San Francisco’s Fort Point Will Partially Reopen Amid National Parks Shutdown

After being shuttered for over a week due to the federal government shutdown, Fort Point National Historic Site is scheduled to partially reopen to the public on Friday.

The San Francisco national park site, famed for its use as a filming location for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo, will reopen only on weekends during the shutdown, according to Chris Lehnertz, president and CEO of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Fort Point received almost 1.2 million visitors in 2024.

Before the shutdown, Fort Point’s interior was open to the public on Mondays through Thursdays, with weeklong access to the fort’s grounds. During the shutdown, the gates that lead to Fort Point by road have remained locked, although pedestrian access is still possible and the site’s bathrooms are still open.

But Lehnertz said due to the popularity of the Black Gold: Stories Untold exhibition on display inside Fort Point, the conservancy made a donation to fund staffing at the site for the show’s final weekend on Oct. 10–13. Both the museum and exhibition will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“It’s just one of those times when an exhibit that’s this important needs to have a final hurrah,” she said.

The Fort Point visitor center, parking lot, bookstore and the bathrooms will be open Friday through Monday for the Indigenous Peoples Day holiday weekend, and every following weekend, Friday through Sunday, “for the foreseeable future,” Lehnertz said.

Black Gold, a collaboration between the park service and the For-Site Foundation, features the work of 17 artists highlighting Black history and the contributions of Black Californians during the period from the Gold Rush to Reconstruction.

Since opening on June 6, 70,000 visitors have seen the Black Gold exhibit, according to For-Site. The foundation is planning two performances for Oct. 12 at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to mark its closing weekend, with actors “representing historic figures highlighted in the exhibition.”

How parks are reopening during the shutdown

Lehnertz said the conservancy, a nonprofit membership organization that supports parks within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is able to partially reopen Fort Point under the current parks contingency plan for the shutdown — which allows park partners and concessionaires, like hotel, food or tour operators, to make donations to reopen specific parks to reduce the community’s economic loss.

“Governors and partners in several states have been working with the National Park Service to establish short-term agreements with donations to help maintain operations during the lapse in appropriations,” a spokesperson for the National Park Service told KQED by email Thursday. “We can confirm that thanks to one of our partners there is an agreement in place for Fort Point.”

This donation model has also funded the Oct. 3 reopening of Alcatraz Island, which was initially closed for two days at the start of the shutdown. Hornblower Group and Alcatraz City Cruises, operators of ferry service to the island, confirmed to KQED Thursday that they made a donation to NPS in partnership with the conservancy, to restart Alcatraz tours and to keep the park open during the shutdown.