Windmill Sails Soar
San Francisco’s oceanfront has a dramatic new attraction
“I swear this wasn’t here a week ago,” said one gawking passersby on Monday.
It wasn’t. Last week the copper dome was placed on the windmill, part of $6 million restoration project (of private and public monies) that has been more than a decade in the making after the original 1905 windmill fell into ruin from the elements and beetles.
Now the sails have been installed – considered the longest in the world - revealing more fully for the first time the structure’s dramatic comeback from oblivion. On Monday afternoon a steady stream of dazzled park visitors paused to stare and take pictures.
The Murphy Windmill, on the park’s south end, is one of two along the park’s oceanfront. The other, the Dutch Windmill originally constructed in 1902, is on the north end. At one time they both supplied water to the park.
The learn more about the windmills, click here.
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cornholio
Thank you to those who got this done. Great to see entropy reversed.
Triton
Is this windpower potential being put to actual use? Or is all that air-driven torque merely decorative?
I'm all for historic restoration, but there's obvious power generation capability here, and nothing about that was mentioned in the story.
Maybe there's no need now for the former water-pumping function, but surely a generator could be harnessed to those massive sails to feed clean energy into the city grid (and over time help recoup the investment in restoration).
If it's too cost-prohibitive to connect this windmill to the PF&E grid, it should at least be possible to install and power some electric-vehicle charging stations like those found in front of City Hall.
No opportunity to demonstrate the feasibility of renewable energy should be passed up, especially not when there's so much symbolic promotional value attached.