San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

Sometime, very early in the 80s, I bought a little plastic case containing matchbooks from a large number of restaurants and nightclubs around San Francisco. I probably didn’t pay a fortune for it, maybe as much as ten dollars, but I don’t think I’d sell it today, not even for twice what I paid for it. I think I remember buying it at a gift shop in Fisherman’s Wharf. I don’t pay much attention to it, and the plastic case the collection came in is on the verge of disintegrating now, but the matchbooks are still in fine condition, although it’s unlikely that they’d spark anymore. Most of the restaurants are closed now, but some of them are still in business, and a few of them are promising to reopen someday. So, to make a short story long, I took pictures of the front and back of some of the matchbooks that I’ll post along with some pictures of the restaurants, or the locations of where they were. (Thumbnail images)

  

  

We’ll start up on Telegraph Hill and Julius Castle in the 1940s, the favorite restaurant of Samuel Spade of Maltese Falcon fame. The restaurant is scheduled to reopen soon. (opensfhistory.org)

Just south of Julius castle on Montgomery Street, half way down the Filbert Steps, is the Shadows. Shadows went out of business in the early 1990s, and look at that great menu cover! (vintagemenuart.com and Flickr)

Let’s head down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Alioto’s and # 9 Fishermen’s Wharf Restaurants, they went together like fish and white wine. Alioto’s is gone now, and it’s unlikely that the Grotto will ever reopen. What a pretty couple they made.

  

Aw, the magic of Fisherman’s Wharf to me was mostly #9 Fishermen’s Grotto at dusk. The vintage picture is from 1975. (Peter Stratmoen)

  

Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto in 1949: (opensfhistory.org)

 

And a twilight photograph from an old souvenir book that I’ll never be able to duplicate again.

  

In May of 2025, I did an update of a Vintage Roadside photo looking north past the intersection of Jefferson and Taylor Streets. Over Labor Day weekend, I updated that update; note the gap where Alioto’s used to be.

  

Tarantino’s Restaurant, seen here in 1960, will never reopen either. Curiously, they spelled Fisherman’s Wharf wrong.  (opensfhistory.org)

 

On that somber note, we’ll head over to the Buena Vista Cafe, alive and still kicking. My update of the matchbook cover I have, and and an ebay.com poster of it, doesn’t quite add up, but it’s not bad.

  

  

We’ll hitch a ride on MUNI #30 down Columbus Avenue, and get off at Bimbo’s 365, one of San Francisco’s oldest nightclubs. I’ll bet that matchbook may be a collector’s item someday. The vintage picture is from 1970. (San Francisco Digital Library Archives)

  

   

Heading into Downtown San Francisco, and a stop at 65 Post Street, where the Old Poodle Dog Restaurant used to be. In 1957, four holdup men held the diners in the restaurant hostage during a holdup, while police surrounded the building. The bad guys got away, but two of them were later caught. The vintage photo is from Hannah Clayborn’s book ‘Historic Photos of San Francisco Crime’.

We’ve moved down to the Embarcadero to try to locate where Earthquake McGoon’s was when I bought my matchbook covers. It used to be at 630 Clay Street, as seen in the vintage photo of the Turk Murphy Jazz Band from the Stanford University Library but had moved to 128 Embarcadero by the 1980s. (ebay.com) There is no longer a 128 Embarcadero, and AI says that would have been located across the Embarcadero from the YMCA Building. I don’t always trust AI, but if so, that would be about where the bottom photo I took is.

  

Heading north a block and a half, and we’ve come to where Sinbad’s Restaurant was. The first photo is looking toward the Sindbad’s sign in an update of a 1987 picture I took of my sister and nieces. The Embarcadero Freeway is on the left in the older photo. The second picture is Supervisor Dianne Feinstein with the owners of Sinbad’s when it opened in 1975. (San Francisco Library Digital Library Archives) Sinbad’s Restaurant closed in 2016, an was demolished for the new Ferryboat Terminal in the bottom picture.

  

  

We’ll double back to Union Square and Maiden Lane. The only vintage picture I could find of the Iron Horse Restaurant in Maiden Lane was a 1990s photo from the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. This was where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their wedding reception in 1954. The Iron Horse is still open today.

  

   

Now we’re at Geary Street and Van Ness. Ah, the legendary Tommy’s Joynt, Johnny Carson’s favorite, as well as many other celebrities. The vintage picture is from 1981. (SF Library Digital Library Archives)

  

We’ll head west to the Pacific Ocean for the deliberate finale. I still believe that the Cliff House Restaurant will be open again someday, just like I believe that the San Francisco Giants will be in the Playoffs again someday. I was never completely happy with the New Millennium remodeling, but like baseball again, any team in the World Series is better than no World Series at all, and any Cliff House is better than no Cliff House.

