Month: November 2023

I went to the Union Square area yesterday to see how the turnout would be for “Black Friday”. Also, I wanted to update some of the pictures I took around the area in 2020 during the Covid-19 Pandemic when most of the city was shutdown. Some of my older pictures were taken on Black Friday, 2020, which, like most of San Francisco, was still depressingly quiet. I guess somebody forgot to tell San Francisco, yesterday, that it’s a stagnant, unfriendly, dangerous city that nobody wants to visit anymore; the weather was perfect, and the crowds were back. I remember telling myself early on in the 2020 lockdown, when San Francisco was quiet, empty and lonely, that I wouldn’t mind the crowds in the city again, and I don’t. (Thumbnail images)

 

The cable car turnaround at Market and Powell Streets in April of 2020 and yesterday:

 

The top photo was at the cable car turnaround on Black Friday, 2020, Cable cars were not back running yet, but they had a festively decorate one on display for picture taking.

 

People heading up to Union Square on at Powell and O’Farrell Streets yesterday, and nobody heading up to Union Square on Black Friday, 2020:

  

Stockton Street at O’Farrell: The kittens and puppies in the Macy’s window display on the left were back yesterday.

 

Union Square: You don’t get a chance to see it this empty often.

  

Four masked people at Neiman Marcus near Stockton and Geary Streets: That was about as big as the crowd got on Black Friday, 2020. Still some masks now.

  

Another shot of Union Square, sans visitors. Work on the Central Subway Station entrance on the corner, which opened in November of 2022, was also temporarily halted.

  

Not as crowded around Westfield Centre now that it’s closing, but better than 2020.

  

The southwest corner of Union Square at Powell and Geary Streets:

I went back over to Chinatown Wednesday night. With the APEC Summit opening this weekend in San Francisco, Chinatown may be pretty crowded during this coming week, so I wanted to enjoy the calm before the crowds. The Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit is being compared by some as the biggest international event in San Francisco since the June of 1945 UNCIO San Francisco Conference toward the end of World War ll which led to the creation of the United Nations, so the City will be doing its best to accommodate visitors and show the world that San Francisco is still “the city that knows how’.  Yes, there was once a time when you’d have to be a soldier of fortune to walk around Chinatown at night, but it’s not as notorious as it used to be, and the alleys are peaceful and picturesque. I took some night time pictures and later found some vintage pictures taken during the daytime that closely match the pictures I took. (Thumbnail images)

 

‘Sneakin’ Sister Sally Through the Alley’: Spofford Alley at twilight. (Jimmie-Shein)

Ross Alley, once famous for Tong wars, opium dens and Shanghaiing: People now visit the alley to buy fortune cookies. (Arnold Genthe)

  

There’s a great chase scene throughout Chinatown from the 1949 film ‘Impact’. Here, Ella Raines chases the cab car Anna May Wong is riding in south on Grant Avenue from Washington Street, back when traffic went the opposite direction.

  

The once notorious Beckett Alley in Chinatown: In 1913 this street had 29 brothels on both sides of the street according to the National Trust Guide to San Francisco. The old photo was taken in 1878, when it was called Bartlett Alley. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Grant Avenue, looking south from Jackson Street in a 1960s: (opensfhistory.org)

Waverly Place, the widest and most popular alley in Chinatown, in a 1950s picture: (opensfhistory.org)

 

Another peaceful evening spot is St. Mary’s Square, across from Old St. Mary’s Church. I hope the two people in the 1958 photo are still together in the next life. (opensfhistory.org)

  

I headed home through a lonely and empty Maiden Lane. Once the most popular alley in the city,  this used to be where San Francisco traditionally opened spring every year. Now, like Lotta’s Fountain, people walk past it without a second thought. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

 

But the main reason I went over there was to visit the site of the old Trafalgar Building on California Street, up from Grant Avenue, seen in the opening of Bob Hope’s 1947 film ‘My Favorite Brunette’. The movie costars Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr. with cameos from Alan Ladd and Bing Crosby, and it’s one of Bob Hope’s best movies. The scenes from a flashback near the film’s opening show people walking up California Street past the Trafalgar Building. The building was demolished and is now where the parking garage of the Ritz Carlton is. Below is a link do a post I did about the film in 2017. (YouTube)

‘My Favorite Brunette’ revisited

The weekend before Halloween, I went to the City at evening time to enjoy the Halloween weather (whatever that is) around town, and to practice taking panoramic pictures with my phone. I wandered around Nob Hill for awhile, waiting for the vampires to come out, (occasionally, people dress up like vampires during Halloween season, and do a ‘Vampire Prowl’ around Nob Hill) and then I headed down into Chinatown. These are a collection of nighttime pictures around San Francisco that I did update comparison pictures of the last week of October and the first week of November.(Thumbnail images)

 

Grant Avenue, looking toward California Street and the Sing Fat Building: This is as close of a comparison as I could get to the old 1930s postcard. (foundimage.com)

 

I was practicing taking panoramic pictures with my iPhone last Saturday night of a cable car crossing Grant Avenue on its way up California Street, so this isn’t exactly a perfect match up with the old 1960s picture at the same location. (hippostcard.com)

  

Powell Street at Market, it  looks like the 1950s: This might have been a good comparison picture if the old bank building at number one Powell Street wasn’t covered up with a tarp, because I’m standing in about the same spot as the 1950s photo. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

   

They are getting ready to fix up Union Square for Christmas when I went back last evening to finish up my set of nighttime pictures. I didn’t get too bad of a line up with this old postcard of Union Square at night in 1912. The building on the right in the postcard was remodeled into the IMagnin Building in the 1940s, the buildings along Stockton Street, to the left of the Dewey Monument, are all still there. (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

 

Market Street, between 6th and 7th Streets: The Katharine Hepburn movie, ‘Summertime’ playing at the United Artists Theater on the right dates the vintage picture from during 1955. With reckless abandon, I headed into the area at night to get an updated picture. What a great Saturday spot this used to be; movie theaters all along Market Street and classy department stores like Weinstein’s; a far cry from what this area is like now. (San Francisco Chronicle)

  

A picture I took in January of this year, when City Hall was lit up for the 49ers who were in the Playoffs, matches up pretty good to this picture of City Hall in October of 1966. (San Francisco Public Library archives.