Dirty Harry Swimming Pool

by Mister SF on 04/08/2009

Dateline: Chinatown, Hilton Hotel, 750 Kearny Street, about which David O’Rourke writes Mister SF, “Your photos [of the swimming pool at the former Chinatown Holiday Inn and Cultural Center] are historically important because the pool closed a few years ago. I stay at the Hilton often but I’ve never been able to see the roof top.” He is speaking of the famous swimming pool in the opening sniper sequence of “Dirty Harry.” David maintains a blog of Dirty Harry filming locations on wordpress.


Mister SF’s file photos show the former Dirty Harry swimming pool atop the Holiday Inn/Hilton.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Hollis James 02/13/2011 at 8:11 pm

Thank you for your photos of the Holiday Inn pool! I stayed at the hotel in the fall of 1971 and again in the early spring of 1972. I was truly amazed when I saw Dirty Harry for the first time and realized that the opening scene was set at the pool! The TramsAmerica Building was under construction during that time, and I believe it sparked my lifelong interest in modern architecture. Thanks again for the trip down nostaglia lane! Hope to get back to SF one of these days…

Brett Stafford 05/20/2011 at 6:46 am

At age 42, I had left it a bit late to catch the movie, ‘Dirty Harry’ but in 2011 I saw it for the first time. Immediately I saw that swimming pool scene, I knew where it was filmed! That rooftop swimming pool is my first memory of San Francisco from when I was a boy aged 7, back in 1976, the finished Transamerica building being right next to it. I had just flown out to San Francisco with my parents from a small English village, so to be up there at night, looking out across the city lights and strange pyramid next to it and then diving for a 1 Cent piece (which as also new to me) was probably one of the most surreal experiences for me in my life and the memory is as clear to me now as then. I was also lucky enough to go to the crown of the Statue of Liberty and look out (not sure this is still possible either) and stood on top of one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Its sad to me to think that I can’t re-visit any of these 3 memories, now as a man.

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