I think I mentioned somewhere on my site that I spend more time in San Francisco during October and May than any other months. The weather is almost always comfortable even when it’s foggy, and there’s something special about San Francisco in those spring and autumn months. I took these pictures on October 16th, 19th, and 20th.
Clay and Powell Streets in the 1970s: When those cable cars rattle by at a rocketing nine miles an hour, sometimes I just miss clicking the shutter for a perfect lineup with the vintage picture. (Lindsaybridge2)
Golden Gate Park, looking southeast toward the Francis Scott Key Monument in the 1890s: “I see dead people.” (SF Chronicle)
A lonely looking picture to me of a gentleman walking toward the Band Concourse in Golden Gate Park in the 1950s: They’re replanting some of the trees gone now. (SF Chronicle)
The Robert Emmet Statue in Golden Gate Park, minus the Irish lass from the 1950s: That’s the old Academy of Sciences Building behind her, demolished in 2005. (SF Chronicle)
This San Francisco Chronicle vintage picture taken May 24th 1954 doesn’t identify where this spot in Golden Gate Park was, but I think it was Spreckels Lake, and if so, this spot here. There’s two asphalt patches on the peninsula that may have been where the trees were back then. Besides, it looks like nobody ever came back to get one of the cars from the old picture still there in my shot! I should have cropped my picture more at the bottom to match the vintage photo but I didn’t want to cut out that gull doing a perfect belly flop.
Powell Street between California and Sacramento Streets in the 1960s: (Marty Bernard)
Maiden Lane from the old Stockton Street entrance to the Union Square Garage in the 1950s: I’ve been waiting a long time for them to clear the Stockton Street Muni construction so I could do this one. The Stockton Street garage entrance is gone now. I’ll bet the girl in blue by the Maiden Lane gate was asking to the people approaching her, “Are you guys doing that Abby Road crosswalk thing for that guy up there taking the picture?” (Phil Palmer)
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Oh my! I remember those old pollarded elms and sycamores near the band concourse in Golden Gate Park. They were so formal, but a few of the trees did not conform. In the old picture, you can see that they are all elms, but in the distance, the lumpy trunk is a sycamore. Sycamores lasted longer, which is why the lumpy one in the distance is one of the remaining trees in the second picture. The replacement trees are sycamores (London plane trees), but will never match what was removed unless they are all removed and replaced at the same time. It is unlikely that there will ever be an arborist who knows or cares to pollard them properly anyway.
Those old clothes people wore near the Francis Scott Key Monument sure are pretty, but could not have been comfortable, especially in warmer climates like San Jose. My great grandmothers missed those styles, but could remember their mothers wearing all that cumbersome stuff, with bustles and corsets and such. I’m all for dressing up, but that was excessive.