Fleishhacker Pool was a public saltwater swimming pool complex, located in the southwest corner of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

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, next to the San Francisco Zoo at

Sloat Boulevard State Route 35 (SR 35), generally known as Skyline Boulevard for most of its length, is a mostly two-lane state highway in the U.S. state of California. It runs along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains from the high point of State Route 17 ...

and the

Great Highway The Great Highway is a road in San Francisco that forms the city's western edge along the Pacific coast. Built in 1929, it runs for approximately next to Ocean Beach. Its southern end is at Skyline Boulevard ( State Route 35) near Lake Merced; ...

. Upon its completion in 1925, it was one of the largest outdoor swimming pools in the world; it remained open for more than four decades until its closure in 1971. It was eventually demolished in 2000.

Construction

The Fleishhacker Pool and the Fleishhacker Playfield complex were built by philanthropist and

civic Civic is something related to a city or municipality. It also can refer to multiple other things: General *Civics, the science of comparative government *Civic engagement, the connection one feels with their larger community *Civic center, a comm ...

leader

Herbert Fleishhacker Herbert Fleishhacker (November 2, 1872 – April 2, 1957), was an American businessman, civic leader and philanthropist. In 1924, he created and helped fund the Fleishhacker Pool in San Francisco, for many years the world's largest outdoor sal ...

in 1924, and opened on April 22, 1925. The pool measured and held of

seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appr ...

, it accommodated 10,000 bathers and at its opening the largest swimming pool in the United States and one of the largest, (in theory), heated outdoor pools in the world. It had a diving pool measuring square and deep with a two-tiered diving tower. The pool was so large the lifeguards required rowboats for patrol and it was used by the military for drills and exercises. The water was provided by a series of pumps and piping at

high tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

, directly from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

away, filtered, and heated. The pool's heater could warm of seawater from 60 degrees to 75 degrees Fahrenheit each minute, in theory providing a constant pool water temperature of 72 degrees for AAU swim meets, but in practice tended to vary between 65 and 75 degrees, which was a chilly temperature for most swimmers. The Mother’s Building (also known as the Delia Fleishhacker Memorial Building) was built next to the children's wading pool; the building served as a lounge for mothers and small children. With The wading pool was removed in 1940; and it was replaced by the children's zoo by 1960.

Decline

After years of underfunding and poor maintenance, the pool was showing some deterioration when a storm in January 1971 damaged its drainage pipe. Usage of the pool had been low, and the repair costs exceeded the City's budget, so the pool was converted to fresh water, resulting in poor water quality; it was closed by the end of 1971. In 1999, the San Francisco Zoological Society was granted ownership of the pool house. The swimming pool itself was filled with rocks and gravel, with the space now serving as a parking lot for the zoo. The pool house stood derelict and occupied by wildlife and homeless people for many years, until it was destroyed by a fire on December 1, 2012. The remaining ruins were demolished, and a fragment of the pool house still exists consisting of three ornate entrances. The only remaining structure left from the Fleishhacker Pool complex is the Mother’s Building, presently located within the San Francisco Zoo and Gardens.

References

External links

List of 26 photos of Fleishhacker Pool at Library of Congress

Ocean Beach Bulletin: "Before Now – Fleishhacker Pool and its 6 million gallons"

Terrastories.com: Contemporary photos of the Fleishhacker Bath House & History of the Pool

SFgate.com: "Shrinkage: The vanishing swimming pools of San Francisco"

Bcx.news: "Fleishhacker Pool 1954 by San Francisco Zoo, San Francisco, California"

* ttps://saigonconshoboi.weebly.com/thiet-ke-xay-dung-ho-boi.html Thiết kế xây dựng hồ bơi {{commonscat, Fleishhacker Pool, position=left Demolished buildings and structures in San Francisco Swimming venues in San Francisco Culture of San Francisco Demolished buildings and structures in California Sunset District, San Francisco 1920s architecture in the United States Mediterranean Revival architecture in California Buildings and structures demolished in 2000