The fairgrounds are now the Marina District, Marina Green and the east end of the Presidio. Almost nothing from 1915 is left on the ground except the Palace of Fine Arts, which was rebuilt in the 1960s, and the line of the shore. Even so, a walk from the palace east toward Fort Mason passes over where the courts, the Tower of Jewels and the Zone stood. This guide gives the best locations the sources support. Most are approximate, and the page says so where they are.
Follow along on the map of the fair. Want a route with stops and distances? Walk the fair today.
1. The Palace of Fine Arts
Where: 3301 Lyon Street, at the west edge of the Marina. Confidence: certain.
Start at the Palace of Fine Arts, the only fair structure still standing on the fairgrounds. The rotunda and colonnade were rebuilt in concrete between 1964 and 1967, and the curving exhibition hall behind them keeps its original steel frame. The lagoon dates from 1915, though its edges have been reshaped. In 1915 the palace closed the west end of the main group of exhibit palaces. Just east of it, across today's Baker Street, stood the Palace of Education, and north-east of that, at about Broderick Street between North Point and Beach, the Court of the Four Seasons. The fair's Baker Street entrance was near here, at the edge of the Presidio. For the palace's history, see The Art Exhibition.
2. Detour west: Crissy Field
Where: the east end of Crissy Field and the Presidio flats, west of Lyon Street. Confidence: the general area is well established; individual pavilion sites are approximate.
The fair continued west into the Presidio. The pavilions of the foreign nations and the states stood from about Lyon Street westward, along the Avenue of Nations and the Avenue of States (see Nations and States, Avenue of Nations and Avenue of States). Farther west were the livestock section and the racetrack, with its drill ground and polo field (see Live Stock Section and Race Track, Aviation Field, Drill Grounds, Polo Field and Stadium). All of that land was government property, filled by the Exposition from the soft Presidio marsh. The Park Service places the state and foreign buildings at the east end of today's Crissy Field. The racetrack became the Army's Crissy Field airfield in 1919–21, and the Park Service says its oval can still be traced at the edge of the grassy airfield. A centennial photo pairing puts the Netherlands pavilion near today's Yacht Road and Old Mason Street, but treat that as approximate.
3. Marina Green and the harbor
Where: Marina Boulevard between the harbor and Webster Street. Confidence: good.
Head back east along the water. The long lawn of Marina Green was the fair's North Gardens and esplanade, where crowds watched the auto races, Art Smith's flights and the fireworks over the bay. Todd's Marina, the drive along the shore, bounded them on the north (see The Marina, the Esplanade and the North Gardens). After the fair the Exposition bought the blocks along this shore so that the waterfront would stay public, and the Park Service calls the green a surviving garden element of the fair. The Yacht Harbor survives too. In 1915 the Scintillator's 48 searchlights stood on the mole that formed its breakwater, and Todd says both were left to the city as a permanent harbor. From here the palaces would have filled the view to the south, behind the gardens.
4. The Scott Street axis
Where: Scott Street, from Marina Boulevard south to Chestnut Street. Confidence: the axis is certain; exact points along it are approximate.
Scott Street was the spine of the fair. The main entrance, the Scott Street gate, was at its south end, near Chestnut Street. The Official Guide's own streetcar directions ran to "Scott, to Chestnut." Everything important lay on a line north from that gate. At the gate were the South Gardens and Calder's Fountain of Energy. North of them was the 435-foot Tower of Jewels, which served as the entrance into the palaces. Beyond it came the Court of the Universe, and at the water's edge the 185-foot Column of Progress.
Walk south from the water along Scott. According to the historian Gray Brechin, the Column of Progress stood at the foot of Scott Street and was not pulled down until the 1920s. The Court of the Universe filled the blocks between the water and the Tower. For the Tower itself, the Museum of the City of San Francisco's map puts it at about Scott Street and Capra Way, and other accounts say near Chestnut and Scott. The Official Guide's South Gardens, about 500 feet deep from the gate, put it near Scott and Bay, close to the Museum's estimate. The Fountain of Energy and the grandstand where the opening ceremonies were held stood in the gardens just inside the gate. The Y.W.C.A. building was just west of the gate and the Press Building just east, according to the Official Guide.
The south edge of the fair ran roughly along Chestnut Street, where the private land Todd describes began. Todd says the great green hedge of ice plant ran four blocks from the Fillmore gate, past the Scott Street entrance, to Divisadero, and then nearly a block south along Divisadero. The Museum of the City of San Francisco's map suggests some gates stood as far south as Lombard.
5. Divisadero and Beach: the western courts
Where: around Divisadero Street between Chestnut and Beach. Confidence: approximate.
