Now that they’ve re extended to November 16th 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.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
The allure of Mr. Kincade’s art escapes me also. He painted downtown quite a bit. The Los Gatos Cinema and Gilley’s Coffee Shoppe next door were likely his favorite facades to paint there. I liked those paintings only because they were so familiar. I actually knew who drove some of the cars in the paintings, including a new 1990 Park Avenue, although it is made to be not so recognizable in the painting. Otherwise, the art seemed a bit too, . . . ideal. Is that the right word? Los Gatos really is pretty, but not in that manner. Mr. Kinkade ate at Gilley’s regularly, and gave Gilley’s a few of his paintings. He told me that a kitty in the painting with the new Park Avenue was actually Privet, my terrier, but I know that was hooey. Privet was never off leash downtown, and it is easy to paint a kitty where there was none.
https://villagegallery.com/art/los-gatos/#iLightbox%5B%5D/0
The green Mercedes Benz to the lower right belonged to a merchant in the taller white building to the left. The new Park Avenue is directly in front of the Mercedes Benz. That was a striking new style for Buick at the time. I tended to the crape myrtle at the curb between the two cars, in front of Gilley’s, as well as the potted annuals flanking the front door of Gilley’s. The kitty is in North Santa Cruz Avenue to the lower left, and looks nothing like a terrier. My home is off in the distance, about in the middle of the picture.