Getting to or from Golden Gate Park by cable car, at the corner of - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Getting to or from Golden Gate Park by cable car, at the corner of Stanyan and Haight, was quite a CHALLENGE! - especially on Sundays and holidays.

Second Band Shell - later site of tennis courts

Second band shell - 1888 - 1900

Palace Hotel Grand Hotel 1875 - 1906 with a three level“discrete” passage between the two structures. William Sharon 1821-1885 U.S. Senator for Nevada 1875 - 1881 Business partners with William Ralston until his “untimely” swimming death in 1875

William Sharon met Althea Hall when he was 60 years old. Sarah Althea Hall met “Uncle Billy” Sharon in 1880 when she was 27 years old. For one of the most scandalous trials in SF history, just type either name, or Sharon/Hill Divorce online.

Opening of the Sharon Playground - December 22, 1888 Remarks by Richard P . Hammond, President of Park Commission: All Children are invited to this playground, be they rich or poor, each one having equal rights and privileges. Here, then, when the work of the day is done, the trial and tribulations of school over, and on holidays and vacations, can you come, as welcome as the flowers, and enjoy these beautiful surroundings and appliances for healthy and moral recreation, enjoy yourself to your hearts content. We have aimed to make the Children’s Playground a point of interest for all, young and old, and a parental delight to the thousands of young children who make the park they're rendezvous. Here you have swings, tennis and croquet courts, springboards, velocipedes and goat carts, and that never-ending source of amusement of every healthy juvenile, a merry-go-round. Here is a beautiful and substantial edifice, built of solid stone, cut and chiseled into forms of architectural beauty, whose spacious halls, furniture and fittings are all for you, without distinction, from the smallest boy or girl, upon one condition - proper behavior.

Children’s Playground - First in Nation: 1888

Sharon Building survived the 1906 earthquake (more pictures later) and a 1974 fire to distinguish itself as with much more dignity than its patron!