West of the Scott Street axis lay the western half of the main group. The annotated map puts the Court of the Four Seasons at Beach and Divisadero streets, but measured on the 1915 map of the grounds it stood a block farther west, at about Broderick Street between North Point and Beach. The Official Guide puts the Palace of Horticulture with its great glass dome at the west end of the South Gardens, and a centennial photo pairing places it near Divisadero and Chestnut. Kelham's Court of Palms opened off the south wall in this half of the group, with Fraser's End of the Trail at its entrance.
6. Fillmore Street: Machinery and Festival Hall
Where: Fillmore Street between Chestnut and Marina Boulevard. Confidence: approximate.
East of Scott, the eastern courts (Abundance and Flowers) and the eastern palaces ran toward Fillmore Street. The enormous Palace of Machinery closed the east end of the group near the Fillmore Street gate. Several modern sources place it around Fillmore and Beach, with part of its footprint now under Marina Middle School. Festival Hall stood at the east end of the South Gardens. No modern source I have found pins it to an address; measured on the 1915 map of the grounds, it stood at about Steiner Street between Francisco and Chestnut. Todd says the Exposition's ferry slip, where railroad cars were floated across the bay and run straight into the palaces, was built off the foot of Fillmore Street. The ferry slip is gone (see Exposition Ferry Slip and Ferry Building).
7. The Zone: Fillmore to Van Ness
Where: roughly along Chestnut and Francisco streets from Fillmore east to Van Ness Avenue, south of Fort Mason. Confidence: the district is well established; individual shows are approximate.
East of Fillmore began the Zone, the fair's amusement street, which ran seven blocks, 3,360 feet by Todd's measure, from Fillmore to Van Ness. Todd describes it as starting south of Fort Mason and running west to Fillmore. The street bent at Laguna Street and had a circular plaza at Gough. The best survivor here is a park. Lobos Square, the block bounded by Laguna, Webster, Bay and Chestnut streets, was inside the concessions district. The Exposition had to return it to the city as a park. It is now the Moscone Recreation Center. Centennial photo pairings place the Japan Beautiful concession near Gough and Bay and the Dayton Flood show near Francisco and Laguna. The Van Ness Avenue gate led straight onto the Zone, and Todd says a good part of the fair's eastern end, including 18 acres, was lent by the Army from Fort Mason. See The Zone.
8. Fort Mason
Where: Fort Mason, at the foot of Van Ness Avenue and Laguna Street. Confidence: good.
End the walk at Fort Mason, now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The railway tunnel under the Fort Mason hill was dug largely because of the fair, to link the Belt Line railroad to the grounds and the Presidio. According to the Park Service, it still exists. Todd notes that the fair also gave the government a new road to the Fort Mason transport docks. The Army transports Logan and Crook were moored there on March 14, 1915, when Lincoln Beachey's plane fell into the water between them (see People and Days).
Beyond the Marina
For survivors of the fair elsewhere, see What Survived. In short: the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in the Civic Center, which the Exposition built; the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, a permanent copy of the French Pavilion; the Pioneer Mother in Golden Gate Park near Blue Heron Lake (formerly Stow Lake); Calder's Star Maiden at One Sansome Street; and Frank Brangwyn's murals in the Herbst Theatre.
See it standing: explore the fair in 3D →
The fairground today
Present-day photographs of where the fair stood and what survives of it around the city. Each is credited under the picture.
Palace of Fine Arts
Chestnut Street, then and now
The Scott Street axis
The shore
Crissy Field
The Zone
From the air
Elsewhere in the city
More of the fairground is being photographed for the film. For every stop, in walking order, see Walk the fair today; if you have something from the fair itself, here is what I am looking for.
Sources
- Frank Morton Todd, The Story of the Exposition (1921): vol. 1, chs. XXXII–XXXIII (site, entrances), LVI (land and Lobos Square), LXII (gardens and the hedge), LXIX (ferry slip and railway); vol. 5, ch. XXXVIII (the Marina purchase; the Fort Mason tunnel and roads).
- Official Guide of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915): South Gardens; Y.W.C.A. and Press buildings; streetcar lines.
- Museum of the City of San Francisco, "Map of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition" (sfmuseum.org/hist/ppiemap.html).
- National Park Service, "Legacy of the PPIE," "Crissy Field," and "The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition" (Presidio of San Francisco); NPS PPIE brochure (2021).
- Gray Brechin, "Destruction of the Fair," FoundSF.
- San Francisco Heritage, "The Marina District" and "Moscone Field House."
- SFist, "Check Out These Restored Postcards" (February 9, 2015), then-and-now photo pairings.
- California Office of Historic Preservation, California Historical Landmark nomination, "Palace of Fine Arts" (2021).