Talk:Cliff House, San Francisco

Proposed External Link

I propose this website be included in the external links section: www.CliffHouseProject.com

It contains hundreds of historic photographs, also historical information. This is my own website, so someone other than me would need to feel the same way and do the edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.stark@earthlink.net (talk • contribs) 09:18, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

Hello? Testing...testing.... (crickets chirping in background) --Gary.stark@earthlink.net 14:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Gary, I did find your site when I was checking info from the Cliff House article, so I will add it to the main article page. Did you have fun yesterday? Have a good weekend. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinned Elk (talk • contribs) 18:47, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we had a great time. We parked at the far end of the Golden Gate Bridge and walked the length just for fun. I can't think of many places in the world as dramatic as this! --Gary.stark@earthlink.net 20:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks for the link addition! --Gary.stark@earthlink.net 20:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Spam?

I propose all or part of the "San Francisco Attraction" section be deleted. For the most part it has NOTHING to do with the Cliff House. "IT'S IT Ice Cream"? "Stonestown Galleria"? "San Francisco 49ers"? Give me a break. This is pure commercialism of wikipedia. Any tourist really wanting this junk can find it on the main "San Francisco" page, just a click away.

You're really having a hard time understanding the functionality of the "Attractions" template, aren't you? - Dudesleeper · Talk 17:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes I am. That's why I threw it open to others to contribute...perhaps someone else can explain the Ice Cream - Cliff House connection for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary.stark@earthlink.net (talk • contribs) 17:42, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

The navigation box that contains the San Francisco attractions is not spam, it is another way for people to find information about San Francisco and to go to a relevant page. The box appears on all of the "attractions" pages as well as the San Francisco page. The attractions are related by the fact that they are notable enough to have pages in Wiki and they are in San Francisco. If you want to challenge the content of the navigation template, I suggest you do so on the discussion page for the template. The fact that it is included in this page does not make it spam and should NOT be a subject for editing wars. Another place to discuss the content might be on the Wikipedia:WikiProject San Francisco Bay Area. If you feel offended by the content you can chose to hide the box by clicking the hide option in the upper right corner. When I get a chance I will check out your website. It seems that it might be a good resource for people wanting more info about the Cliff House. It would also be helpful if you signed your comments and even created a user name for yourself if you feel strongly about the Wiki project. Thanks!--Tinned Elk 17:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I live in San Jose, south of SF. This morning I'm taking my kids into town just for fun. I haven't decided if we'll swing by the Cliff House, but I can tell you this...I would never in my wildest imagination think to look in an article about the Cliff House to find out the best attractions in SF. I would look in an article about San Francisco. It's incomprehensible to me that you think someone would be researching the Cliff House and say "Oh look, huney! Here's a link on Ice Cream sandwiches! Let's go check that out next! And after that we'll go visit the empty stadium where the 49ers play (nowhere near the Cliff House)! Wow...what a fun day ahead!" Stuffing wikipedia pages full of pointless links helps move those topics up the search engine rankings, but little else. Nearly 30% of the verbiage on the Cliff House article is devoted to this nonsense. Yes you can hide it, but I suspect you would oppose strenuously making it hidden by default. As for pursuing this template silliness down elsewhere, no thanks. I have no interest in cleaning up all of wikipedia...just the Cliff House page. --Gary.stark@earthlink.net 13:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

[Slaps head]. Enjoy your day with your family. - Dudesleeper · Talk 13:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to thank editor Emerson7 for finally cleaning all that crap up by collapsing it by default. Finally an editor with common sense. - gary

Factual error

This article is entirely flawed factually. As a result, you are doing a great disservice to people who read Wikipedia. Although it is said that Wikipedia has non-experts writing for it, even non-experts should do better research. I have not even read the entire Wikipedia Cliff House article, and I have found profound, unsettling mistakes. Completely misleading.

Where do I start? How about with the obvious? The Cliff House was not constructed until 1863. Proof of this point may be found in Alta California: 2/7, 3/30 and 5/4, 1863, when it was noted that tourists would visit "the site of the new hotel, which is to be erected at this point as a summer retreat for San Franciscans." "Cliff House, this is the pretty and appropriate name given to the new hotel now being built by Misters Butler and Buckley on the slope running down to the Sea Beach at the termination of the Point Lobos Road." (bold, mine)

There were only four major Cliff Houses. Many historians have mistaken the Seal Rock House as a Cliff House. It was not. The Seal Rock House was located across from Ocean Beach at the base of Sutro Heights.

Additionally, I believe the ownership chronology of The Cliff House is entirely factually incorrect, and abhorrently so.

It was C.C. Butler and state Sen. John P. Buckley who built the first Cliff House. Samuel Brannan is not the original builder. He had nothing to do with its construction.

Capt. Junnius Foster leased the property. The second one was NOT built for him. Foster transformed the Cliff House from a restaurant for the elite, to one for the "sporty" masses. This occurred because by the 1880s, transportation had become less expensive, more reliable and more readily available to "average" San Franciscans, who could now afford to go to the Cliff House. As a result, the Cliff House was no longer used by the elite as it had been.

Sources: Cliff House narrative at the Cliff House; "San Franciscana: Photographs of The Cliff House"; Marilyn Blaisdell; Alta California; other sources. Another source, which is readily available, is the Cliff House's own Web site, http://www.cliffhouse.com/, where it lists it initial construction as 1863. Where did the author for this page get 1858? The Cliff House's current Web site also lists the historical chronology, which refutes Wikipedia's incorrect entry. Here is the Web site URL to The Cliff House's real history: http://www.cliffhouse.com/history/index.html

Sutro, who made his first money in "sundries" in San Francisco, prior to making his engineering mark in the Comstock Lode, is said to have bought it in 1881, and 1883, the later of which is listed on The Cliff House's official Web site. I do not know which is correct, but I generally go with 1881. The narrative inside the Bisto says it was 1881. Most of the historians from the past century whom I have read say 1881.

