I don’t usually sneak out of the office on a rainy day, but there’s something beautiful about San Francisco in the rain sometimes, especially if it’s a warm rain that’s not uncomfortable. (Thumbnail images)
Jefferson and Taylor Streets at Fisherman’s Wharf, seen in the 1960s in the vintage photo:
One of my favorite pictures of the Fisherman’s Wharf Boat Lagoon, taken by Charles Cushman in 1940: The lagoon was full of boats yesterday because the crab season has been delayed again.
I was coming back from the Wharf on a cable car, and when we got to Columbus Avenue near Lombard Street I remembered a picture by Peter Stratmoen from 1975 that I did a then and now on once. My picture is a little blurrier than I’d like it to be because I was leaning out as far as I could on the cable car trying to get a good shot, and I didn’t want to fall off. The spires of Saints Peter and Paul Church are on the left, and the vintage KFC has been replaced by an apartment building.
So, I got back down to Union Square at Powell Street and Geary Blvd. on the cable car when things started getting weird. Have you ever have had one of those days when all of a sudden you’re in a Film Noir movie sitting next to Humphrey Bogart on a cable car?
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Oh, I remember those weird tanks, in the first of the second pair of pictures. I do not know what they were for, but there were several around the San Francisco Bay, including some neighborhoods that are now VERY expensive. Although I do not remember any in San Francisco, I do remember them in Richmond, Alameda, Brisbane and even somewhere on Richardson Bay, like near Belvedere. Do I remember that correctly? Could there have been a tank like that on Richardson Bay?!
Not sure, Tony. I know that the one in Fisherman’s Wharf was there from the 1930s to the 1960s, it was filled with gas and extremely dangerous. They had one in Oakland too, off 880, back when it was referred to as the Nimitz Freeway.
Oh yes, I remember the tank in Oakland, although I do not remember where it was.
I think it was just past where the old Oakland Drive-in movie theater was; near the Oakland Coliseum.
Yes, that sounds right, since it seems like it was near the Oakland Coliseum, although I can not remember where it was nowadays, and can not imagine such a tank anywhere near there now. It just seems to . . . far in the past. I used to be able to remember where such features were relative to their surroundings, but not so much anymore.