I know, you see them in attractions all over and maybe they’re pretty silly, but when you see the face of a three year old light up when she sees her penny get crushed in a penny presser machine, well….. Last Thursday I got a chance to take visiting relatives from Virginia around San Francisco, including the three year old who I had never met.
We started out at the Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park.
The Children’s Playground in the 1890s: The Sharon Building is on the left and the merry-go-round is on the right. The Sharon Building was remodeled after being damaged in the 1906 Earthquake. That merry-go-round is never running when I take visiting kids there! I don’t even know if it runs at all, anymore! (San Franciscodays.com)
The Sharon Building at the Children’s Playground in the 1890s: Either that lady on the right in the vintage picture had the measles or that’s a scarf around her face. (opensfhistory.org)
Kids still love any of the slides in Golden Gate Park, just like the picture from the SF Chronicle of the kid in the 1930s, taken at the Children’s Playground. I know, “I’ll bet she has a pair of shoes just like that at home.” Actually, they sell kids different color shoes nowadays. What a square I was to Alice when I told her I didn’t know that.
These may be of interest to my arborist friend, Tony; they’re called twisted tea trees, and they’re all over Golden Gate Park.
Do you know hard it is to get a kid to move on to the next location of the tour on a beautiful day at Ocean Beach?
The obligatory trip to the Golden Gate Bridge: I read somewhere that the Golden Gate Bridge is the most photographed man-made object on the planet, and I believe it, but it wasn’t all that crowded on Thursday. (Shorpy Archives)
By late afternoon we were on top of the World War Two Liberty Ship the SS Jeremiah O’Brien watching the Blue Angels practicing for their Fleet Week Show on Saturday and Sunday.
They practice a lot longer than the actual shows and it’s just as impressive.
By the end of the day, that little tyke had stolen my heart, and all of my energy.
Sunset from Pier 39: Maybe not as majestic as in the closing scene in the 1957 film ‘Pal Joey’ with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak, but that one was special effects and mine was real. That’s the silhouette of the Jeremiah O’Brien to the left of the Golden Gate Bridge in my photo. The three masts of the old sailing ship the Balclutha at the Hyde Street Pier are on the left.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Leptospermum laevigtum is impressive, not just because of their gnarly form, but because, a very long time ago, someone had the foresight to plant them. I am told that they were probably planted for their bloom, or as shorn hedges; but there are better plants for such applications. It seems to me that many were expected to eventually become what they are now. They were popularly planted in old parks in San Francisco and Oakland, as well as Monterey and other coastal towns, but are quite rare in landscapes less than a century old. I know of only a few young specimens in Los Angeles.