Month: October 2023

Now that they’ve re extended to November 16^th the October re extension of the May re extension of the April income tax deadline for 2023 here in California because of last winter’s rains, things have slowed down again where I work. So, I decided to go over to San Francisco on a rainy yesterday to update some images of older rainy SF days. (Thumbnail images)

I updated a recent picture I posted of people crossing Market Street at Stockton on a rainy day during the 1960s, because it’s better in the rain. Although, the rain did slow down a bit at this point. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

Thomas Kinkade’s Powell Street at Union Square, one of his less imaginative pictures: He often gets a bad rap for his work as having been more of a marketer than an artist, but I like his San Francisco pictures.

 

Market Street in front of the Palace Hotel during the early 1960s, when it was known as the Sheraton-Palace Hotel: The clock is still there, but the Pig ‘n Whistle Restaurant on New Montgomery, one of Herb Caen’s most frequented places in San Francisco, is no longer here. (Phil Palmer)

 

Another one of Kinkade’s masterpiece wannabes: His paintings always make me want to run up ‘Old Glory’ somewhere when I see one, but I really like this one of Market Street before the 1906 Earthquake. The domed Call Building, on the right it the painting, survived the 1906 Earthquake, but was remodeled down in the late 1930s to nothing of its classy look nowadays. The Gothic looking Mutual Saving Bank Building on the left also survived the 1906 disaster, but kept its original look. You can see part of its red roof in my picture. (CV Art and Frame)

 

A California Street cable car, pulling up to or leaving from, Market Street on a rainy 1940s day: Cable cars don’t pull all of the way up to Market Street anymore, so I couldn’t get much of the Southern Pacific Building, on the right, in my picture.

They put a lot of work into the opening scenes of a 1974 episode from the television show, The Streets of San Francisco called ‘License to Kill’. The scene was filmed at the intersection of Hyde and Beach Streets, one of the busiest intersections in San Francisco. You have the old Del Monte Cannery on the northeast corner of the intersection, cable cars cross through Beach and Hyde arriving to and departing from Aquatic Park on the northwest corner, and the Buena Vista Cafe, one of San Francisco’s best loved an famous watering holes, is on the southwest corner of the cross streets. (Thumbnail images.)

I took the Hyde Street/Powell cable car to Aquatic Park yesterday to do update pictures of the scenes. Cable cars still let passengers off arriving at Aquatic Park at the same spot in the middle of Hyde as these 1970s people in the show.

One of the passengers on the cable car in the overcoat, walking toward the southeast corner of Beach and Hyde Street, is up to no good.

It’s actor Murray Hamilton, Mr. Robinson in the film ‘The Graduate’ and the Mayor of Amity Island, one year after the filming of this episode, in the blockbuster ‘Jaws’. Here, he plays an ex cop named Barney Lujack responsible for a series of vigilante killings.

His target this time is the fellow in the plaid sport coat holding a newspaper heading into the Buena Vista Cafe. He’s a hit man for the Mob, Johnny Waco, and one of his victims was Lujack’s son.

Waco dispatches his assigned victim in the cafe with a silencer hidden in his newspaper.

Waco heads back across Beach Street to a car driven by an accomplice. However, Lujack has him dialed in.

Lujack shoots and wounds Waco on the northwest corner of Beach and Hyde. During the 1982, 1983, 1984 restoration of the cable car system, this portion of the tracks were rerouted into Aquatic Park here at the corner where Waco was wounded.

The accomplice drives up Hyde Street to pick up the injured Waco past where the cable car tracks originally entered Aquatic Park, about where the white van and service truck are in my picture.

Police squad cars are quick to respond. That’s a great look at the Hyde Street Pier in 1974.

After picking up Waco, the car speeds west on Beach Street toward Ghirardelli Square and the Maritime Museum, followed by the police.

 

A police officer races up past the Cannery to the northeast corner of Hyde and Beach Streets, but Lujack gets away.

Lt. Mike Stone, (Karl Malden) and Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) pull up to the Buena Vista Café in the tan color car on the right.

They enter the Buena Vista to investigate the shooting by Waco.

As Stone and Keller leave the café and cross over to Aquatic Park, they get an eyewitness account of the second shooting committed by Lujack.

Stone and Keller cross back over Beach Street to their car, trying to sort out the details.

“The way I see it, it’s a clear case of two accidental shootings.”

“No, I don’t think so, buddy boy. We have eyewitnesses in the cafe who say a man with a silencer shot the man at the table, and then we have eyewitnesses outside who say that the man who shot the man in the café was shot by another unknown suspect when he left the café. No, no, this doesn’t look like accidental shootings to me, but I could be wrong. How about an Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista before we leave?”

“Sounds good!”

Actually, they were two much brighter cops than that in the television show.

I stopped by for the Block Party on Ellis Street yesterday, in honor of the 115^th birthday of John’s Grill Restaurant. The restaurant’s most famous claim to fame is that it was mentioned in the novel ‘The Maltese Falcon’. {Sam (Spade) went to John’s Grill and asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes.} To celebrate the occasion John’s set out tables all along the block and served free meals to everybody who stopped by. I more interested in getting another Brigid glass. (Thumbnail images)

Ellis Street, looking toward Market Street, around the time that John’s Grill opened: (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

 

This is the stretch of Ellis Street, between Powell and Stockton Streets, where the block party was held. The vintage picture is from the 1920s. (opensfhistory.org)

 

I did an update a few years back of a 1970s picture by Peter Stratmoen of this stretch of Ellis Street, but I don’t think anybody paid much attention to John’s Grill in my picture because of the pretty girl with the Victoria’s Secret bag.

They were still setting up tables when I got there. This is the view from Stockton Street in the 1950s, and yesterday. Truth be told, I’ve spent more time in Tad’s Steakhouse than I have in John’s Grill. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Mayor London Breed took time out from her tribute to Dianne Feinstein to congratulate the current owners of the restaurant.

There was plenty of stage entertainment.

The line of visitors stretched around Ellis Street down Powell to Market Street, so they had to keep putting out more tables to accommodate the crowd.

Of course, you can’t go to John’s Grill without going upstairs to see the Maltese Falcon or taking home a Brigid Glass, named in honor of the femme fatale from the Maltese Falcon. Awhile back, I did a post about the Maltese Falcon that features John’s Grill.  It’s become my most often viewed post, so in closing, I’ll include the link to it.

Sam Spade’s San Francisco