Although we could argue this point, Sutro's Cliff House was NOT Victorian. It was a French Chateau-style building. Victorian is much different and there are examples in Eureka, Vallejo, San Francisco, Benecia, and other cities, of Victorian architecture, which is distinctly different from French Chateau.

Here is another factual error, either because you think Sutro Baths also burned, or because of inadequate editing: "The Cliff House and Sutro Baths survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage but burned to the ground on the evening ..."

Only The Cliff House burned. Sutro Baths were not destroyed.

Additionally, it was not only Sutro's daughter who financed the rebuilding after the fire that destroyed ONLY The Cliff House, and not the Sutro Baths. John Tait and a group of investors also assisted her in the financial endeavor.

The official sources I read, including the narrative inside the existing Cliff House, say George and Leo Whitney, the owners of Playland, bought it in 1952, not December 1937. I honestly do not know which is true. This page may be correct, but given your butchery of the true history of The Cliff House, I'm inclined to disbelieve everything on this page before I check another legitimate source, which Wikipedia should and can be. This type of historical inaccuracy, even though by volunteers, is really atrocious.

I did not edit a thing on the page, as it needs to be completely rewritten. The person who made the initial factual errors should be the one to check my information against legitimate sources, such as Alta California, the Cliff House narrative in the Cliff House itself, and other official sources written by historians familiar with the history of The Cliff House, Seal Rock, etc. You even have Seal Rock or Seal Rocks listed as Seals Rock, I believe, which is entirely incorrect. As a child, and as an adult, I've never, ever heard it referred to as Seals Rock, but that's an entirely different page and factual error.GlennTSimmons (talk) 19:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• everyone is welcomed to particapate and contribute to wikipedia articles. if you feel the article is incorrect, you, also may contribute and provide references substantiating your edits. cheers. --emerson7 19:17, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe Glenn is correct here, and that this article should be revisited, but I'm not at all expert on the topic, and this should be taken on by someone who knows the topic well, not by me. - Jmabel | Talk 05:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe we have an image available of the second Cliff House

NYPL dates this as "Created 1866-1873."

An expansion of the previous? NYPL dates this as "Created 1863-1894."

I'm not too knowledgeable on the topic, so I leave any possible inclusion to someone already working on the article, but I believe these stereo cards show two incarnations of Cliff House before the famous 1896 building. I don't know what the New York Public Library used as a basis for its dates. It is clear that whoever dated these didn't know the history thoroughly, since these rather different configurations have overlapping dates. I'd guess that this is the second Cliff House and that it was expanded somewhere along its lifetime, but I hesitate to edit the article without knowing more. - Jmabel | Talk 07:03, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

File:Cliff House from Ocean Beach.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Cliff House from Ocean Beach.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 23, 2013. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2013-03-23. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:25, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Picture of the day

Cliff House is a building located above the cliffs of Ocean Beach, on the western side of San Francisco, US. Part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, it houses two restaurants and a room-sized camera obscura.Photo: Mbz1

Historic picture of Cliff House

In the book "Native Americans In Early Photographs" by Tom Robotham, copyright 1994 by JG Press, reprinted in 2004 by World Publications Group, Inc., ISBN 1-57215-353-9, there is a picture of "Buffalo Bill and His Indians" on the beach in front of the Cliff House, San Francisco, which the source of the picture given as the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution but no date is available and the photographer is listed as unknown but it is a very stunning picture taken at beach level with the full Cliff House on the cliff in the upper center of the picture with about forty(40) people on horseback on the beach in the foreground. Sdavew7841 (talk) 03:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Does this make sense ?

" With the opening of the Point Lobos toll road a year later, the Cliff House became successful with the Carriage trade for Sunday travel. "

Does this make sense ? Cliff House is in San Francisco. Point Lobos is near Carmel about 100 miles away. Is there more than one Point Lobos ?Eregli bob (talk) 09:38, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

360 degree panoramas

I have been working for many years on a project to document western North America with 360° panoramic photographs. It is not a commercial project, my intent is educational. I feel this unique media is an exceptional way to document real places.

I began this evening to set up reciprocal links between my locality pages (such as of the Cliff House and Sutro Heights Park: http://360panos.com/local/CliffHouse.php and corresponding Wikipedia pages, such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_House_(San_Francisco,_California).

To my surprise my links were almost immediately deleted and I was accused of spamming for my personal site. It was suggested that I initiate a discussion with editors of this page through Talk.

Please have a look at my website, the Cliff House page and others. Be sure to sample the interactive panoramas (do not use IE or Firefox) as well as the unwrapped versions. These are not simple photographs, they require special presentation software and constant maintenance (e.g. the recurrent problems with certain browsers).

The link I propose is very simple: *360 degree panoramic photographs of the Cliff House It would be listed under External Links.

I think a link like this would add significantly to the article in question - providing all-encompassing contemporary views of the subject and adjacent areas.

Ultimately I would like to link several thousand of my locality pages, presenting two to twelve panoramas per page, to the most closely matching geographic Wikipedia pages. This page, the Cliff House in San Francisco, will be my test case. Please let me know what you think.

G. Donald Bain (talk) 06:31, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Your method would fail many criteria set out by WP:EL. The scope of the landing target page must be specifically about the subject of the wikipedia article and not part of a dozen other images. Also it is unlikely that the panorama is "encyclopedic" value, and images of public places are easily located on the web so your image of a site is unlikely to be a unique resource. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:54, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

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