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Witnessing an execution in San Francisco only costs a quarter. For the paltry fee you’re placed steps away from the guards, the creaking wooden doors and the hangman himself. Lest you think the scene a bit morbid, remember to bow your head when the friar administers last rites to the poor soul about to meet his maker at the end of a rope. Before you can blink, the scaffolding trap door falls, the criminal drops, the line goes taught and the lights go out — quite literally. 

As you step back from the grim scene, now shrouded in darkness, you’re not thinking about the fragility of life or the consequences of wrongdoing. You’re simply wondering what else $.25 can get you in the Bay Area.

Conveniently enough, right next door to the execution are hundreds of possibilities. How about a game of baseball? A trip to a shooting range? Or even a private serenade by a mariachi band composed entirely of monkeys?

Fisherman’s Wharf tickles every sense but no experience does so with such unexpected nostalgia and eerie sense of humor as the Musee Mecanique (The Mechanical Museum for all you non-Parisians). This waterside warehouse is lined from front to back with mechanically operated old-fashioned arcade games, musical instruments and miniature scenes. Music boxes from the 1890s, gypsy fortunetellers from the 1930s and The Bimbo Box, a 1958 jukebox from Germany that plays “Tijuana Taxi” while a chorus of sombrero-clad monkeys strum along.

Or if your comically sadistic side comes out (as mine did), pop a quarter into one of the several mechanical miniature execution scenes. Having just been to London, I of course chose the probably historically inaccurate Tower hanging, but by all means don’t hesitate to check out the French guillotine a few rows away.

The first of my four days in San Francisco afforded the opportunity to explore at a relaxed pace. The Golden Gate Bridge could wait; the nighttime Alcatraz tour was scheduled for tomorrow. We strolled along the waterfront Embarcadero all the way to the famous Pier 39, taking in the barking sea lions and the smell of Boudin’s sourdough. We even sat along the water with a Boudin’s loaf and a cup of clam chowder from a stall on what I call Crab Row.

Around the Wharf the salty smell of the sea battled with the savory smell of bread and the sweet smell of Ghirardelli square for nasal dominance.

But it was the dusty, old wooden scent that caught my attention most. Skirting the front of Pier 45, before the working section of the Wharf juts out into the bay like a pair of arms waiting to grab the day’s catch, sits an unassuming white warehouse. A small sign above the door just says “Arcade” and if you weren’t looking you might not see the banner that says, “Musee Mecanique” high up on the building’s façade. But it was the smell that made me wonder at what was inside. It reminded me of my grandparent’s attic. When I peeked in the door and saw the old fortuneteller stand, like the one in the movie “Big,” I immediately lapsed into my favorite travel philosophy.

When you think you should bypass something, when you think no is the right answer, go in and say yes. Sometimes it backfires (restaurants are a good indicator at how good your spontaneous judgment is). But more often than not, you stumble into the best experience of your day.

In our society of overpriced time-wasters, the level of entertainment inside the Musee Mecanique comes at a virtual clearance sale bargain. There is no admission fee but plenty of change machines. You’ll have to dodge the children running for the newer arcade games at the rear of the warehouse room. But it frees up the endless rows of tinkering, hand-painted wooden and metal machines.

The interactive pieces are resolutely intriguing, absolutely entertaining. I hit a double in a pinball-esque baseball game and scored 10 points in the Junior Deputy Sheriff shootout. I cringed at some of the creepy dolls behind glass and there wasn’t a chance I was putting a coin in to see what they did. If I wasn’t two days away from my first wedding anniversary, I might’ve peeked into one of the numerous early-1900s, peep show Cali-O-Scopes that show risqué pictures of clothed women. I’d say that their definition of XXX is a bit outdated.

The only hint of disappointment was that the 1920s version of Rock-em Sock-em Robots was temporarily out of order.

After the wistful wooden aroma, the first thing that awes you is the craftsmanship. The intricate detail laced throughout the old Western scene or the elves in Santa’s workshop come straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. When you put a coin in and you hear the mechanisms shift, the metal parts invisibly clanking inside, it’s hard not to be amazed that these hundred-year-old gears still turn.

This city is famous for the massive, man-made bridge spanning the bay. But the real wonders of San Francisco are the smaller ones that span generations.

When the lights clicked off on the execution site, a puppet had lost its life for the thousandth time. And for another quarter, the sombrero-clad monkeys next door played him a tinkering funeral march.

Mike Hartigan, a graduate of St. John’s Prep (class of 2000) lives in Saugus. Mike is a writer and traveler and goes wherever it takes to find a good story.Follow along at http://www.whereverittakes.com or on Twitter @WhereverItTakes.

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WHEREVER IT TAKES: A $.25 Execution: San Francisco's Musee Mecanique