By M. T. Eley
A true but one-sided take on Fisherman’s Wharf: it’s there so tourists have some place other than your block to go. Now that everyone’s favorite send-your-folks neighborhood also boasts the SkyStar Observation Wheel, I’m reminded of the possibility that Fisherman’s Wharf is for us, too.
The old location in the Golden Gate Park was certainly more convenient to most of us and had some marvelous views on and off when the fog rolled through the illuminated spindles. But it sure seems at home amidst the delightful kitsch of Fisherman’s Wharf.
Within whiffing distance of Boudin Bakery and spitting range of the Pier 43 arch, it features more San Fran than previously thought possible to squeeze into fifteen minutes: both bridges, every neighborhood between the FiDi and Fort Mason, the SS Jeremiah O’Brien and all the other historic ships bejeweling our quays. Never mind the lightning speed at which it rolled on over the hills to the waterside.
Opening night was only a ten-minute wait at 7PM, but what a crowd: tourists from Maryland, South Carolina, China, France — and Russian Hill, too. Lucky locals: we get a 15 percent discount on the $18 standard ticket price. That’s for three or so revolutions: a ten-minute ride, not including embarking, disembarking and seal barking.
Most of the gondolas were occupied: a few solitary sentimentals, but mostly couples and families, a few groups of friends. I stood in front of two folks from Florida who had a flight to catch at 11:30, wanted to kill time and saw the wheel from further down the Embarcadero. The first night, and already the choice for one last breath of San Francisco.
You think you know what to expect in a Ferris wheel — a sedate snoozefest — but they always surprise me. The doors close on the usual ruckus of Fisherman’s Wharf, the t-shirt hucksters and the trilling of the trolleys and then — aloft! Sudden silence. The Golden Gate Bridge a lambent red in the distance, the houseboats of Sausalito sparkling on the waters, good ol’ Alcatraz, the hulks of Angel Island, the Bay Bridge, the TransAm tower with its pale blue beacon, and then interrupting the revelry — arf, arf, down below from a lone seal looking up at the glow of Fisherman Wharf’s latest doodad on the waters.
Call me a sentimental sap, and you’re right, but something happens in a Ferris wheel that does not happen in a tower or even a hill of equal height. That view, kept fragile by the wobble of the gondola, keeps you from lapsing into accustomed indifference, lets you say “wow!” just like those folks from Florida. That’s worth the price of a drink.
M. T. Eley is a San Francisco-based writer.
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