Antoine Mabrey heard about a free Mother’s Day promotion on the radio when he was home in Hayward, but he kept it to himself as he packed up his wife Alisha and daughters Ari, 6 and Amaya, 3, and drove them to the Sunday morning Golden Gate Park.
At 9 a.m. they looked at the SkyStar observation wheel, which rose 150 feet into the sky. At this point, Alisha knew that her surprising Mother’s Day present shouldn’t be brunch. It was three trips on the ferris wheel. The tickets were free for mothers, which meant a saving of US $ 18 – “definitely a plus,” said Antoine, not wanting to sound financially motivated on Mother’s Day.
But there were a lot of people because at 9:30 a.m., half an hour before the opening, the line stretched from the ticket office to past the California Academy of Sciences. “I love this thing,” said Erica Spartos, who was there with her daughter Eula, 8.
Spartos admitted that the reason she hadn’t been there was the price. “I think it’s too expensive,” she said, even considering a 15% discount for locals and $ 12 for kids. The trip consists of three full rotations in a closed gondola, which takes about 10 minutes, and that after half an hour of waiting. “It’s starting to spin,” Spartos said as the attraction came to life.
Until then, patience waned. Zion Burdick, 4, had his little brother Maverick, 3, by the hood of his sweatshirt and made a ride of his own by spinning him around in circles. “They’re just alive,” said their mother, Shellie, who shut down the Windsor boys while they left their toddler home with Dad, an extra gift.
The SkyStar, owned by an entertainment company in St. Louis, first arrived in March 2020 as the main attraction for the 150th anniversary of Golden Gate Park on April 4, 2020. The day the wheel joined the skyline was the day the pandemic struck – home-order passed. The 36 gondolas didn’t make it out of their shipping container until October 21 after the order was canceled, only to close again on November 28 when the virus got caught in a winter flood.
The subsequent reopening on March 4 became controversial when it became known that the Department of Recreation and Parks was looking to extend the original one-year contract by four years. Park purists opposed it, but the expansion was approved after a campaign highlighting the ferris wheel as the engine of economic recovery that could attract tourists and help Richmond District merchants survive the financial struggle of the pandemic.
“It’s ridiculous to fight for a ferris wheel,” said Shellie Burdick. “If we care about things, why don’t we care about climate change?”
The SkyStar spins under the lights day and night, which was another point of criticism. But it was an average of 30,000 passengers a month.
It can run with just six gondolas if there isn’t much demand, with the weather being a deciding factor. On a Sunday, a rainstorm caused an LED light on top of the bike to short-circuit and set off a spark. The people who drove in the six cars were evacuated. Half an hour later, according to the manager, the journey continued without any problems.
Under the sunny Mother’s Day skies, all 36 cars were in operation and the line was moving faster after San Francisco made enough progress against the coronavirus that the ride doesn’t capture the temperatures of all passengers before boarding. They were allowed to go straight to the photo booth, which shows the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Grant Haggerty, 7, who lives in the Sunset District, was scared to ride it, but once on board with his parents Tom and Alayne Haggerty he was able to enjoy his mother pointing out UCSF Parnassus, where Grant was born. His father pointed to his own birthplace, St. Mary’s Hospital, though that was of limited interest to Grant.
Erica Spartos described the ride as “a complete thrill”. The living green roof of the Academy of Sciences had given her hope against climate change. “It gives you a perspective that you don’t get every day.”
Zion and Maverick Burdick went out in search of hot dogs, and Alisha Mabrey left with a cardboard frame that contained photos of her with her husband and daughters, including one that appeared to have been taken on a skycam while they were there were in the air.
The framed photos were $ 36.95, which was double the savings on Mother’s Day, but Antoine didn’t want to argue with that. “It was definitely the best Mother’s Day,” said Alisha, “because it was a surprise.”
Sam Whiting is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SamWhitingSF
