SutroThe man himself, Adolph, has an interesting story all his own. The place, however, is a bit easier to access. The first attempts to build a glass enclosed public pool, complete with museum and other amusements, commenced around 1895. Sutro was determined to fit the building into the site, directly on the beach, just under a bluff. The waves broke against the glass walls of the first three attempts, crumbling and shattering them all, and it wasn't until the fourth time around that the structure itself would stay put.
There were 7 different pools to swim in (both salt and fresh water), as well as an 8,000 seat concert hall for the people to listen to Sutro's music that he collected throughout his travels, and a museum that housed various and sundry treasures. The building itself was a monument to engineering: 100,000 square feet of glass, 600 tons of iron used in the roof beams, 270,000 cubic feet of concrete. Oddly, there were 7 miraculous toboggan slides but only one lonely springboard for diving. People of the day could swim in heated water, straight from the ocean, before taking in a show and experiencing some culture. There was even a rail line that ran along the coast, and though it is all but gone now, the grade is still left behind and is now a trail for walking along Land's End. Depending on the tide, you can look down into the water along the coast and still see remnants of the railline, not to mention many wrecked ships.
It all crashed in a fire in the late 1960s. My mom remembers it well. The place had been on decline: teenagers were already breaking the glass panes with their thrown rocks, unaware of the existential wonderment that their tiny acts of destruction (the future) against the empty see-through shell of a building (the past) contained; adults simply evolved and grew out of communal activity directly into a passive and immobile life indoors, sitting languidly before the gleaming television screen; and the children, well, sadly they just didn't know what to do anymore for fun and would later be forced to create their own touching monuments. The big glass thing broke and no one really cared. The water, like the merriment it once contained, either evaporated or grew moldy and thick with plant life, and still no one really seemed to mind. The concrete eventually mossed over, the landscape ate the trash, and what's left is an interesting set of ruins made by a not so distant modern man. We San Franciscans don't have anything ancient (our town is comprised of conflagration and destruction), we don't even have any monuments older than about 1900 - it creates this interesting sort of immediate history, a very discernible closeness to that past; not only is the wound fresh, but it is also quite tangible. The people who played in the pools weren't some languageless culture several links removed from our own, dressed in odd robes and grunting to one another between fits of the plague or some other abonimation now cured by medicine - they dressed in suits similar to our own, they were learned and witty, they created the town, they had the modern convenience of heated and filtered water!
I think that is what I like most of all - imagining these very similar people as though they are ancient. They certainly would not recognize our town, much as we wouldn't recognize theirs. It is an anachronistic bit of magic, I think. Mr. Sutro probably fancied himself positioned at the height of modernity during his time, he certainly had many technological breakthroughs and made several of his own - it is strange to think of him in the same way that we think of some slaves who built some pyramid. Time does that, though: odd perspectives to filter thought through.
We sat on this little bit of leftover concrete, it must have been the closest spot to the actual ocean which broke in little lapping waves just a few feet from our position. We sat and sort of straddled this thing and filtered the time through ourselves almost like it was light itself, as though we were the very panes of glass that once were fitted into that place. It was overcast, of course, but but what a colorful greyness.
An interesting photographic representation of the water that now fills the main pool. Note how deep and dark it looks, how sludgy and odd. The feathers add a softness that is only broken by the odd form of algae that lies just beneath the surface. The glowing orb, of course, is my flashbulb.
Nature mustn't have liked the concrete in the first place - it impeded the growth of some much needed greenery which used to dot the coastline between rock and dirt. Here! This is peering through a porthole which looked in at one of the many little clusters (cloisters?) of changing rooms. Vibrant green amidst all that crumbled concrete.
Down a little sandy path between two pools, which leads directly to the ocean:
We performed a brief study of the wind, which creates many interesting patterns on the terrain. Wind on water, depending on the angle, makes for a staccato of ripples or a series of perfectly geometrical little lines which fan out at perfectly spaced intervals. Wind on hair, however, follows no pattern at all.
Of course, the nature in the surrounding area just North of the Baths is as majestic as ever. There's a short and sweet trail, all of 1.3 miles or something, that links the ruins with Land's End. Three little scenes worth savoring:
