Several years ago I posted about a Facebook page I had joined called San Francisco Remembered. It’s a large group of San Francisco enthusiasts who post memories and photos of their favorite city. Members are frequently contributing vintage pictures of San Francisco from public sources or from their own collections. These are a few updates I did last weekend of some of the vintage pictures posted by group members. The source of some of the photographs is not always identified, so I’ll just list the last names of the members who posted the pictures for the credits. (Thumbnail images)
Market Street, looking east toward Mason Street: The movie ‘Dear John’ playing at the Crest Theater dates the vintage picture to circa 1964. (N. Wright)
Looking down Nob Hill along Powell Street in 1968: The Sir Francis Drake, with its Starlite Room, is on the left. (M. Rodriguez)
Construction on Market and Stockton Streets, looking east in 1947: You can see Twin Peaks in the far back of both photos. (M. Rodriguez / SFMTA)
The southeast corner of Union Square, at Geary Blvd. and Stockton, during the 1960s: (M. Kava)
The most famous location of Gump’s, 250 Post Street, was THE home furnishing store of San Francisco. Founded during the Civil War, some of the icon’s most famous customers included Sarah Bernhardt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. You can’t see the 1914 Hobart Building from here anymore, but you can sure see the Salesforce Tower. (M. Rodriguez)
The cable car turnaround at Market and Powell Streets during the 1970s; I like those sunglasses. A little closer to twilight than in my picture, and, of course, there’s no cable car in my photo, but overall not a bad juxtaposition. (M. Kava)
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Oh my! Gumps! I barely remember it. We went there when we were in school, to see, of all things, floral design. It now seems like an odd thing to go to Gump’s for. It was about 1988 or so, so floral design was still appreciated, and an important component of decor. It was actually quite interesting to see how elaborate the floral design there was, and how it was used to enhance the marketing experience. I grew alstroemerias in the summer of 1986, just two years earlier, so it was interesting to see how they were used in the real World, and why some of them needed such long stems. The 1980s were certainly decadent. Alstroemerias were not yet so common then, so looked rather fancy. I never grew cut flowers again, but some of my colleagues did.