I was busting your balls about being a developer and I dig that you’re into history being properly portrayed. But the fact remains that wonderful bits of our history are destroyed in the name of corporate interest all the time. They are trying to do it to Coney Island as we speak.

Playland may not have fit that bill exactly, but I do think that San Francisco would be richer place if Playland was still around. It would have been wonderful if the park service had stepped in, taken over and renovated it.

The Whitney family owned the surrounding property and ran Playland until it wasn’t worth it anymore.

Quoting an interview:
Notes on the Oral History of George K. Whitney, Jr.
by John A. Martini
September 6, 2002

“..Mr. Whitney claims that he negotiated for five years with the NPS (National Park Service) before agreeing to a sale price on the eve of condemnation proceedings. He remembers the sale price as $6,500,000.
…Mr. Whitney states he left the Bay Area “and never looked back.” He spent the last twenty years traveling extensively and sailing, and eventually retired to Friday Harbor, Washington…”

The guy who paid that $6.5 million never even built there. His development dreams never came true.

The land was later sold to a builder who was eventually sued for doing a poor construction job. No big cash return for him either.

You wanted “magic portals into history”, but you got rusty rides, stale popcorn and failed ventures.
Go see the film.