Witnessing an execution in San Francisco only costs a quarter. For the paltry fee you’re placed steps away from the guards, the creaking wooden doors and the hangman himself. Lest you think the scene a bit morbid, remember to bow your head when the friar administers last rites to the poor soul about to meet his maker at the end of a rope. Before you can blink, the scaffolding trap door falls, the criminal drops, the line goes taught and the lights go out - quite literally.
As you step back from the grim scene, now shrouded in darkness, you’re not thinking about the fragility of life or the consequences of wrongdoing. You’re simply wondering what else $.25 can get you in the Bay Area.
Conveniently enough, right next door to the execution are hundreds of possibilities. How about a game of baseball? A trip to a shooting range? Or even a private serenade by a mariachi band composed entirely of monkeys?
Fisherman’s Wharf tickles every sense but no experience does so with such unexpected nostalgia and eerie sense of humor as the Musee Mecanique (The Mechanical Museum for all you non-Parisians). This waterside warehouse is lined from front to back with mechanically operated old-fashioned arcade games, musical instruments and miniature scenes. Music boxes from the 1890s, gypsy fortunetellers from the 1930s and The Bimbo Box, a 1958 jukebox from Germany that plays “Tijuana Taxi” while a chorus of sombrero-clad monkeys strum along.
Or if your comically sadistic side comes out (as mine did), pop a quarter into one of the several mechanical miniature execution scenes. Having just been to London, I of course chose the probably historically inaccurate Tower hanging, but by all means don’t hesitate to check out the French guillotine a few rows away.
Typically on the first day of our trips Danielle and I tend to consume a lot of pavement, a lot of wandering, a lot of stuff (as I’ve made painfully clear in the past, do not try to walk to the Eiffel Tower, it’s never as close as you think - never).
The first of our four days in San Francisco afforded us the ability to walk a slower pace. The Golden Gate Bridge could wait; Alcatraz was scheduled for another day. We strolled along the waterfront Embarcadero all the way to the famous Pier 39, taking in the barking of the sea lions and the smell of Boudin’s sourdough. We even sat along the water with a Boudin’s loaf and a cup of clam chowder from a stall on what I call Crab Row (Sidenote: California calls it Boston Clam Chowder and their version contains things like leeks and miniscule portions of clam. It wasn’t bad, but it was a very Californian version of what I consider my hometown’s greatest culinary achievement. Leeks? Really?).
Around the Wharf we were hit with the salty smell of the sea, the savory smell of bread, the sweet smell of Ghirardelli square (yes, it deserves its own blog post but I can’t very well dip my laptop in chocolate, can I? Wait, can I?).
But it was the dusty, old wooden smell that caught my attention most. Skirting the front of Pier 45, before the working section of the Wharf juts out into the bay like a pair of arms waiting to grab the day’s catch, sits an unassuming white warehouse. A small sign above the door just says “Arcade” and if you weren’t looking you might not see the banner that says, “Musee Mecanique” high up on the building’s façade. But it was the smell that made me wonder at what was inside. It reminded me of my grandparent’s attic, a place I hadn’t been in years but that was full of nostalgic treasures. When I peeked in the door and saw the old fortuneteller stand, he of Tom Hanks in “Big” fame, I immediately lapsed into my favorite travel philosophy.
When you think you should bypass, when you think no is the right answer, go in, say yes. Sometimes it backfires (restaurants are a good indicator at how good your spontaneous judgment is). But more often than not, you stumble into the best experience of your day.
In our society of overpriced time-wasters, the level of entertainment inside the Musee Mecanique comes at a virtual clearance sale bargain. There is no admission fee but plenty of change machines. You’ll have to dodge the children running for the newer machines at the rear of the warehouse room, but it frees up the endless rows of tinkering, hand-painted wooden and metal machines.
The interactive pieces are resolutely intriguing. I hit a double in a pinball-esque baseball game and scored ten points in the Junior Deputy Sheriff shootout. I cringed at some of the creepy dolls behind glass and there wasn’t a chance I was putting a coin in to see what they did. If I wasn’t celebrating my first anniversary in a few days, I might’ve peeked into one of the numerous early-1900s peep show Cali-O-Scopes that show risqué pictures of clothed women. I’d say that their definition of XXX is a bit outdated. The only hint of disappointment was that the 1920s version of Rock-em Sock-em Robots was temporarily out of order.
After the wistful wooden aroma, the first thing you’re awed by is the craftsmanship on most pieces. The intricate detail laced throughout the old Western scene or the elves in Santa’s workshop comes straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. When you put a coin in and you hear the gears shift, the metal parts invisibly clanking inside, it’s hard not to be amazed that these hundred-year-old mechanisms still turn.
This city is famous for the massive, man-made wonder spanning the bay. But the real wonders of San Francisco are the smaller ones that span generations.
No comments:
Post a Comment