Tuesday 14 February 2012

Pool postcard: Fleischhacker Swimming Pool, San Francisco

"World's largest out-door tank. It holds 6 million gallons of warmed (and filtered) sea water, is ove a thousand feet in length. It is located close to the Pacific."
Here's a link to information on this pool on Wikipedia. It opened in 1925. "After years of underfunding and poor maintenance, the pool was showing some deterioration when a storm in January 1971 damaged its drainage pipe. Because the repair costs exceeded the City's budget, the pool was converted to a fresh water pool which resulted in poor water quality. As a result of the poor attempt at conversion and resulting water quality, the pool was closed by the end of 1971.

Detail of original bath house
In 1999, the San Francisco Zoological Society was granted ownership of the pool house, and it is not known what might become of it. The swimming pool itself was filled with rocks and gravel, with the space now serving as a parking lot for the zoo. The poolhouse is currently derelict and occupied by the homeless."



Here's two of the LC photos:



Original diving tower


Here is a fascinating site about the current state of the pool. There are some great memories of the pool in the Comments section on this blog. Two photographers, including the blog author, Jonathan Haeber, visited the site of the pool in 2008.


Photo by Joanathan Haeber : http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/fleishhacker-pool-san-francisco





2 comments:

Antjas said...

I am very much in awe of this pool. I followed the link and was intrigued by the stories people told of their adventures. It must have been fun for so many but obviously a frigid memory for the girl who would freeze and as a result hates swimming and a horror for the poor boy who thinks he contracted polio in the pool.

Sally said...

Yes, they were fantastic stories weren't they!