  

The Cliff House in the 1950s: I’ve lost the source of the vintage picture, my apologies.

  

An untrue blue view (kind of stumbles along) of the Cliff House, and an update I did from Sutro Heights in 2018: (Everyday Life in the Western United States)

  

By the time the Cliff House closed for remodeling in 2003 it had three great Gift Shops. The one on hand after the 2004 reopening wasn’t too bad, but not the same. I’ve lost the source for this vintage photo too.

  

I’ve never had an unhappy visit to the Cliff House, but the dismal visit I took in January of 2025 was the least happiest. The vintage 1960s picture from ebay.com is of the Cliff House I loved the best.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking over some wonderful vintage photographs from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency set me to thinking that I hadn’t been to Fisherman’s Wharf for awhile, so I took an F Line streetcar there on Wednesday. Lately, it seems as though the only places to visit in Fisherman’s Wharf anymore are the Boudin Bakery, the SkyStar, and the Musée Mécanique. Alioto’s is gone, the Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon is partly blocked off, and the most famous building in the Wharf, #9 Fishermen’s Grotto, looks empty and blocked by construction. Much of the magic of the area is gone, and the new promenade being planned will be a nice place to relax with a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge, but it won’t feel like Fisherman’s Wharf. However, don’t let my lamenting keep you away. Although it is what it is, or as my niece from Texas says, “i squared w i squared”*, it’s still, and always will be, a fun place to visit. (Thumbnail images)

*it is what it is

 

Looking southwest in 1974, and in the parking lot of Boudin’s today: You can see the Captain’s Chest Gift Shop, (ah, I remember it well) in the background of the vintage picture.

  

This is a reasonably close comparison looking southwest across the Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon in 1948 and today: You can see the building on Russian Hill at the left, and the lagoon was much longer back then than now.

  

Looking toward the parking lot of Joe DiMaggio’s Restaurant from the Lagoon in 1948: My mom took a picture from about the same spot when she was 17, before the SFMTA photo was taken.

  

This was as close of a comparison as I could get to the 1972 overhead of the Jefferson and Taylor Streets intersection, courtesy of the Applebee’s Grill crew who let me take a picture inside their glass window.

  

A 1961 view looking northeast across the Lagoon in 1961: The buildings picture left of Fishermen’s Grotto have been demolished.

   

Looking east Across Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon toward Alioto’s and Tarantino’s; one gone, one closed: You can see the SkyStar Wheel where Alioto’s was.

  

A little west of Fisherman’s Wharf is the cable car turnaround at Aquatic Park in 1972. Look at the yellow cable car signal on the right; you get a great look at it in the 1967 photo from Sunset Magazine by Glenn Christiansen.

  

Another spot sadly missing, temporarily, is the Hyde Street Pier, currently under remodeling: The view from Aquatic Park Beach is from 1972.

 

 

 

 

   

I finally got around to reading ‘Dark Passage’ by David Goodis. The famous movie based on the book, like the film ‘The Maltese Falcon’, stays very close to the plot of the novel. Both the mystery story and the movie are set in San Francisco, but the novel mentions almost no identifiable locations, whereas the film is practically a city tour. Much of the story takes place in Irene Jansen’s apartment. In the book, Irene gives a vague description of where she lives. However, in the movie, Irene lives at what is now one of the most famous film locations in San Francisco. So, get in the mood for some intrigue and romance as we take a visit to 1360 Montgomery Street on Telegraph Hill. (Thumbnail images)

  

To set up the plot for people who haven’t seen the movie, and there can’t be that many, Vincent Parry, a convicted murderer, and played by Humphrey Bogart, escapes from San Quentin Prison. Parry knocks out a passerby who has stopped by in a car and recognizes the prisoner, takes some of his clothes and is about to steal his automobile, when Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) stops her car and tells Parry to get in. She knows who Parry is, and her reason for helping him is a little contrived, as she takes him to her apartment. That’s about all you need to know at this point. I’ll use passages from the book in brackets as we go along.

{“We’re at my place. It’s an apartment house. We’re on Geary, not far from the center of town. Are you ready?”}

In the movie, Rene pulls up to Art Deco apartment building at 1360 Monterey Street.

   

Irene tells Parry to count to fifteen and follow her into the building.

