Fort Point Theater

While participating in the annual walk to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, my family and I happened upon San Francisco's Fort Point national historic site. Begun during the Gold Rush, and completed at the beginning of the Civil War, the fort is currently open three days a week for tourism.

Though the fort is now dwarfed by the Golden Gate Bridge, it stood alone on San Francisco's northernmost point for nearly sixty years.

It is currently accessible by car, bike, foot, surfboard, parasail, and zebra-striped tour bus.

Below is a detail of the fort as it was at the time of its completion, with cannons facing toward the sea and bay, and rifle slots pointing toward the land.

So, what does this beautiful old building have to do with my blog?  Why, it has a theater, of course!

Dedicated to Charles S. Hawkings in 1993, the Fort Point Theater seats approximately twenty-seven on long wooden benches.  The auditorium exists in what could have perhaps been a storage room for gun powder, barrels of pickles, or laserdiscs.  Who's to say.  A historical film about Fort Point plays on continuous loop, projected onto a pull-down screen.  Even though the theater wasn't inaugurated until 1993, I'd guess that this theater's enclosing building is older than that of any other theater in the Bay Area (I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the oldest surviving structures on the entire west coast).

And the view?