There's something poetically fitting about a pastel drawing of the Camera Obscura — a 19th-century optical device that projects the outside world onto a dark interior — sitting behind a Cliff House that's been dark and shuttered for years. It's San Francisco's most scenic metaphor for government mismanagement.

A local artist recently shared a pastel rendering of the iconic Camera Obscura perched on the cliffs above Ocean Beach, graffiti and all. As one SF resident quipped about the artwork, "the graffiti sells it! Only thing that would make it more real is someone clinging to the rocks for life." Fair point — the scene wouldn't be authentically San Francisco without a little decay.

But the drawing raises a question that's been lingering on the westside for years now: is the Cliff House actually going to reopen?

Here's where we are. The Cliff House closed in December 2020, and the National Park Service — which controls the land — has been dragging its feet on selecting a new operator ever since. The NPS finally issued a prospectus in late 2023 seeking proposals for a new lease, and there have been murmurs of progress. But "murmurs of progress" is federal-bureaucracy speak for "don't hold your breath."

This is a building that has burned down multiple times since the 1860s and kept coming back. It survived earthquakes, fires, and Prohibition. What it apparently cannot survive is a federal leasing process.

The Camera Obscura, meanwhile, has been maintained by dedicated volunteers and remains one of the last functioning devices of its kind in the world. No federal task force required — just people who actually care about preserving something.

The contrast is telling. A tiny wooden box with a giant lens, kept alive by community effort. A landmark restaurant and cultural institution, held hostage by red tape. San Francisco deserves better than watching one of its most iconic properties rot while bureaucrats shuffle paperwork.

Reopen the Cliff House. The Camera Obscura is tired of standing out there alone.