The Sutro Baths Ruins

I have a few items left to post from my business trip to Yosemite and the two days of personal travel in San Francisco, so I'll be putting those up for the rest of the week, starting with this entry about the Sutro Bath ruins on the west side of San Francisco.

The Sutro Baths were a large privately built swimming pool facility that opened to the public in 1896, right next to the Cliff House (as shown in the first photo), which had been around since the early 1800's on the cliffs overlooking the ocean in that part of the city.  The Cliff House has its own unique history, which includes a visit by Mark Twain, which you can read about on this site:  http://www.cliffhouseproject.com/

Both of these sites are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), an affiliation of several National Park Service assets in the Bay Area.

In looking at the pictures and other records of the Sutro Baths, I am fascinated by how large the facility actually was - inside the building, apparently there was a choice of seven swimming pools - six salt water and one fresh water.  There were galleries and arcades, and the swimming area was surrounded with stadium style seating.  Read about it on Wikipedia here, but there has been an article or two in National Geographic as well:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutro_Baths

Apparently, the baths were built as an attraction at the end of the street car line, as were many amusement parks in that era.  All that remain now are ruins of the old concrete works, which are fascinating to explore, after a fire completely destroyed the buildings in the 1960's.  At the time, the baths had been converted into a skating rink.

Brian and I took a walk around the ruins, including walking through one of the tunnels where utilities and water collection activities happened.  After 100 feet or so, you come to an abrupt stop at a cliff, with great big seaside rocks filling your view. 

The Cliff House has been renovated over the last decade and its appearance is designed to look like it did in the 40's. Earlier versions, including a grand Victorian building, were destroyed by fires. 

This was my third visit to the ruins, which don't cost anything to visit and there is ample free parking nearby.  The scale of this development and the - for lack of a better word - folly, of building something like this with the powerful Pacific Ocean right there ready to take its vengeance, are something I simply find fascinating.