A new tourism campaign promoting San Francisco is drawing attention for featuring a beloved neighborhood fixture that city officials have repeatedly removed: the Bernal Heights rope swing.
The short film, produced by San Francisco Travel, a private nonprofit that serves as the city’s official destination marketing organization, aired nationally during a college football game last weekend.
Set against sweeping city views and an aspirational voiceover – “There is a place where anything is possible, if you believe” – the ad includes a fleeting shot of someone soaring from the well-known swing overlooking the skyline.
The swing, however, has long been a flashpoint between residents and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, which routinely dismantles it over safety concerns.
“We know DIY swings are fun and photogenic, but they’re also uninspected, unmaintained, and often unsafe,” spokesperson Tamara Aparton said in a statment Tuesday. “They’re also tough on our trees. That said, we have 184 playgrounds with swings we can vouch for.”
Ironically, the department’s own logo features a silhouette of a person swinging from a tree.
Despite repeated removals, locals have rebuilt the swing for years, seeing it as a neighborhood symbol of creativity and community. A man known only as the Swing Guy has claimed responsibility for reinstalling it several times, calling the effort a form of guerrilla public art.
The San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s logo, seen on banners near Ocean Beach, features a silhouette of a person swinging from a tree. (San Francisco Recreation and Park Department)
The debate is not new.
City officials have long cited injuries tied to unauthorized swings across the city and elsewhere in California, and potential tree damage, as reasons for its removal. Supporters counter that the Bernal swing is an at-your-own-risk attraction – and one that adds joy to one of San Francisco’s most panoramic perches.
“Citizens of SF install guerrilla swing,” tech entrepreneur Matt Brezina wrote on X on Tuesday. “City bureaucracy removes the swing multiple times. San Francisco’s official Travel Marketing organization just featured the swing in a national TV spot. Our bloated, overfunded, overstaffed, union-protected bureaucratic jobs program is holding back the potential of our city.”
This article originally published at San Francisco tourism ad features Bernal Heights swing city keeps taking down.