The Palace of Fine Arts is located in the Marina District of San Francisco. It was built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific Exposition–a world’s fair to celebrate completion of the Panama Canal and showcase San Francisco’s progress since the 1906 earthquake. Originally built to display art, from 1934 through 1942, it housed 18 tennis courts and, during WWII, was used to store jeeps and trucks. The first photo shows a bird’s eye view of the fair, with the original Palace in the lower right corner of the picture. The second photo is a panorama of the Palace in 1919.
The Palace was the only building not torn down after the Fair was over, at least until 1964 that is. After 49 years the “temporary” building was considered unsafe and was demolished. The replacement structure is an exact duplicate of the original. To take a walking tour of the Exposition and see many great photographs, go to the National Park Service’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition site (nps.gov.goga/learn/history/culture/ppie-the exposition.htm).