Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
this place if I had a pass that included admission to it, but unless you have a deep
interest in the ecosystem of the Bay Area, you might not see it as anything but
another aquarium.
At the end of the same pier, no. 39, don't neglect one of the city's unofficial
attractions: a colony of
sea lions
9
5
that took up residence here in 1990 for
reasons unexplained that may have had to do with the major earthquake that hap-
pened the year before. Because the marina is protected, in winter the population
can swell to a barking 900 lions. Most of them swim to the Channel Islands for
the summer, but increasingly, a small population lingers behind, to the delight of
restaurant owners on the pier. There's an information kiosk alongside the doglike
creatures that's maintained by the
Marine Mammal Center
(
%
415/289
-
7325;
www.marinemamalcenter.org).
They're one of the city's most delightful free attrac-
tions; find them near the end of the pier and to the left, in the marina at what's
sometimes called the K-Dock.
Calling it a museum is stretching things, but
Musée Méchanique
9
5
(Pier
45, at Taylor;
%
415/346
-
2000; www.museemechanique.org; free admission;
Mon-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat-Sun 10am-8pm)
is certainly fun, and the mechanical
minded will find it fascinating. Straight out of the old school, this warehouse of
dozens of antique coin-operated penny-arcade diversions, most of which you'll
never encounter anywhere else, began entertaining people back in the 1930s,
when a guy named George Whitney was his generation's leading impresario of
cheap entertainment. Today, it's maintained by his descendent Daniel Zelinsky,
an aficionado of such amusements, who stuck with a high-art name for his low-
art attraction and showcases most of his 300-strong collection here. Because it's
located among the pap of the Wharf, it's easy to confuse this one as a tourist trap,
but the lack of an admission fee (you'll part only with whatever change you
Fishy Stuff at the Wharf
Be wary about spending too much time at Fisherman's Wharf. Most of the
things to see and do at this carnival of ice-cream shops, crab stands, and
tacky-souvenir stalls were created simply to capture tourist trade, full stop,
and they offer scarce value to the visitor who wants to get to know the real
San Francisco. There is very little of educational value to explore, although
that doesn't stop tens of thousands of confused-looking tourists from mak-
ing slow, dumbfounded walking circuits of Jefferson Street on weekends.
Although the marina hosts some of the most-patronized seafood joints in
town, by no means are they definitively the best. I'd give a visit to the area
enough time so that I could walk from one end to the other, and maybe
snap a few photos of the Bay. The places that I consider most worth your
time and dollar, such as the ones operated by the National Park Service,
include the
Hyde Street Pier
(p. 100),
Musée Méchanique
(see above), the
Aquarium of the Bay
(p. 102), the
Boudin bakery
(p. 137), the
Pampanito
(p. 102), and the
SS
Jeremiah O'Brien
(p. 102).