  

Parry looks north toward where the black car is, and goes into the apartment house. The perspective in the movie will only be from his point of view until he has his plastic surgery operation.

{He got out of the car and faced a six-story apartment house. The front door was half way open.}

  

Parry enters the building here where the stairs are. In both the book and in the movie, they take an elevator to the third floor. The number of Irene’s apartment in the film is 10, in the novel it was 307.

{Then they were in the elevator and it was going up. It stopped at the third floor.}

 

On the third floor, Irene motions Parry to follow her into her apartment.

{The corridor was done in dark yellow. The door of her apartment was green. The number on the door was 307.}

  

Inside her apartment, Irene shows Parry a newspaper editorial she wrote, and tells Parry that she does not think that he got a fair trial. People will be getting killed around Parry throughout this movie, but Irene will still fall in love with him.

.       

When Irene goes out to buy some clothes for Parry, Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorhead) comes to Irene’s apartment and knocks on her door. Parry recognizes her voice and knows her. Here is a description of Madge from the novel; you tell me if it’s Agnes Moorhead or not.

{She had an ordinary face without anything pretty in it. She had eyes the color of an old telegraph pole. Her nose was short and wide at the base and too wide for her face, and her mouth was too large. But she wasn’t really ugly. It was just that she wasn’t pretty.}

    

Realizing that he is going to be in Irene’s way if he stays with her, he decides to leave, even though she wants him to stay. He tells her that he has a friend in San Francisco he can stay with, and says goodbye to her. On the way to his friend’s place a taxi driver recognizes him, but instead of turning him in, the driver sets him up with a surgeon who can give him a different face. During the surgery, Parry’s friend is murdered and he has no place to go. So tired and sore from his operation he begins a five mile walk back to Irene’s In the film, his walk back takes him up the steep Filbert Steps on Telegraph Hill.

{The pain in his face mixed with the pain in his arms and he wanted to get down on the pavement and sleep. He kept walking.}

  

When he gets to the top of the steps, he finds the car there of the man he beat up after his escape.

{It was the same Studebaker. The same hunk of junk that had picked him up on the road. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. And yet it was.}

Parry continues on to Irene’s apartment.

{Parry turned and went toward the apartment house. He was staggering now. On the steps he stumbled and fell.}

 

He presses the button for the elevator and begins to pass out. In the book he passes out in the elevator, but in the film he collapses before getting into the elevator, and wakes up to the sight of Irene, who was able to get him into her apartment.

(As the elevator went up he kept going down and his eyes were closed now.}

   

Parry stays with Irene long enough for his face to heal and have the bandages removed, but realizing the danger he’s putting her in, he decides to leave her for good. As he waits for the elevator, he says his goodbye to her.

{He was going toward the door. He turned and looked at her. She was all alone. He had a feeling she would always be alone.}

  

Irene watches him leave from the door of her apartment number 10.

{She would be all alone here in her little apartment. Her father was dead, her brother was dead, she really had nobody.}

I don’t know, looking at that face I personally don’t think she would have been alone for too long. Well, this is the last we see of 1360 Montgomery Street, but not the last we see of Irene. Two more people are killed after this, and Irene will faithfully keep believing in Vincent Parry.

Back in April, I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle stating that the Clay Theater, out on Fillmore and Clay, is the oldest movie theater in San Francisco. The Roxie Theater on 16^th Street in the Mission District lays claim to that title, as well. I’ll be diplomatic, and take the position that they’re both the oldest movie theater in San Francisco. (Thumbnail images)

  

I went to the Roxie Theater Tuesday evening, for the first time in many years, to watch Bay Area Movies (BAM) screening of ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer’. The showing was a sell out! I haven’t been to a movie theater this crowded since ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. Incidentally, the fellow in the white jacket and hat in the lower right center of the auditorium photo is me. (Bay Area Movies)

  

When I saw the crowd at the Roxie entrance as I approached, I was glad that I bought my ticket in advance. The tree on the right in my picture was just a baby in 1977 when the vintage picture was taken, and the movie theater was already 65 years old back then. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

This is as good of a comparison picture as I could get through the trees of the early 1960s picture from the San Francisco Chronicle.

  

I’m a little closer to the center here for a comparison to another angle of the 1977 photo from the San Francisco Library Digital Archives.

