In 2020, I was accepted as a member of the Institute for Historical Study. In February of this year, I was proud to be elected as one of its Directors. Yesterday, IHS was part of ‘Open House Day’ at the Merced Branch Library. I’m glad our table was where the New Books are, rather than being under the Yesterday’s Classics sign. (Thumbnail images)
I found a few pictures from the San Francisco Public Library Archives of the inside of the Merced Branch Library before I went, looks like the 1960s. The library has been remodeled considerably since it opened in 1957.
This is the opposite view of the previous vintage picture. The girl with the blond hair behind the info counter got a kick out of the old pictures, and helped me get my line ups.
The library is on the corner of Winston Drive and 19th Avenue, across from the Stonestown Shopping Mall, seen in the vintage picture from the 1950s before the library was built. (opensfhistory.org)
This view is looking back across 19th Avenue to where the library is today from Stonestown in 1953, a year after the shopping center opened. (opensfhistory.org)
Looking northeast across 19th Avenue in 1945 before the Merced Branch Library was built: San Francisco State University is behind where I’m standing. The M Line still runs along here. (opensfhistory.org)
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Congrats to you Tim for being on the board. Great honor.
Marty
Hey, Marty! Thank you!
These old pictures remind me of my disdain for remodeling. Park Merced in the second to last pair of pictures is just like Park La Brea in Los Angeles, just east of Beverly Hills. Congratulations on your election to a Director of the institute for Historical Study. For San Francisco, that sounds like a lot of work.
Thank you, Tony! From now on I’ll call myself “The scholar with the bad jokes.”
Bad jokes?
Corny jokes, I should say. I was getting a laugh out of some of the people at the event with the only library joke I know about how I was checking out a book at the desk once called ‘Nine Stories’ by J.D. Salinger when the girl behind the counter said to me, “The book used to be called ‘Ten Stories’, but that’s another story.” They’re probably wondering why they elected me as a Director.
Offensive jokes would be more concerning. Unoffensive humor is endearing. Corny is for the vegetable garden.