I stopped by for the second day of the Grant Avenue Street Market Fair last Sunday as Chinatown begins its celebration of the Lunar New Year. (Thumbnail images)
The top picture is Chinatown at Grant Avenue and Commercial Street from a photo I took in March of 2020, on the day after the shelter-in-place order due to the Covid-19 outbreak. I was stunned at how empty and quiet San Francisco was; like a science fiction movie. This was as close of an update I could get to the picture I took in 2020.
California Street, looking up to Grant Avenue in 1907, one year after the 1906 Earthquake. Chinatown was quick to rebuild because they knew that the rich tycoons on Nob Hill wanted to relocate the Chinese community to the southeastern side of San Francisco. (UC Berkley Library Archives)
Portsmouth Square, looks like the 1970s: (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
This remarkable picture, taken in 1942, shows a Japanese midget submarine that ran aground and was captured during the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was on display on Grant Avenue between Washington and Jackson Streets. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
Wentworth Alley in 1957: The hitching posts are gone. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
The southwest corner of Grant Avenue and Pine Street, and the long gone Grand View Hotel: (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
The northeast corner of Grant Avenue and Pine Street, taken probably around the same time as the previous vintage picture: (UC Berkley Library Archives)
A parade at Stockton and Sacramento Streets in honor of the 32nd anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Republic: This would make the vintage picture taken in 1944. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
The now gone traditional Chinese telephone booth that stood next to Old St. Mary’s Church for years: The booth was directly behind where the musician was sitting in my picture. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
Chinatown is one of the many areas of San Francisco that I am completely unfamiliar with. I know where it is, but never had any reason to go to it directly. The father of one of my college roommates took us to Chinese restaurants near where he lived in the Sunset when I gave his son a ride home. He sometimes said that, if we had arrived at a different time, he would have taken us to Chinatown, which he would have preferred, so that I could experience more of the culture there. He enjoyed sharing Chinese American culture. What was funny, though, is that he was so amazed by a platter of what he thought were Italian Christmas cookies that I brought from my great grandmother. I explained that they were not really Italian, but were instead a collection of cookies that my great grandmother got recipes for from neighbors in Sunnyvale. Some might have been Italian, but others were Mexican, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Cuban and Austrian. It was a big platter.