Shhh … listen
To reach the Wave Organ, located on the end of a tiny peninsula in the Marina, you pass a grove of sailboat masts along Yacht Road and the St. Francis Yacht Club, which opened in 1927. Its members have won every great sailing race in the world except the America’s Cup, which the slightly younger (by 12 years) Golden Gate Yacht Club just down the road won in 2013. The Golden Gate is newer in every sense than the St. Francis, mostly thanks to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, whose team Golden Gate sponsors. Ellison supposedly spent more than $300 million to retain the America’s Cup in one of the most amazing—and controversial—comebacks in all of sports history.
On the very tip of the jetty, you’ll come to a magical spot that looks like the ruins of a Roman temple. It’s the “sound sculpture” constructed in 1986 by artist Peter Richards and stonemason George Gonzales, and sponsored by the Exploratorium. The Wave Organ, a small and quaint environmental art project, reminiscent of organs in Zadar, Croatia, and Blackpool, England, incorporates cut stone salvaged from the demolition of the Laurel Hill Cemetery in the 1940s and more than 20 large plastic pipes, which emerge like periscopes from behind gray granite walls. Put your ear to the pipes and you’ll catch the amplified rhythmic sounds of the tide. The unusual notes range from high to low gurgling sounds, played by the ocean as it restlessly slaps against the stones and echoes thru the tubes. This experience is multiplied in the “stereo booth,” where you are surrounded by piping on three sides. The sound is best during higher tides.
Info
Address 1 Yacht Road, end of the jetty, San Francisco, CA, 94123, www.exploratorium.edu/visit/plan_your_visit/wave_organ | Public Transport Bus: 28 (Buchanan St & Bay St stop); 43 (Chestnut St & Fillmore St stop) | Tip There are scenic running and hiking trails and bike lanes that all lead from the Marina Green to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge or over the bridge to Sausalito and the Marin Headlands.
The irregular terraced seating of the Wave Organ also provides an incomparable spot for a picnic, with the spectacular view of the city and some of its grandest homes overlooking what was once marshland and sand dunes, and of the bay, framed by the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
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