Updates, of lates, and can’t waits

This is a collection of some comparison pictures I’ve done in the past that I redid, some new ones that I’ve taken of late, and some wishful thinking. (Thumbnail images)

 

Geary Blvd. at Stockton Street in 1950: The crowds are starting to explore Downtown San Francisco again. I can’t wait for the “Black Friday” shopping crowds again! Wait, did I write that? (Opensfhistory.org)

 

It was a lot more crowded in Maiden Lane in 1955 than it was last weekend. I’m not sure what was going on in Maiden Lane when the vintage picture was taken, but I suspect it was a Godzilla alert. (SF Chronicle)

The above two vintage photos from the San Francisco Theaters Blog are looking down California Street from near Mason. I think the San Francisco Theaters blog may have gotten the one in color from opensfhistory.org. On the left is the old Nob Hill Theater, not to be confused with the Nob Hill Theater on Bush Street that just closed in 2018. The Nob Hill Theater in the Fairmont Hotel opened in 1944 and closed in 1964. I never made it to this one, but I sure do miss going to the movies nowadays. There’s a movie theater in Castro Valley that I’ve been going to since I was 10! I sure hope it survives. I can’t wait to see the new James Bond movie.

 

Looking back up California Street toward the Nob Hill Theater in another vintage picture from the San Francisco Theaters Blog: ‘KATH HEPBURN’; they needed a bigger marquee, you don’t short-change a lady like that.

They’ve been parking cable cars at the end of some of the boarding locations recently for photo ops. It’s a step in the right direction, but I can’t wait until they start rolling again. It was nice of these two fellows to pose for me at the cable car turnaround at Powell and Market Streets last Saturday. (Vintage photo, ebay.com)

Speaking of cable cars, the above vintage photo is a wonderful picture by Andreas Feininger looking down Jones Street from California Street in 1942. Those are the tracks from the old Jones Street cable car line that was discontinued in the late 1950s.

 

A few years back, a friend of mine named Nora asked me if I could locate where this picture of her mom and dad in San Francisco in the 1940s had been taken. She remembered her mother telling her the photo was taken in San Francisco, but not where. Nora sent me the picture, and it wasn’t too difficult to identify where they were. The movie theater behind them probably placed them on Market Street, but the Weinstein Department Store sign in the back ground between the two of them nailed it down to Market Street between 6^th and 7^th Streets. I did a then and now comparison for Nora and she was delighted. Of course, I didn’t let on to her that my quest was easy; I rather intimated that my search to find the location took the skills of a combination of Albert Einstein and Sherlock Holmes to find the spot, but I don’t think I fooled Nora. I wasn’t happy with the original comparison picture I took for Nora a few years ago, so I did a redo for her last Saturday. Weinstocks was in the blue building left center in the modern picture.

 

The vintage picture above refers to safety slackers in front to the Ferry Building during the 1918/1919 Spanish Flu epidemic. The fellow on the left has a mask on, so there was probably more going on here than meets the eye. (Redditt)

“I have a mask on! Why am I under arrest?”

“Because you stole this other fellow’s mask!”

“Well, then why is he under arrest?”

“Because he doesn’t have a mask on!”