‘What Happened To San Francisco's Amusement Parks?’

Joey Yee is a San Francisco native, DIY historian and multimedia documentarian who turns the camera on the City by the Bay to explore and tell the stories of local history and favourite spots. Primarily focused on the Richmond District (western San Francisco’s outermost neighbourhood which is framed neatly between the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park and the rugged Land’s End beach area), Joey also examines wider historical sites and popular areas throughout the city.

In his video “What Happened to San Francisco’s Amusement Parks?”, Joey focuses in on a particularly quirky strand of the City’s history - from the Gold Rush-era’s Woodward’s Gardens (est. late 1800s) in the Mission District; The Chutes (est. 1890s) water park located in the Haight-Ashbury District; Playland at the Beach (est. 1913), located at Ocean Beach in the Richmond District; and even the vintage arcade Musee Mechanique (est. 1933), which moved from its original location in the cliffside over Ocean Beach to its current home at Pier 39/Fisherman’s Wharf.

In Joey’s words, “San Francisco has been described as a ‘millennial playground,’ so the severe lack of thrill rides and themed amusement over the past five decades has been quite surprising.”

The video features authentic imagery courtesy of Open SF History, an archive project of the local historical documentation non-profit organisation Western Neighborhoods Project (WNP).

“San Francisco has been described as a ‘millennial playground,’ so the severe lack of thrill rides and themed amusement over the past five decades has been quite surprising.”

— Joey Yee

And in a timely tie-in, the video was produced in mid-2020, amidst a backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and the arrival of the 150-foot high SkyStar Wheel in the heart of Golden Gate Park. According to the SkyStar website, “This is the first time an observation wheel of this scale has operated in San Francisco since Golden Gate Park hosted the Midwinter International Exposition of 1894”.

Currently, the SkyStar Wheel is now set to remain in the Park for another four years (but not without resistance from some San Francisco residents). The debate continues, as the SkyStar Wheel will eventually become another chapter in the history of San Francisco amusement park attractions.

Watch the video above, or check out the gallery and further recommended watching below.