#63: San Francisco’s Treasure Island (pt. 1)

Treasure Island is easily visible from San Francisco’s Embarcadero, a low-lying front porch jutting out towards the Golden Gate from Yerba Buena Island. Palm trees in a silhouetted row set off massive white buildings, dwarfed by the towering silver Bay Bridge marching across the water towards Oakland. That bridge carries over 130,000 people a day within yards of this artificial lily pad, most of them whizzing by at 70 miles per hour without giving it a second thought.

What is Treasure Island? Why is it there? And where is it going?

In the first episode of this 2-part podcast series, you’ll learn how politics, pride, and the Great Depression collided to spark this audacious construction project, and the story of its glamorous first occupant — the 1939 World’s Fair. Crazed seagulls, the tooth of a woolly mammoth, Irving Berlin, and a radio signal from Bombay are just a few of the elements that make this story a San Francisco classic.

Skip to Part Two.

For further edification:

» “Trails End for ’39ers” – Almanac for Thirty-Niners – WPA, 1938

» “Western Wonderland” – Time Magazine, 1939

» Gorgeous pre-Fair Publicity Film – Prelinger Archives

» Newsreel footage of ’39 World’s Fair – Prelinger Archives

» Home movie from the ’39 World’s Fair – Prelinger Archives

» “Not So Golden Gate” – Time Magazine, 1939

» “The Legend of Yerba Buena Island” 1936

» Treasure Island – Wikipedia

» Treasure Island Music Festival – Noisepop/Another Planet