Al Sefl mentioned the Cliff House Mechanical Music Museum in San
Francisco.  That's one of my earliest memories.  I can sort of remember
Sutro baths.  It should be pointed out that Playland, the Cliff House,
and Sutro Baths are all separate things.  Playland was the last to go.
The Cliff House was basically a bar.  At the time I knew Sutro, it was
an ice skating rink.

When I learned to drive, in the later part of the 1970s, I liked to
drive out the beach and walk around the ruins.  I was a volunteer in
the National Park Service (at a local cannon ball park, called the Muir
House) when the Park Service took over the operation in the late 1970s.

By this time Playland was condos.  All that remained was the Cliff
House.  Anyway none of the mechanical music was lost in the fire,
according to the Park Service.  It is confusing as much of this was
independently owned.  The reason no instruments were lost is that
the buildings were in the process of being demolished for condos when
the fire happened.

The Sutro baths were built in open ocean.  There is no continental
shelf off the San Francisco coast.  Why someone would want to build
condo's there is anyone's guess.  I was told when young that Mayor
Christopher had a friend who was in the demolition business.  This
guy was hungry to destroy the city.  He did in the Fox theater and
Candlestick Point (tore down the hill, then sold it back to the city
for the ballpark by the cubic foot).  The city administration at the
time wanted to make San Francisco into "Manhattan West".  Then they had
to deal with the counterrevolution.

Tearing down the building was troublesome (politically) so they torched
it instead.  It then became too dangerous.  (At this time of the year,
about 1 or 2 people are killed each week, or they just disappear.)
Since no one really owns that part of the coast -- an attractive
nuisance, the liability is horrendous -- the Park Service just keeps
telling people to stay out of the water and off the seawall.  No one
is going to sue the Park Service, although they try.

Anyway, trying to find the Mechanical Music was how I found out about
MBSI.  I think too many of the local collectors were afraid the city
would try and do some sort of eminent domain action to try and claim
the ownership.  San Francisco is actually a small town with an
inferiority complex.

I have not had any luck in making contact with the concessionaire who
runs the current museum.  I used to visit the old guy who ran the
camera obscura on a regular basis, and became friends with him.  The
kids up in the Mechanical Museum seemed more interested in quarters
than in conversation.  Now it is the obsolete video games in the back
that attract the attention.  I tried to get in touch with the
concessionaire, but this person does not seem to want to have anything
to do with the local collecting community.

I think part of this may be due to the fact that there are no antiques
here.  When the boom happened in the 1970s, mechanical music and the
arcade items were food for the hungry.  Unfortunately the supply was
limited.  Those that got it, I think, became tired of the
one-ups-man-ship and nuevo riche, that just had to have that toy from
their depression childhood.

If I was running the concession, in the National (Recreation) area with
the highest attendance (in the millions), I would not know which of the
1200 or 2000 or so inquiries for more information are serious and which
are someone inspired by the moment, or a dealer looking for food for
the antique shop.

Julie Porter