Trocadero, San Francisco

The Trocadero is a historic building located in San Francisco. Formally it was a lively roadhouse at the turn of the 20th century it had offered gambling at roulette tables and dancing, as well as the best trout pond in California.

Trocadero in c. 1920
Building in 1936

The building is listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark, since April 15, 2022.[1]

History edit

It was opened in 1892, in a wooden building that had been brought around the Horn and was by reputation the first house built in San Francisco west of Twin Peaks, on the "rancho" of George Greene and the Greene family.[2] The first seeds of Australian eucalyptus had been sown here, about 1871.[2] Appropriately, it was at the Trocadero that Abe Ruef was found hiding, after his indictment in the notorious municipal graft trials of 1907.[3][4]

In the 1930s, Bernard Maybeck recast the Trocadero Inn into a children's playground and renamed it the Sigmund Stern Recreation Grove.

On March 11, 2023, a large eucalyptus tree fell on the Trocadero, causing severe damage and flooding.[5]

Other uses edit

In San Francisco, "Trocadero" continued to have a connotation of stylish nighttime fun. In its heyday, the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Trocadero Transfer was regarded as the best hard-core—and largely gaydisco on the West Coast. It was among the half-dozen musical style-setters in the country.

Today, the Trocadero is used as the setting for the haunted house at the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department's Scaregrove Halloween Festival,[6] and the seasonal Stern Grove Music Festival.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Young, Kerri (2022-03-15). "Trocadero Passes Latest Step in Landmark Designation Process". San Francisco Heritage. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  2. ^ a b Chamings, Andrew (2022-01-30). "This notorious bullet-pierced roadhouse is an SF icon". SFGATE. Retrieved 2022-01-30.
  3. ^ "Trocadero". San Francisco Chronicle. SF Genealogy. July 15, 1940. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
  4. ^ ""From a Cow Pasture to Cantatas": The Romantic Story of San Francisco's Sigmund Stern Grove". News Bulletin. San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. July 1953. Retrieved 2013-02-26.
  5. ^ Mauhay-Moore, Sam (March 11, 2023). "San Francisco's historical Trocadero Clubhouse severely damaged by falling tree". SFGATE. Retrieved March 11, 2023.
  6. ^ Pawlowska, Kasia (2017-10-25). "Scaregrove Halloween Festival in the Park". Marin Magazine. Retrieved 2022-11-04.

External links edit

37°44′10″N 122°28′41″W / 37.73621°N 122.47801°W / 37.73621; -122.47801