Spooky Old Photographs.

Fans of my life's history will recall that I've travelled to San Fransisco, back in Sept. 2001. A handful of us needed an excuse to visit, so we got into their Fringe Festival, and ended up having to put on a play while we gawked around town, recoiled from the events of 9/11, and worried about getting home.

Part of our tourist duties required a trip to (the replacement) Cliff House. There's an old vaudeville/funhouse game exhibit there now - essentially the video games of 1912 - as well as a great park, and some beautiful views. The structure, though, is no great shakes, at least not anymore.

The best part of it were the modern day ruins. There used to be a gigantic bath and swimming complex there, called Sutro Baths, at the turn of the century, that was abandoned in the `20s and destroyed in the `60s. The original Cliff House used to occupy a site near the baths, before it was destroyed by fire in 1927. You can still walk around the crumbling walls and foundations of both, and just imagine the size, scale, and beauty of the place when it was new and in full swing.

Cliff House was one of those architectural wonders that folks everywhere talked about. There's a website that is gathering a collection of the old photographs, and some of them are fantastic. The one reproduced below almost looks fake, a special-effect designed for a B-grade horror flick watched in the middle of a sepia-toned Saturday in the `40s.