Burlingame officials are taking a long look at, perhaps, creating a park on a strip of bayfront land near the city’s southeast border with San Mateo.
If the vacant property is, in fact, suitable for such a recreational purpose, we have just one modest piece of advice for the planners: Don’t consider an amusement park; that’s already been tried at Coyote Point and it proved to be a spectacular failure.
The grand venture, dubbed Pacific City by its promoters, opened for business on 90 acres of land in the summer of 1922. The initial season featured a boardwalk, dance hall, Ferris wheel, restaurants, a railway, concession stands and smaller rides. A pier, nearly 500 feet in length, allowed ferry boats from San Francisco and the East Bay to dock in order to transport customers to and from the ambitious Peninsula undertaking.
But let’s let Mitch Postel, director of San Mateo County’s Historical Association, take the cautionary tale from there: “Some 27,000 people attended the first day. Another 51,000 came the next and, on July 1, park officials counted 100,000 visitors…the (park authorities) claimed to have had 1 million visitors in its first season.”
The 1923 season included the debut of a spectacular, new roller coaster, said to be the second largest in the U.S. But, even with “The Comet” wowing its riders, crowds dwindled.
According to Postel, “Because of contamination from the growing bayside cities of Burlingame and San Mateo, swimming in the bay water had to be restricted. Competition from Playland in San Francisco and Neptune Beach across the bay in hurt too. Money problems added up. A damaging fire in August (of 1923) did not help. When Pacific City closed for the winter in 1923, it did so for good.” The owners were bankrupt.
The roller coaster eventually was demolished in 1933. The dance hall, which wound up doubling as a roller-skating rink, lasted until 1946.
There are few indications that Pacific City ever existed at Coyote Point today. Even a couple of rotting remnants of the pilings from the old pier finally have been removed.
However, there is a small plaque to commemorate the long-gone amusement venue on the promenade above the beach; it was placed there in 1999. But that’s it.
If you don’t notice the little memorial, you would never know that, more than 90 years ago, the Coyote Point beach area boasted a booming entertainment enterprise that rivaled anything on the West Coast at the time. Promoters referred to it as a California version of Coney Island. But, like a comet, ironically enough, Pacific City came and went in a flash. There are very few left on the Peninsula who can remember it now.
Rose Marie
Mom’s passing at the age of 99 was not a surprise. Rose Marie Horgan had been struggling since a bad fall three years ago.
Still, when the end came earlier this month at her modest San Mateo home, it was a sad event for her family and friends. She had lived in the same house since 1947. She raised her three children there; memories abound throughout the premises.
Never one to latch onto the latest devices with any sort of alacrity, she still had a rotary telephone affixed to the kitchen wall. She never bought a dishwasher or a garbage disposal.
Only in the last several years did she purchase a clothes dryer. She was given a microwave oven but hated it. She was frugal but generous.
A gentle soul, she had outlived most of her peers, including her late husband, Jack Horgan. She’s most definitely missed. She was one in a million. God bless her.
John Horgan’s column appears Thursday. You can contact him by email at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.or by regular mail at P.O. Box 117083, Burlingame, CA 94011.
