The Fillmore ski jump in September 2005.
In 2005 it snowed in the neighborhood on the hottest day of the year — and 15,000 people showed up to watch world-class skiers jump down the Fillmore hill.
The ski jump is back, but this year it won’t be on Fillmore. Organizers have announced that the event will move to AT&T Park, where a 100-foot ski and snowboard jump will descend from the scoreboard and be covered by 200 tons of snow.
Last year’s event — a kind of extreme 30th birthday party for local Olympic ski champ Jonny Moseley — was strenuously opposed by many neighbors, some of whom cited concerns over security and insurance coverage. But Mayor Gavin Newsom avidly supported the event, calling it “another chapter in San Francisco’s long history of oddity,” and eventually the opposition was overcome.
The Fillmore jump “was a novel event and it’s not going to look like that exactly again,” Moseley said. “It will be a different flavor, but the same excitement.”
Connie McCole, one of the opponents of last year’s event, said, “We maintained throughout the controversy last year that the ski jump could be a great event if held in an appropriate place. They have found the perfect location, and we wish them a successful event.”
Filed under: Neighborhood History
