Day Trip Adventure: Panhandle walk and playtime at Children's Playground
Walk the Panhandle, Play at Children's Playground, and ride the Carousel
This is part of a series of family-oriented day trip outings around the San Francisco Bay Area I look forward to enjoying with my kids once social distancing and shelter in place isn’t the norm any longer.
Alvord Lake in Golden Gate Park by Cody Tolmasoff
Panhandle Walk and Playtime at Children’s Playground — A Bonus Adventure
The playground has been THE destination for kids living in the Bay Area for well over 100 years. Lucky for us we can still enjoy the Carousel, and bring our own kids here for their adventures.
It is said that Children’s Playground in Golden Gate Park is one of the first public playgrounds in the nation (with previous examples in New York’s Central Park, and Chicago’s Lincoln Park). The Victorian playground (a project of William Hammond Hall’s) was dedicated on December 22, 1888. It was much different than the one we enjoy today however offering wooden slides for boys and girls, homemade wooden swings, a metal circular slide, donkey rides, and goat carts.
Around 1885 following the death of Senator William P. Sharon, the Senator left a bequest of $50,000 (around $1.2 million value today) for the beautification of Golden Gate Park in his will. The Park Commissioners at the time argued over what to do with the money for quite a while. Eventually, William Hammond Hall persuadee the park commissioners that a children’s quarters would be most beneficial.
The Sharon Building (today an art studio that offers classes) originally housed a soda fountain, a dairy room, storerooms for playthings (that were lent out), and stables in the cellar for the goat stables (an original attraction was driving a goat cart around). Next to the Sharon building was a carousel, which was originally housed under a tent, offering a variety of animals to climb onto, along with sidesaddle options for girls.
By the March of 1889 commissioner meeting (only 3 months after the playground was dedicated), the Sharon Building concessions had already been highly profitable, returning $406 to the Park’s general fund — and it was decided to reinvest this money back into the children who were enjoying their new playground with a grand May Day celebration which would continue on for decades. The playground was inundated by a reported 15,000 children that day, reportedly the grandest day for children in the city for all it’s history.
The playground became so popular, along with it’s surrounding attractions, that people would come from all over the Bay Area to enjoy a day in the park. Often people would come by ferry, hire a rig for the day, ride down to the park, have a picnic, play at the playground, and visit the menagerie of animals kept nearby (this was before the zoo was built and the park hosted many exotic animals). You could see deer, peacocks, a bird aviary, buffalo, and even Monarch the Grizzly Bear.
By 1891, the children’s quarters were such a success that the park commission invested over $10,000 sprucing up the place, purchasing the carousel, and building a permanent roof over it, adding more paths to walk on, new swings, benches. Maypoles, teeter-totters, donkeys, goats, goat carts, and even a skating and bicycle rink.
The original concessionaire was made a commissioner, moving into the attic of the Sharon building so he could run things full time for the park. Initially, the concessions were a very lucrative endeavor and highly profitable. Rides, treats, and other refreshments were all generously 5¢ tickets, and eventually, they made it so that that nickel bought you two tickets. It’s commendable that the park commissioners at this time would continuously reinvest money made from playground concessions.
Adventure: Panhandle walk and playtime at Children’s Playground
Walk the Panhandle
Play at Children’s Playground
Ride the Carousel
Walk the Panhandle
The panhandle often gets forgotten when thinking of Golden Gate Park, a sliver of the park that heads toward downtown. Originally, it was a scenic hourglass-shaped road that would take you to the park, and early planners wanted to extend it all the way to Market Street. Eventually, the road was repurposed and today it offers two paths on the northern and southern sides of the panhandle.
The northern path (closest to Fell Street) is the western edge of “The Wiggle” bike route used by hundreds of bike commuters daily. The Wiggle is the flat bike route from the western neighborhoods to downtown. Back in the 1920s, there was a plan under consideration to extend the panhandle in a somewhat diagonal route following today’s Wiggle path, however, it called for the demolition of existing houses to develop this more direct route and didn’t gain enough support.
The southern path (closest to Oak Street) is for pedestrians only, and much nicer to walk along. You can walk the entire panhandle to Baker Street (across from the SF DMV), or cut it short at Masonic Avenue. It all depends on how tired you want to get the kids before heading to the playground.
We like to make a loop out of it, walking up the panhandle, then heading south 2 blocks to Haight Street to walk back where I can tell the kids stories of their Hippie Grandparents.
Once you arrive back in the park, it’s only a short walk to the playground, around Alvord lake, and through the tunnel under Kezar Drive. Maybe even a quick detour over to Hippie Hill to see the drummers play.
Play at Children’s Playground
Children’s Playground cement slides by Cody Tolmasoff
Children’s Playground (now named the Koret playground following the last major renovation) was THE playground growing up in the city during the 1970s and 1980s. Other playgrounds were fun, but Children’s playground was epic.
We had at least a dozen moon swings, banks of regular swings, pipe and tire tunnels, a grand wooden structure to climb on, corkscrew slide, animals mounted on springs to ride, bridges to run across, tunnels to scurry through, a rope pyramid to climb, and of course you would bring some cardboard for the cement slides.
We actually had a number of shorter cement slides that were removed as part of the previous renovation, now there are just the two. The city was having issues coming up with proper insurance, and leaving the two slides we have today was the compromise.
Moons swings were so much fun, albeit dangerous. Initially designed as a 2 person swing, kids soon realized you could pile onto these swings and really get a thrill. Looking at one from the side with the swing moving left and right, the swing was set inside of two metal pipes shaped into a circle or moon shape connected by a short chain to a swing-set structure. Between the two circles was mounded two seats adjoined by a footwell. There were all sorts of spots kids could grab onto, and you would always have kids running up asking to hop on with you. If you were clever you could seat 2 on each side one above the other, then another standing above both of them. Toss on a few more kids to hang on the sides and you really could get the momentum going.
Ride the Carousel
By Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7512020
The carousel there has also been a treat for generations. Entering the round building and running around the carousel to find that perfect animal, and hope that it was set up to move up and down (not one of the permanently affixed animals), yet be near your friends and family — always an exciting endeavor. Then begging your parents to go on “just one more time!”, hoping they would relent for one more ride.
The little red barn outside of the carousel was a real barn for years. It had sheep and chickens, barnyard animals. You could go up to the fence and pet the friendlier animals. Now it’s a spot to rent for an event like a birthday picnic.
Cody Tolmasoff is an author and publisher for Adventuring.in. He is a recovering programmer and a San Francisco native, raising two daughters, and regularly finding new adventures around the SF Bay Area. This article is an excerpt from a book, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park West.
Find him on Twitter @codyo, and read his most recent title Adventures in Getting Out on Amazon, filled with advice on successfully getting your family out for day trip adventures.
Originally published on Medium on 13 May 2020