  

The Roxie survived the inevitable switch to porn that was the curtain call for many old movie theaters by the 1970s. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

A 1975 picture from the San Francisco Library Digital Archives: The movies playing show that the Roxie was still going through its tawdry period. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

Sometimes, I just have to go to the Ferry Building; you know how it is. It’s easily the most famous building in San Francisco, and one of the top two structures in the City that completely represent San Francisco, the other being the Golden Gate Bridge. I picked a perfect day to go there yesterday, August 1^st,  as I got a lucky break I’ll comment on later. (Thumbnail images)

The south side of Market Street at Steuart in 1911: F.O.E stands for the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The entire block of buildings on the right would be demolished by the 1960s. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

It’s eight years short of a hundred since “Bloody Thursday” when two striking dock workers were killed by police officers in the intersection of Steuart and Mission Streets in July of 1934, two blocks from the Ferry Building, and the incident has slipped out of focus with time. However, in 1950, the memory of the shootings still caused a passion in many San Franciscans. Here, in 1950, a wreath ceremony was held on the southeast corner of Mission and Steuart where two of the three men shot (one survived) had fallen. This is next to the Audiffred Building. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

The Ferry Building behind a closed and empty Embarcadero Freeway in 1990: The view is from Mission Street. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

A little bit closer to the Ferry Building than the previous set in 1991, as demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway is underway: I don’t know what that is shining on top of the Ferry Building in the vintage picture, but it probably wasn’t the Star of Bethlehem. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

 

A three-spot on the Embarcadero at Mission Street in 1990, 1991, and 2026: (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

 

The Embarcadero Plaza in 1971: The Vaillancourt Fountain, on the left, was dismantled and removed several months ago. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

The main entrance to the Ferry Building in 1939: I don’t know who put the AT 9 A.M. on the tattered vintage picture, but they’re not going to show me up. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

I haven’t been up to the second floor of the Ferry Building yet in this millennium, and it doesn’t look anything like it did in 1999 when I was up there last. I was hoping that I could visit the second level yesterday to take a few comparison pictures, and I was happy to see that the doors above the main stairway of the Ferry Building were open for an art display. I headed up the stairs that millions and millions of people walked up and down once, to take a few pictures and to marvel at the beauty of the second level. The vintage picture is of a group of people waiting to board a ferryboat in 1940 that would take them out to the Treasure Island International Exposition. Passengers boarded to ferryboats from both the first and second level of the Ferry Building. The floor has been removed between the first and second levels of the building at several locations. (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

  

Looking north along the Grand Nave of the Ferry Building in an undated photo from the San Francisco Public Library in Nancy Olmsted’s book, ‘The Ferry Building’.

  

The north end of the Grand Nave in 1935, as close as I could get: (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

I’ll close with the mandatory streetcar match up that I like to do from an undated 1940s picture. (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

 

I’ve been to and have ridden past this intersection many times, but I’ve never paid attention to the small brick building on the southeast corner until I read Amy O’Hair’s article on her Sunnyside History Project website about Charlotte Coleman and Gilmore’s Bar. Charlotte’s story is interesting enough in itself, but Amy also included a brief history, with vintage photos, of the Gilmore’s building and the area around the California, Hyde Streets intersection. Last Thursday, I took the #1 MUNI bus up Sacramento Street to Hyde, and walked one block south to California Street to take then and now pictures of some of the vintage pictures Amy posted in her article, and a few others from the websites she visited.  When I caught the #50 cable car back along California Street to Market Street, I felt like a teenager again, jumping on the outside of the cable car as it stopped at Hyde Street, and hanging on as it rattled back to Market. Also, Amy was kind enough to give me permission to post the link to her Sunnyside History Project article here. (Thumbnail images)

 

The O’Farrell, Jones & Hyde Streets cable car, known in poetry as ‘The Hyde Street Grip’, is picking up passengers on the way back from Beach Street in 1941. This cable car line stopped running in 1954. On the left is the building that became Gilmore’s Tavern in 1955. I didn’t have to do a lot of research for this post, thanks to Amy. When the vintage picture was taken, part of the building was home to the Hyde Street Market. (opensfhistory.org)

  

A closer look at the intersection in 1954: After 1949 the club on the corner was called Don and Rudy’s. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

Looking east past the intersection toward Leavenworth Street in 1954: I’m wondering what that was that looks like a train crossing California Street at Leavenworth in the vintage picture. I’ll check back if I find out. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

 

Looking southeast across the intersection in 1949: You can see part of the shoeshine stand on the right mentioned in the Sunnyside History Project article. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Looking northeast across the intersection in 1940: The building where Gilmore’s was now houses a pub called The Hyde Out. (opensfhistory.org)

