Down below the Cliff House at San Francisco's Ocean Beach, is a wonderful little hidden treasure: The Musee Mechanique. Filled with all sorts of coin-operated entertainment machines from the past, it's easy to spend handfuls of quarters there. There are pianos that will play songs, little figures that will dance, fortune-telling machines, and lots of old-fashioned folk-art -- most for only a ...

Save San Francisco's Musee Mecanique Petition ...

Just inside the door of the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, you re greeted by Laughing Sal, an animated six-foot mannequin in Gold Rush garb who, in a previous life, did the same job at an amusement park that stood nearby, Playland at the Beach. The museum is cramped, noisy, damp and a little dingy. It feels less like a museum than an arcade at an old-time seaside resort.