The iconic Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! museum in San Francisco\u2019s Fisherman\u2019s Wharf announced on Thursday its last day of service and its plans to celebrate its nearly 60-year history before officially closing its doors.<\/p>\n
The museum will welcome its final guests on Dec. 1, nearly two months before it officially reaches its 60th anniversary, mesmerizing \u200bfamilies and tourists in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had nearly 60 unbelievable years at Fisherman\u2019s Wharf, and we want these final weeks to be a celebration,\u201d said Jim Pattison Jr., president of Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! World Entertainment. \u201cWhether \u2060you visited us as a kid, brought your own kids years later, or have somehow never made it through our doors, we hope you\u2019ll \u200ccome see us one more time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After last month\u2019s closure announcement, a \u200bRipley\u2019s spokesperson explained that the closure didn\u2019t stem from \u201cone single challenge or event that led to the decision,\u201d but rather from the company\u2019s view of the \u201cchanging landscape of Fisherman\u2019s Wharf\u201d as it decided to close the location.<\/p>\n
Ripley opened its San Francisco location on Feb. 2, 1967, and it became one of the \u2060company\u2019s longest-running attractions, second only to Ripley\u2019s first permanent Believe It or \u200cNot! attraction in St. Augustine.<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 60 years \u200clater, I think we delivered the odd, the unusual, and just plain weird,\u201d Pattison said in his September announcement.<\/p>\n
In hopes of embracing the museum\u2019s whimsy, Pattison announced that every \u2060Thursday leading up to its closure, the museum will set prices at $19.67, \u201ca nod to the year the attraction first opened its doors at Fisherman\u2019s Wharf.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playing on that theme, the museum will also lower prices \u200cto $1.50 on its final day of operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn \u200cDecember 1, guests can experience Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! San Francisco for the same price they would have paid nearly 60 years ago: just $1.50 for adults and 75 cents for kids,\u201d the announcement reads.<\/p>\n
In addition, \u2060the company announced that fans of Ripley\u2019s Museum or its San Francisco-themed exhibits can \u200bstart bidding on items from a \u201cselection of \u2060exhibits, artifacts, \u200band oddities from the attraction through a special silent auction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Items Ripley announced would be on sale include a pinhead-sized replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, Joe DiMaggio\u2019s crutches, a chicken-wire portrait of Janis Joplin, toothpick renditions of the Golden Gate Bridge, and a 1989 Emmy connected to \u2060the World Series earthquake broadcast, to name a few.<\/p>\n
People interested in purchasing these items can bid on Ripley\u2019s San Francisco auction site, which will remain open through the San Francisco location\u2019s closing.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Ripley\u2019s San Francisco location has welcomed \u2060icons such as Michael Jackson, Baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio, and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. The company also operated several other attractions at Fisherman\u2019s Wharf, including the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, which later became World of the Unexplained and eventually the Guinness World Records \u2060Museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we\u2019re saying goodbye to this location, we\u2019re \u200cnot necessarily saying goodbye to San Francisco. With Ripley\u2019s, you never know. \u200bWe might just \u200cbe back,\u201d Pattison said in his September announcement.<\/p>\n
The closure of Ripley\u2019s Fisherman\u2019s Wharf museum added to the \u200bgrowing number of iconic locations and signs to be removed from the area. Earlier this year, residents watched workers take down Alioto\u2019s sign, another Fisherman\u2019s Wharf staple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The iconic Ripley\u2019s Believe It or Not! museum in San Francisco\u2019s Fisherman\u2019s Wharf announced on Thursday its last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-497305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}