The Conservatory of Flowers was a sprawling dilapidated white structure with broken windows when I first moved to San Francisco. Several years ago it was gloriously renovated inside and out with gardens and a huge lawn for lounging in front.
Inside it is amazingly dense, lush, humid, and tropical. There are trees, plants, and flowers from the floor to the ceiling. And beautiful stained glass that casts rainbows across the foliage.
The Conservatory is currently running a new exhibit that celebrates the legendary Playland, a bygone seaside amusement park that was located along San Francisco's Ocean Beach area. Playland started at the turn of the century and its heyday was in the 1940s and 1950s. With declining attendance in subsequent years, it was finally shut down in 1972.
Jack and I visited with our friend Sarah and her two-year old, Harper.
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| Rainbows cast on the floor by stained glass ceilings |
The exhibit had miniature model trains and trolleys that winded their way past a miniature Playland and its famed neighbors the Sutro Baths and Cliff House. (The Sutro Baths are an interesting side story of a complex that housed several swimming pools on various levels on the rocky cliffs at Ocean Beach. It was built in 1896 by eccentric mayor Adolph Sutro and nestled under Sutro's other attraction, the Cliff House, which he transformed in that same year into a 7-story Victorian chateau, now an overpriced tourist restaurant albeit with stunning views of the Ocean). Real memorabilia and photographs from Playland including a bumper car (with simulated sounds and bumps), an original Playland sign, a fortune teller booth the spits out your fortune, and fun house mirrors were also part of the exhibit.
Jack couldn't get enough of the bumper car while Harper gravitated to the resident turtle. Watch Jack press the pedal to the metal and ride the bumper car:
As in past years, these replicas are all creatively crafted from recycled and repurposed materials.
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