Iconic stadium where Beatles played final gig is abandoned wasteland with $8billion lifeline delayed for decade
Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Pope John Paul II.
The list of iconic figures to grace Candlestick Park is long and distinguished.
A legendary venue right on San Francisco Bay, it witnessed decades of historic moments from the moment the first fans arrived by boat in 1961 until its demolition in 2015.
Mayor George Christopher started the project when he promised to build a home for any MLB team that moved to the city, even tempting the New York Giants to switch coasts.
After playing in Seals Stadium from 1958 to 1961, the San Francisco Giants got the keys to a 43,765-capacity arena in 1961 and the venue became infamous for windy, damp conditions.
A downtown arena was snubbed in favor of the exposed location at Candlestick Point.
This was presumed to be named after a distinctive rock formation that has since disappeared into the sea, due to high costs.
Fans and outfielders paid the price.
It got so bad that during the 1961 MLB All Star Game, Giants pitcher Stu Miller was charged with a balk after being blown off balance by a gust of wind.
Two years later, the batting cage was picked up by the wind and dropped 60 feet away on the pitcher’s mound during a New York Mets batting practice.
The stadium, which had its name chosen from 20,000 submissions from the public, was expanded to allow the San Francisco 49ers to move in by 1971.
It elevated the capacity to 63,000 for baseball and 69,732 when football was in town, and raised hopes that the now enclosed stadium would allow for better conditions.
Wind speeds did drop but now tended to swirl unpredictably around the stadium — the scenic view of San Francisco Bay was lost in another blow.
Legendary outfielder Mays claimed that the conditions robbed him of a dozen home runs a year, but home teams enjoyed plenty of success on the turf.
The Giants played six postseason series there, including the the World Series in 1962 and 1989.
Their housemates were even more successful. Five Super Bowls were claimed by the 49ers between 1971 and 2013.
Candlestick also played host to one of the most famous plays in football history.
While there have been many caught passes in the NFL, only one is known as The Catch.
Dwight Clark’s game-winning touchdown grab from Montana in the 1981 NFC Championship effectively ended the Dallas Cowboys‘ dominance and helped bring a world title to the Bay Area.
In 1995, Candlestick Park was renamed 3 Com Park and four years later, the Giants moved into AT&T Park.
In 2004 it became Monster Park but returned to its original name in 2008 and stayed that way until the Niners headed for Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara in 2014.
As well as its sporting history, Candlestick also hosted gigs by The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Metallica, Justin Timberlake, and Jay-Z.
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Pope John Paul II attracted one of the biggest crowds, as an estimated 70,000 people gathered for a Papal Mass in 1987.
Very few people, if anybody, knew it at the time, but The Beatles’ concert 1966 in San Francisco also turned out to be the legendary band’s last. McCartney fittingly returned to play the last ever gig there in 2014.
Demolition began in 2015 and all that remains now is a concrete wasteland which has been stuck in limbo for over a decade.
An $8 billion redevelopment project aiming to turn the area into thousands of new homes was hit by years of delays and complications but finally appears to have some momentum.
The original plan aimed to build at Candlestick Point and the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in a joint venture.
But attempts to clean up Cold War-era pollutants at the shipyard have hit both projects, per The San Francisco Examiner.
FivePoint Holdings — the company behind the efforts — sought to decouple the projects in 2024, which should have allowed work to begin at Candlestick in 2025, though still to no avail.
Senior Vice President Suheil Totah promised a “vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood that offers affordable housing, open spaces, and economic opportunities for local residents.”
There are seven construction phases and the original timeline called for most to be completed by 2030.
But there has since been a revised redevelopment plan, which has set out the construction phase to begin in 2026.
This revised schedule, though, would see just two phases ticked off by that date, with a final completion now in 2048 — a long time to wait for residents in one of the USA’s most unaffordable areas.
This has seen local residents having since lost all faith in the developer behind the project.
“If you can’t complete what you said, you should then pull out,” the same longtime Bayview resident added. “Move on and let somebody else come in.”
Among the major changes approved in December 2025, the plan also calls for 2 million square feet of office space to now be built at Candlestick instead of the previously intended shipyard.
What has remained is the plan for a construction of 7,218 new homes, of which a third are supposedly set to become publicly subsidized affordable housing.
As of early 2026, only 300 or so homes have been completed thus far.
“That’s not fair to any of the people that are here now, counting on affordable housing to be built,” the same longtime Bayview resident added.
Candlestick’s storied history has seen its fair share of setbacks but there are numerous triumphs to be celebrated.
Hopefully, families can soon lay down roots where legends of football, baseball and music once trod the hallowed turf.
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