Judge Rules San Francisco Can Remove Embattled Brutalist Fountain

A judge on Wednesday cleared the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department’s path to remove the Vaillancourt Fountain, a controversial public art piece on the Embarcadero that’s been deemed an imminent safety hazard by the city.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ross denied a preliminary injunction filed by advocacy group Friends of the Plaza, which asked the court to temporarily halt removal of the fountain until it determines whether it is subject to an environmental review process.

“We are pleased the court agreed that the city’s administrative record contains substantial evidence that the fountain poses an imminent public safety hazard,” Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the City Attorney’s Office, said in a statement.

She said the city plans to disassemble and store the fountain offsite, where it will study the deterioration and “evaluate options.”

“The project protects the public while preserving options for the fountain’s long-term future,” Kwart said.

The suit is the latest effort by a coalition of art historians, landscape architects and skateboarders to keep the embattled fountain in place. They allege that the city “manufactured” an emergency to remove the structure without a full environmental review, as it prepares for a major redevelopment of the Embarcadero Plaza.

“There is no emergency,” said Susan Brandt-Hawley, an attorney who is representing the Friends of the Plaza group. “Yes, the fountain’s condition requires action. But our argument is, the city has conceded that adequate security can keep the public out of the fountain, and then there’s no danger to the public. The legal case can go ahead to see whether public CEQA review is required or not.”

During Wednesday’s hearing, Brandt-Hawley argued that disassembly could cause irreparable harm. Instead, she argued, the city could prevent endangering the public through less invasive means, like security by city park rangers.

Recreation and Park project manager Eoanna Goodwin estimated in court records that providing such security would cost at least $887,000 over 18 months.

The hulking concrete structure, built in 1971 in the shadow of the towering Embarcadero Freeway, has long been controversial; since its debut, some residents have deemed it an eyesore, while skaters consider it a landmark of their sport’s history in San Francisco. And historians say it’s long been a destination for civic engagement and an emblem of modernist architecture.

“It’s such a good place for gathering — for protests, for shows,” said Pretty Sims, whose punk band False Flag held a performance in front of the fountain, partly in protest of the removal last week. “U2 has played there. There’s been so many protests that have happened in Embarcadero Plaza.”

Advocates have been fighting to keep the fountain in place since 2024, when the city first unveiled plans to redevelop the Embarcadero Plaza as a waterfront park — without the structure. Tensions escalated last year, though, after the Recreation and Parks Department was granted an emergency exemption to the California Environmental Quality Act, easing its path to remove the historic fountain without the long and often cumbersome community engagement process usually required.

In October, the Recreation and Park Department sought an emergency exception to the CEQA process after an engineering firm it contracted to assess the fountain found widespread corrosion of the structural steel and concrete, creating a risk of collapse, especially during seismic activity.

Based on the report, the fountain was deemed an imminent safety risk and slated for emergency removal. In November, that plan was approved by the city’s Arts Commission, which oversees the fountain as part of the city’s Civic Art Collection.

Modernist conservation nonprofit Docomomo International appealed to the Board of Supervisors to halt the removal and require a full environmental review in January, alleging that city officials invoked the emergency exception to skirt the CEQA process as they prepared for the major transformation of Embarcadero Plaza. After supervisors denied the appeal and backed the plan to disassemble the fountain, advocates escalated to a legal complaint.

Wednesday’s ruling gives the city permission to begin disassembling the structure, despite a court hearing set for August on the Friends of the Plaza’s plea for a CEQA review.

That disassembly could begin anytime — Rec and Parks previously said it expected to begin removal as soon as March. Kwart said she wasn’t aware of a set timeline for removal, but noted that “there is nothing legal preventing the city from moving forward.”