  

Another great picture featured in the article from 1964, when the bar had become Gilmore’s: Love that Ford Falcon Ranchero (I think) on the right. (San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)

Here’s the link below to the Sunnyside History Project article about Gilmore’s Bar and Charlotte Coleman.

https://sunnysidehistory.org/2026/07/16/gilmores-charlotte-colemans-nice-quiet-bar-of-the-1980s/

My walk along Sutter Street was from Mason Street to Market Street so I could get some Ghirardelli Chocolate at the Palace Hotel before heading home. The “deep dive” refers to a compliment AI gives to my website that you can read in the About section of my blog. All but one of the vintage pictures are from the San Francisco Pictures Blog; I keep losing and finding that website for my bookmarks, and it has a wonderful collection of vintage San Francisco street photography. Here’s the link. https://sanfrancisco-pictures.blogspot.com/ The Marines’ Memorial Club photo is from the San Francisco Library Digital Archives. (Thumbnail images)

  

I looked up the Marines’ Memorial Club because a friend of mine sent me a link featuring a Jack Benny radio broadcast from the Western Women’s Club in San Francisco in 1938. I wasn’t familiar with where the Western Women’s Club was until I learned that the name was changed to the Marines’ Memorial Club in 1947, the year the vintage picture was taken.

   

I moseyed down to Powell Street, if anybody moseys anymore, for an update of this 1974 picture, looking down toward the Gothic looking Hunter-Dulin Building where Samuel Spade from ‘The Maltese Falcon’ had his office.

  

Between Powell and Stockton Streets is the 450 Sutter Medical Building. The vintage picture is dated 1950, however, the movie being advertised on the streetcar was made in 1941. Trivia note; Humphrey Bogart was starting to get noticed in 1941, and received top billing in ‘The Wagons Roll at Night’, although this movie predated ‘The Maltese Falcon and ‘Casablanca’. After ‘The Wagons Roll at Night’ Bogart received top billing in every one of his movies until he died.

  

Sutter Street at Stockton, looking north in 1920: The Stockton Tunnel is in the background.

  

Approaching Kearny Street in 1957: Almost all of the buildings in the vintage picture are still around.

  

Looking back along Sutter Street from Kearny in 1958: The Sherman Clay Building doesn’t have its fancy entrance overhead, and the entrance has been relocated. You can see the 450 Sutter Medical Building on the right background of both pictures.

  

Where Sutter Street branches off from Market Street in 1963: The turquoise windowed Crown Zellerbach Building can be seen on the far left in both photos. The Ferry Building is hidden by a tree on the left in the modern picture. The Southern Pacific, Matson, and PG&E Buildings in the center are visible, but nothing past those remain in the current picture.

 

Referred to as the Rustic Bridge or the Stone Bridge, I’ll play it safe and refer to it as I call it in my title. Built in 1893, the Rustic Stone Bridge is easily one of the most peaceful places in San Francisco. As Inspector Michael Stone said to Inspector Steve Keller, “It’s so peaceful, we should come here more often.” (Thumbnail images)

  

Take the N Metro to 19^th Avenue, walk two blocks north into Golden Gate Park, walk up the footpath next to Mother’s Meadow, and you’re at Blue Heron Lake, formerly Stow Lake. The path leading to the Rustic Stone Bridge is a lot more overgrown, for the better, than it was in 1900 when this picture from opensfhistory.org was taken.

 

A 1903 photo of the bridge: It’s not stretching the truth to say that this is child endangerment, especially for the kid on the right. If he slips off, he’s going to be lucky if he hits the water first! Somebody would go to jail for this nowadays. (opensfhistory.org)

   

It’s hard to get good lineups with some of the vintage pictures today, like this opensfhistory.org picture from 1913. Come on, tell it like it is, the fellow with the lady sitting on his lap looks like a pervert!

Rowboats, canoes, and pedal boats passing under the bridge in 1966: (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

Movies and television have take advantage of this beautiful location, as well. In ‘Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World’s Fair from 1915, at the upper left, a lecherous thief starts hitting on Mabel Normand near the Rustic Stone Bridge when Fatty Arbuckle comes to her rescue below. Also, the thief has an encounter with another fellow at the same bench in the upper right photo. Interestingly, the bench is facing away from the lake in the film, so it may have been a prop. There is a bench facing the lake at this spot today.

