Skaters push back as San Francisco plans to demolish iconic Vaillancourt Fountain

A growing group of skaters is pushing to preserve the Vaillancourt Fountain after the City of San Francisco announced a multimillion-dollar renovation plan that would remove the structure made of concrete square pipes.

Zeke McGuire started skating at the age of 10, and he grew up skating at the plaza and near the fountain.

“To see it go would be devastating,” McGuire stated. “I’ve been coming here my whole life. I’ve skated those stairs. I’ve been injured on those stairs.”

He’s skated on every inch of the Plaza, including the ledges of the Vaillancourt Fountain, which was completed in 1971. It’s impossible to miss, with its boxy concrete tubes that stand about 40 feet high.

It’s been the backdrop of more skateboard videos than anyone could count.

“It’s extremely awesome,” McGuire said. “There’s people all across the world that come to San Francisco to skate here specifically. So for it to be gone, people would come here to visit and it wouldn’t be here anymore, so I would say get it in before it’s gone.”

San Francisco Recreation and Parks announced the Embarcadero Plaza Renovation Project last year. It is a plan to construct a new waterfront park, which would tear down the structure.

Tamara Barak Aparton with Rec and Parks says that after years of deterioration, the fountain is unsafe.

“The structure is unstable,” Barak Aparton stated. “Hazardous materials are present, and we can’t allow the public access to a space that poses safety risks.”

Historical preservationists, landscape architects, and skate enthusiasts, like Bay Area professional skateboarder Karl Watson, are now pushing back and saying it’s a part of that sport’s history in San Francisco.

“A beautiful monstrosity that needs to stay,” said Watson, describing the fountain.

He says except for a few exceptions, people didn’t skate into the fountain, just around it.

“The fountain was integral for when we were tired after skating, we needed a place to relax and just enjoy the water flowing and the fountain definitely did that for us,” Watson said.

Now, the fountain is stagnant. The water stopped flowing years ago. In June 2025, it was fenced off.

Feldman was disappointed to see it like this.

“I came down here last week just to see the fencing and I was like ‘oh, they really don’t want us skating here anymore’,” Feldman explained.

In August, the Recreation and Parks department formally requested permission to remove the fountain from the city’s Civic Art Collection.

But McGuire is hoping people like Watson, and the artist keep fighting. Armand Vaillancourt’s lawyer recently sent a letter to multiple city departments demanding the city cease and desist all efforts to remove his work.

No final decision has been made yet, but if it does go, McGuire hopes they’ll leave something.

“Even if it was to be fully demolished, I think it would be really nice if they kept a little bit of something,” McGuire said. “Or maybe make a part for people to skate.”