Warner's Bear and Monkey House in North Beach ca 1868.

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I am researching a book, and found a reference to the above by a man who visited there as a child. I was tring to find out more information, such as origin, length of time it was there, charges, exact location, etc. Thank you for any help you can give me.

-- Jacquelyn Hanson (jacki@jdsinc.com), March 27, 2000

Answers

The reference is to Abe Warner's Cobweb Palace, a 19th century SF landmark. Here's the description in Lucius Beebe's "San Francisco's Golden Era": "A harborfront institution by no means to be missed was Abe Warner's Cobwe Palace at Meigg's Wharf in an alley leading off Francisco Street. A combination saloon and museum, its name derived from Abe's belief that it was bad luck to discommode the spiders, and their trailing webs were undisturbed since the premises were built in the mid-fifties [i.e 1850s]. Abe also kep parrots of legendary profanity and monkeys who had the run of the shop and there was a school of thought that felt the place was an unmitigated trap." The photos accompanying this passage document a building unbelievable in its decay and filth.

-- John Martini (martini@slip.net), March 28, 2000.

The Cobweb Palace is described in Charles Warren's Stoddard's "In the Footprints of the Padres." Original is out of print, but it's excerpted in "San Francisco Memoirs, 1852-1899" by Malcolm Barker.

-- dorothy (leland@dcn.davis.ca.us), March 30, 2000.

There are photographs of the place at the North Beach museum on the mezzanine at that little bank on Stockton just off Columbus.

-- Don Martinich (dutchm@dcn.davis.ca.us), April 30, 2000.

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