Polo Field

Address

1232 John F. Kennedy Drive San Francisco, CA 94121

Park Hours 5 a.m. to Midnight

The Golden Gate Park Stadium, also known as the Polo Field, the park’s largest element, plays host to many different types of events, singular and en masse. Here visitors can jog, watch soccer, or attend major civic events like the annual Outside Lands Music Festival.

Popular subscription for $20,000, much of it collected by the Amateur Driving Association, combined with $25,000 from the park coffers was collected to build the stadium, inaugurated July 4, 1906, soon after the Great Earthquake and Fire.

The field originally incorporated a horse track around the outside, a bicycle track, and interior athletic grounds designed, in part, for playing polo. Tunnels through the raised perimeter allow direct entrance to the field. A section of pleated cast-concrete grandstand about 100 feet long, inaugurated on April 3, 1909, is the only major part of the original scheme ever realized; but these were demolished in 2010.

The harness-horse racing track, dedicated on May 12, 1907, replaced the former Speed Road in part displaced by the stadium. In 1911, there was a push to complete the Reid Brothers scheme for use in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, slated to occur within the western end of the park. The exposition site was moved to the Marina, however, and the plan was never realized.

The perimeter track is contained on its outside by a hedge of Australian tea tree shrubs.The now listing octagonal concrete judges /starter stand, with its distinctive tile roof, was designed by G. A. Dodge to replace a more decorative stand built in 1908 with funds from F. H. Burke, whose wife, Mary, later funded construction of the Mulgardt designed de Young Museum tower.

Permits and Reservations

This facility is available for rental. Visit our Permits page for more info.

Report a Maintenance Issue To report a maintenance or vandalism issue at this site, call 311, or click here .