From airfield to House of Air
Crissy Field forms a 130-acre puzzle piece of the city, stretching about a mile and a half from the St. Francis Yacht Club west along the bay to Fort Point, the forbidding Civil-War-era brick fortress underneath the San Francisco abutment of the Golden Gate Bridge (where Jimmy Stewart saved a suicidal Kim Novak in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, though you can’t visit the exact spot behind the fort because since 9/11 it’s been gated off.)
Originally an estuary, in 1919, Crissy Field became part of the Presidio and was made over into an army airfield, built largely on landfill as well as quite hazardous materials. It got its name from Major Dana H. Crissy, who was killed that year while flying in “a transcontinental reliability and endurance test.” In 1994, the National Park Service took over the field and the man-made was unmade. Today, the field is literally a grand expanse of grass next to an estuary that’s now home to such “flying machines” as the great egret, the great blue heron, the Caspian tern, and the brown pelican. The aircraft hangars have been converted to private enterprises, including a trampoline park called House of Air and a rock-climbing establishment.
Info
Address 603 Mason Street, San Francisco, CA, 94129, www.parksconservancy.org/programs/crissy-field-center | Public Transport Bus: 30 (Divisadero St & Chestnut St stop); 30X (Beach St & Divisadero St stop) | Tip Take a walk to the delightful Warming Hut on the west side of Crissy Field for a cozy drink or a snack on a chilly day.
The field is known primarily for its views of the bridge and walking trails, and for the windsurfers who use the shoreline as a jumping-off point to sail across the narrows. It’s also been a showplace for large outdoor sculptures. In October 2013, Lisa Bielawa, a musician and arts impresario, orchestrated a 60-minute happening on the field that involved 800 musicians. This was a duplication of a similar event she presented at the former Tempelhof Airport outside Berlin. The musicians were organized into groups that gradually moved away from the center, each playing its own “melodic-orchestral signature”: not unlike something the artist Christo would do, but with music. As Bielawa put it, “it’s what he might call a ‘gentle disturbance.’”
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