The Musée Mécanique (, "Mechanical Museum") is a

for-profit Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." A business entity is not necessari ...

interactive museum of 20th-century

penny arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...

games and artifacts, located at Fisherman's Wharf in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, California. With over 300 mechanical machines, it is one of the world's largest privately owned collections.

History

The museum's original owner, Ed Zelinsky, began collecting at age 11. His games were exhibited in the 1920s at Playland. In 1972 Playland closed and Musée Mécanique became a part of the

Golden Gate National Recreation Area The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) is a U.S. National Recreation Area protecting of ecologically and historically significant landscapes surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area. Much of the park is land formerly used by the Unite ...

. The museum moved into the

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

of Cliff House, just a few blocks north and across the Great Highway from the Playland site. Zelinsky's son, Dan Zelinsky, took a temporary job in the 1970s maintaining the collection. The museum was featured in the 2001 film '' The Princess Diaries'' and in a 2011 episode of the Japanese television show ''

GameCenter CX , also known as ''Retro Game Master'' in other regions, is a Japanese gaming-variety show television program produced by Fuji Television and . The name is a combination of "game center" (the Japanese term for an arcade) and Fuji TV's call sign ...

''.

Move to Fisherman's Wharf

In 2002, when renovations to the Cliff House had begun, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

announced plans to relocate the Musée Mécanique temporarily to Fisherman's Wharf. A portion of the $14 million renovation was devoted to moving the museum, with support from the National Park Service, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and museum owner Ed Zelinsky. The museum's move sparked protests by San Francisco locals. An

online petition An online petition (or Internet petition, or e-petition) is a form of petition which is signed online, usually through a form on a website. Visitors to the online petition sign the petition by adding their details such as name and email address. T ...

was created opposing it, with over 12,000 signatures. Many of the protesters believed that the money was unavailable to fund the move and renovations, and many had strong feelings about the museum's historical and

nostalgic Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word meaning "homecomi ...

significance from its history at Playland. Unaware of the museum's for-profit status, many of them attempted to donate to the museum to keep it at its current location. Despite public frustration, museum manager Dan Zelinsky remained excited about the move, understanding the historical and emotional connections locals held for the museum: "You have to understand that people grew up with these kind of machines ... To the generation before, these were the

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

s. Many visitors haven't been here since childhood, but when they walk through that door, they are going back in time." Original plans were slated to have the museum return to the Recreation Area in 2004 on completion of construction, but the museum remains at Fisherman's Wharf. Despite the locals' love for the original location,

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

described it as "cramped, noisy, damp and a little dingy."

Musée Mécanique today

The Musée Mécanique is a for-profit museum owned and managed by Dan Zelinsky. The machines require constant maintenance, and some have undergone major restorations. More than 100,000 visitors a year visit the museum. Admittance is free, but visitors must pay to use each game. In 2011 '' U.S. News & World Report'' called the Musée Mécanique one of the top three "Things to Do in San Francisco". '' SF Weekly'' called it the "Best Old-School Arcade" for 2011. The collection was threatened on May 23, 2020, when a fire broke out at four A.M. on Fisherman's Wharf. It destroyed a warehouse, but was extinguished before it reached the museum.

Collection

The museum has a collection of over 300 mechanical games and amusement devices including

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...

es, coin-operated fortune tellers,

Mutoscope The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only ...

s, love testers,

player piano A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...

peep show A peep show, peepshow, or, a peep booth is a presentation of a live sex show or pornographic film which is viewed through a viewing slot. Several historical media provided voyeuristic entertainment through hidden erotic imagery. Before the devel ...

s, photo booths,

diorama A diorama is a replica of a scene, typically a three-dimensional model either full-sized or miniature. Sometimes dioramas are enclosed in a glass showcase at a museum. Dioramas are often built by hobbyists as part of related hobbies like mili ...

s, and

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

machines. It displays about 200 of them at their current location. The museum has many rare and historical pieces. A large

of a traveling

carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

with a

Ferris wheel A Ferris wheel (also called a big wheel, giant wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondola ...

and other rides occupies its center. It also owns what is believed to be the only steam-powered

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

in the world, built in

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

, in 1912. The Royal Court diorama features couples ballroom dancing and was featured in the

Panama–Pacific International Exposition The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely s ...

. Laffing Sal, which has been described as "famously creepy", is a 6-foot-tall laughing

automaton An automaton (; : automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers i ...

. The museum also owns a collection of machines made of toothpicks by prisoners at San Quentin.

Gallery

File:Wurlitzer Style B Orchestrion, Musee Mecanique.ogv, Wurlitzer Style B Orchestrion File:Cactus Gulch at Musee Mecanique.webm, Cactus Gulch File:Uncle Sam carnival game....Hot Stuff meter.jpg, Uncle Sam carnival game....Hot Stuff meter File:Musée Mécanique 013.JPG, Love tester machine File:Musée Mécanique 028.JPG, Grandmother fortune teller machine File:Musée Mécanique 043.JPG, Steam-powered motorcycle File:Musée Mécanique 114.JPG, Player piano File:Musée Mécanique 088.JPG, Arm wrestler File:Musée Mécanique 184.JPG,

Skeeball Skee-Ball is an arcade game and one of the first redemption games. It is played by rolling a ball up an inclined lane and over a "ball-hop" hump (resembling a ski jump) that jumps the ball into bullseye rings. The object of the game is to col ...

File:Musée Mécanique 188.JPG, ''Robotron: 2084'' video game File:Musée Mécanique 097.JPG, Claw game File:Musée Mécanique 056.JPG, The Barber Shop "Quart" Image:Laffing Sal.jpg, Laffing Sal File:Musée Mécanique 215.JPG, The Addams Family pinball File:Musée Mécanique 046.JPG, Carnival music box from Playland

References

External links

Official SiteVideo tour of the museum from Visit San Francisco
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musee Mecanique Museums in San Francisco Amusement museums in the United States History museums in California Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco Amusement arcades Pinball museums