By Klyde Java

Playland at the Beach was a 10-acre amusement park located on the western edge of the Richmond District near Ocean Beach. Over the years, it has acquired a mythical status among the City’s westside residents. The countless anecdotes detailing the whimsical attractions of its heyday as well as its Labor Day closure in 1972 have only added to the allure of this former Bay Area staple.

For those who were born too late to experience it, there are some lucky individuals who are still around to tell the tale of this iconic westside attraction.

One of the first things people remember about the old Playland was how they got there. For those who lived nearby, it was an easy commute. David Friedlander, who now lives in Tennessee, had options when it came to transportation.

“I grew up on 46th and Pacheco, and conveniently the 18-Sloat stopped right at the corner. And so, you could go two ways,” Friedlander said. “Get on the 18-Sloat, go all the way to La Playa and Cabrillo. Or me and my friends – I would say my posse of four to six guy friends – we all had bikes, and we lived close enough that you could bike there.”

Oftentimes, residents from all over the City drove there. Kevin Brady, a Sunset native, once got in a car accident on a birthday trip to Playland.

“Nobody got hurt, but of course the grownups had to talk,” Brady said. “So, we (the children) all took off and went climbing that big tree (on Sunset and Kirkham). I think it’s still there. It’s a Monterey Cypress on the left.”

But any discussion about Playland is incomplete without mentioning one of the park’s headline attractions, the Big Dipper. Replacing the demolished Figure-8 roller coaster in 1922, the Big Dipper was the park’s headliner and was known for its gargantuan size and death-defying drops. Diane Guraldi Robinson wrote to the Western Neighborhoods Project about her memories of the Big Dipper.

“The size of the ride was enormous, and I made sure that my brothers and I were tucked in tight as we flew down the gut-wrenching 80-foot drop,” Robinson said. “As we rounded those sharp turns, I was relieved that our car did not fly off into space.”

The mechanical clicking of the coaster’s rails has left a lasting imprint on the neighborhood. Ray Shanahan, who lived in the Richmond from 1948 until the park’s closure, grew accustomed to living in its shadow.

“In the evening when the fog was rolling in, you could hear the Big Dipper and the laugh of Laughing Sal,” Shanahan said. “The screams would fill the air even from eight blocks away with the laugh of Sal making it all sound like it was a fun experience.”

In addition to the Big Dipper, another attraction that triggers memories about Playland is Laughing Sal. She is a nearly seven-foot-tall papier-mâché animatronic known for its notoriously creepy laugh. Lourdes Livingston, who lived on 15th Avenue, recalled visiting Sal with her mother in 1957.

“We always paid a visit to Laughing Sal,” Livingston said. “My viewpoint was from a steep perspective, looking up at both the laughing lady and my mother. Laughing Sal terrified me. Her laughing was unstoppable, and I could still hear her hefty laugh through the loud hollow speakers, her upper body, swaggered to and fro. The tattered fabric of her dress, shivered with her movements. She would continuously laugh to her last breath and inhaled a magnitude of air to only belt out another laugh until she exhausted any mmmph of air from the depths of her belly.”

“I wondered why my mother and I had to stand there and succumb to such torture. Then my mother started laughing with the laughing lady. My mother turned to me and started mimicking the gesture and with syncopated rhythm, she suddenly transformed into the laughing lady. The thought of the laughing lady as my mother felt nightmarish. I couldn’t imagine being fed and clothed by Laughing Sal. At my first whimper, my mother stopped and returned to normal. I was shaken, yet relieved. I didn’t have to go home with Laughing Sal, after all.”

Despite the closure of Playland, the infamous Laughing Sal lives on at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and at San Francisco’s Musée Mécanique.

Though Laughing Sal and the Big Dipper were the more famous attractions, many former visitors describe the Fun House with fond memories. Playland’s Fun House included a mirror maze, the Joy Wheel (a wooden turntable that spun quickly), the Barrel of Laughs (rotating walk-through barrels), and a 200-foot indoor slide.

The 50-cent attractions of the Fun House filled the time of many Bay Area children growing up with Playland.

Historian Jim Smith, who wrote two books on Playland, knew how easy it was to spend an entire day locked inside the Fun House.

“I love the giant slide. If you could go up there more than three times, you were doing pretty good because it was a long hike,” Smith said. “Then there was the turntable, which was the Joy Wheel, which was a challenge for people. They would brag that they got to ride it to the very end. Of course, most of them didn’t, but that’s OK.”

At its peak, Playland occupied three blocks and averaged 50,000 visitors on weekends. Its swift shutdown in 1972 put an end to the park’s title of being San Francisco’s Coney Island.

Ronna Brandt, who frequented the park as a child, still feels nostalgic about the park.

“I still dream about Playland at the Beach,” Brandt said. “It will live on in my heart forever as one of my favorite memories, one of those places where my brothers and I always had the best time.”

Whether Playland was the first time visitors tried an It’s-It ice cream treat or the place where you found Laughing Sal, the park is forever enshrined into the culture of San Francisco’s west side.

Thanks to the Western Neighborhoods Project and its Outside Lands podcast for the anecdotes in this article. For more information and to see more vintage photos, go to outsidelands.org.