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From: "Hamid, Linda (Local Services)" <>
Subject: RE: CASANFRA-D Digest V04 #74
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:52:44 -0700


Laughing Sal and the Musée Mechanique are at Pier 45. Admission is free, it costs some quarters (75 cents I think) to hear her laugh...

Linda Hamid


-----Original Message-----
From: Pete [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 8:17 PM
To:
Subject: Re: CASANFRA-D Digest V04 #74

>
>Before Chutes at the Beach and Playland, there was an amusement park on
>Ocean Beach called Ocean Park. Does anyone have any info on it like
>when it operated & what the attractions it offered?

This may have some info that you don't know. It's a bit long, but interesting......


From the SF Examiner.....


People who hadn't graced the midway for decades turned out on Sept. 4,
1972, to bid the place adieu. Police estimated the size of the crowd at 10,000.

Old-timers claimed that they wanted just one last glimpse of Laughing Sal,
a grotesque cackling mechanical clown at the Fun House.

Others declared they'd be satisfied settling into the saddle of a carousel
horse for a final whirl.

Nostalgia was the order of the day. San Francisco's Playland-at-the-Beach
was closing, once and for all. And why? To make way for an elegant
apartment house complex.
Participants seemed to be remembering Playland's glory years of World War
II and before. Indeed, most were apparently oblivious to just how awful the
place that stretched along Ocean Beach south of the Cliff House had in fact
become.

Paint was faded and peeling. Many concessionaires had already boarded up
their once-prosperous establishments and disappeared. The place was filthy.
The stench of tobacco and grease hung on the air.

Ocean Beach always seemed to hold a magical appeal for San Franciscans. Its
popularity was linked with nearby Golden Gate Park. And the grand beach,
celebrated for unsurpassed surf, was touted as "the finest in the West."

As early as 1884, a gravity roller coaster was installed as an attraction.
John Friedle arrived in San Francisco in 1911. He established a
ball-throwing concession at the end of Geary Street near the beach.

Five years later Arthur Looff opened Playland's (or Chutes-at-the-Beach, as
it was originally known) first permanently installed concession, called
Looff's Hippodrome. This was an elegant 68-horse merry-go-round. The organ
alone cost a staggering $5,000.

Over the years, the merry-go-round remained the most popular concession.
Wooden horses, four abreast, pranced with necks arched and manes flowing.
Patrons, ultimately tens of thousands of them, grabbed for the "golden
ring." An attendant perpetually on station encouraged the riders to toss
the rings into the mouth of a grinning clown. Many didn't. One year 70,000
rings went home stuffed in pockets as souvenirs of the park.

By the 1920s, this had become a significant operation. Paving of the Great
Highway began in 1919 and work on a boardwalk to extend between the Cliff
House and Sloat Boulevard began in 1921.

There were hundreds of concessions and minor amusements. A carnival
atmosphere prevailed in this undersized cousin of Coney Island. There were
ice cream parlors, restaurants, and cotton-candy and candied-apple stands.

At night, the place glowed with myriad glittering lights, creating
something of a "fairy-like effect." Some others thought that the bizarre
lighting created an aura similar to that in Cairo or Tangiers.

There were games of chance and shooting galleries. Looff opened Babyland,
offering prizes to patrons who knocked over "babies" with baseballs.

It was wonderful. Ten "thrilling rides," each emphasizing motion and
dependent upon gravity. A spectacular modern roller coaster opened May 7,
1921.

"Shoot-the-Chutes," however, was the most popular attraction. It was the
largest amusement in California. Excited patrons boarded small boats for a
slow ride to the summit of the chutes. At the top, they quickly glimpsed
the Farallone Islands before beginning a rapid descent amid choruses of
screams and giggles. Boats splashed into a lagoon below. "It felt like we
hit the water at 100 miles an hour," declared one wet and breathless rider.

Brothers Leo and George Whitney opened a photographic concession in 1923,
pioneering a rapid photo-finishing process that allowed people to take
pictures home rather than having to wait days for the film to be developed
and images printed.

Among the more popular concessions was the Fun House, erected in 1924.
Laughing Sal's hideous cackle echoed throughout the park, summoning
patrons, many of whom still remember the Fun House's mirror maze, the air
jets, the topsy-turvy barrel and the three-story climb up to the top of
"the longest, bumpiest indoor slide in the world."

George Whitney became manager of the amusement park in 1926 and promptly
changed the name to Playland-at-the-Beach. During the Depression, when
concessions began to fail, the Whitney brothers bought them. He finally got
control of the roller coaster in 1936 and, ultimately, the merry-go-round
in 1942.

Whitney gave the place new life., ordering construction of a roller skating
arena along with a theater-restaurant with seating for 1,200. There was a
32-lane bowling alley. In all, five entire blocks were devoted to amusement.

Playland's halcyon days came during World War II. Soldiers and sailors on
liberty gravitated there. During the last year of the war alone, 750,000
rode the roller coaster.

But it wasn't just soldiers. Virtually every weekend, men dressed in suits,
ties and hats and women in dresses or skirts, came to be shaken, bumped and
twirled. Attendance for a normal war-years weekend was 15,000. On the
busiest of these weekends, cooks fried 25,000 pounds of hamburger and
cooked 950 pounds of hot dogs. Over half a million dollars in prizes were
given away in 1945 alone.

The bulldozers roll

Playland was the only amusement park in the nation that stayed open
year-round. Whitney's summertime payroll numbered 800; in winter it fell to
200.

Whitney sold out in 1968. Nevertheless, profits rose 30 percent the next
year. On a single weekend in 1970, 55,000 crowded the midway.

Not long thereafter, crowds began to disappear. Muggings, vandalism and
petty crime became rampant. The place became a haven for those who dealt in
narcotics.

Longtime concessionaires without patrons huddled together in their drab
open-air stands, noting that the winds seemed colder and the fogs thicker.
Most realized that the park was sliding toward extinction.

Jeremy Ets-Hokin, a millionaire entrepreneur, purchased the park in
December 1971, announcing plans for the construction of 724 middle-income
apartments with a shopping center. Bulldozers rolled into Playland in
September 1972.

But not before an auction to sell everything that was left. The entire
merry-go-round went for $45,000. A lot of 25 kewpie dolls sold for $32.50.
A battered park bench brought $15.

Knock-'em-down metal milk bottles were auctioned by the dozen. Antique
movie machines, especially those playing "See what Eve did to Adam" and
other naughty film strips, were in high demand.

Some people came just to watch. "I won't bid on a thing," declared a rather
emotional woman. "I feel it's like robbing a grave."

Still, by the end of the day, the auction had brought in an estimated $100,000.


by Michael Svanevik and Shirley Burgett for The Examiner










>Thanks!
>Jim

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