool. The pool is obviously gone, but the pool house remains, and is apparently some kind of dystopic home for junkies."
And how.
Maintenance costs, the popularity of the automobile (which meant families could travel new destinations), and the fact that west side of San Francisco is an icebox resulted in the pool's closure in 1971.
Here's a history of the pool, and more shots here.
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Is this at the corporation yard out Armory Rd? I can't find the bath house on google maps:
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=37.730225,-122.504286&spn=0.006695,0.008261&z=17
More at http://www.outsidelands.org/sw8.php, though it predates the completion of the parking lot.
Oh I'm sorry. I thought those were pictures of the Metreon.
View from above:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=37.733532,-122.506519&sll=37.733489,-122.506576&sspn=0.001784,0.003272&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=37.73354,-122.5065&spn=0.000892,0.001636&z=20&iwloc=addr
Smaller URL: http://tinyurl.com/b883mo
I worked at the zoo in High school and sometimes, though we weren't supposed to, we'd sneak in to explore the building. It's definitely fallen apart a lot more in the last decade.
That's sure in the Southwest, but definitely not the far corner. I mean, I guess if you never head past Stanyan then maybe, but still there's a big chunk of the city over there.
Wait... what's farther south and west and still in SF? Fort Funston? Is that still SF or San Mateo County?
I found a BOS resolution dated 10/30/2000 signed by Leeland Yee, the city and county of SF reminding the National Park Service of their obligations to maintain Fort Funston. So unless something had changed since, I'd say it's still SFC.
Yeah, it's still SF. I used to live down by the county line. Even at Funston you still have a ways to go.
If you want to say far corner you're better off talking about SF State and Lake/Park Merced. There's a bit further southwest (again, I lived further southwest), but that's probably the most notable thing over there.
It is, in all fairness, a completely miserable place to live. At the same time we're not going to improve things until we start acknowledging that we only really recognize about 1/4 of the city most of the time. We should try to move in more on the other parts of town rather than just constantly ignoring them. Opening up more space and making it so people would actually want to live there will only help us reduce rents as more places become desirable. Of course, the weather is always going to be a huge problem.