  

In the 1952 film ‘Scaramouche’ Andre Moreau, played by Stewart Granger, hides underneath the Rustic Stone Bridge while being chased by French guards of the Marquis de Maynes. Leonard Maltin, in his Movie & Video Guide, states that the sword fight at the end of the film is the “longest in swashbuckling history”.

  

And, as I mentioned in the opening, Inspector Michael Stone, (Karl Malden) reflects on how peaceful this spot is to his partner, Inspector Steve Keller, (Michael Douglas) before going after more bad guys in the television show ‘The Streets of San Francisco’.

 

 

{Biology Professor:

“What do you think of that slide?”

Professor Wagstaff (Groucho Marx):

“Well. I think he was safe at second, but it was very close.”}

These are some slide pictures I took along Market Street from 1983 to 1985, and updated Saturday. (Thumbnail images)

  

Market Street at the Embarcadero: If someone would have told me back then that 43 years later I’d be taking a redo of this picture through the legs of a 45 foot naked woman…..

  

The Metropolis Trust and Savings Bank Building: There’s still a Bank of America there.

  

Market Street at Kearny, “Newspaper Row” once:

  

The Citizen Kane Building at Third and Market: Well actually it was the William Randolph Hearst Building, but it’s well known that Orson Welles patterned Charles Foster Kane after Hearst. Orson Welles died the year I took the vintage picture.

  

Market and Powell Streets, around the time they started running vintage streetcars along Market Street: Actually, I took this update at Market and Powell Streets at the tail end of the Pistahan Parade last August.

  

Market Street at Eighth: That’s the Orpheum Theater on the left.

 

It’s the 4th of July weekend, and a perfect day to head to the Beach!

“Hey, this ain’t a beach, Tim!

“You misunderstood me, I’m referring to Beach Street.”

No, there isn’t anymore beach along Beach Street, although Louis Loewenstein, in his book about the origins of San Francisco street names, writes that the beach actually did come up to Beach Street before landfill put the street a block away in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, and two blocks away in the Marina. Traveling east to west, Beach Street starts at the Embarcadero, disappears completely at Fort Mason, then reappears in the Marina District, running all the way to the Palace of Fine Arts. My walk was west to east from Fort Mason to the Embarcadero. (Thumbnail images)

  

We’ll start at the Polk and Beach Street, looking toward Ghirardelli Square from the Maritime Museum in a vintage 1962 picture from opensfhistory.org. The sidewalk in front of the museum still has the same waves on it.

  

Let’s step inside the museum to look at some of the artwork on the walls, beautifully unchanged since the building opened up as a bathhouse and casino in 1939. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

The closest you’ll get to the beach on Beach Street is from behind the Maritime Museum. The last time I visited the museum in 2023 and took the top wide angle picture, all of the historic ships at the Hyde Street Pier on the right were still there. They’ve all been moved out of San Francisco now while the pier is being restored.

  

Looking down Larkin Street toward Beach at an overturned truck in a 1937 photo from the UC Berkeley Library Archives. You can see a portion of the Ghirardelli Tower Building on the left in both pictures.

  

The old Rolphe’s Restaurant in a 1964 photo in June of 1964 from Alan Canterbury: Canterbury took a lot of pictures around San Francisco in 1964 that are available to view on the San Francisco Library Digital Archives. The building now houses several hobby businesses.

  

Probably the most popular portion of Beach Street is where it intersects with Hyde Street. Cable cars turn around in Victorian Square, and the Buena Vista Cafe serves Irish Coffees. The Buena Vista sign is barely visible through the tree on the left. The vintage picture from the UC Berkeley Library Archives is from 1950.

  

In May of 1956, they ran the Hyde Street cable car line into the Victorian Square portion of Aquatic Park. In 1983 the turn in the tracks to the turntable were moved closer to the intersection of Beach and Hyde Streets. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

The Beach Street at Leavenworth side of the old Del Monte Cannery, in another Alan Canterbury picture from 1964: The Cannery opened in 1907, and is said to have been built on bricks from buildings destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

Beach Street at Taylor, looking northwest toward Fisherman’s Wharf in 1953, the way it used to look. Now it looks more like a gigantic model. You can see Fishermen’s #9 Grotto in the right background. (opensfhistory.org)

  

The Longshoreman’s Hall in a 1964 picture from…. you guessed it, Alan Canterbury. I discovered his pictures last fall, and have enjoyed updating many of his photos since then. You can’t see Coit Tower from here through the trees now. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

Looking west along Beach Street from Stockton Street in 1975: About the only thing noticeable still in my picture is the remodeled Riu Hotel building on the left. (opensfhistory.org)