“Pick a street, any street. Okay, Battery Street.”

“I’d rather be a busted lamp post on Battery Street, San Francisco, than the Waldorf-Astoria.”

That remark is attributed to a prominent long ago man-about-town named Willie Britt right after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. However, the statement is also quoted as coming from a prize fighter named Jimmy Britt, who was also in San Francisco during the earthquake. I don’t know if it’s that wonderful of a street, but I took a walk along Battery Street last Sunday, a street that runs from Market Street to the Embarcadero, looking for interesting buildings that have survived the sands of time. They were easier to locate than finding out information about who actually made the “busted lamp post” comment in 1906. (Thumbnail images)

  

The UC Berkeley Library Archives caption refers to this old photo of the building on the northwest corner of Broadway and Battery Street as an “unidentified building”. It’s not unidentified today if you watch Channel 5.

A 1950s picture of 901 Battery Street on the northwest corner of Battery and Vallejo Streets: (San Francisco Main Library Archives)

 

The old RCA Communications Building on the southeast corner of Battery and Sacramento Streets: (San Francisco Main Library Archives)

  

An interesting building on the southeast corner of Battery and Vallejo Streets: The old telephone pole survived too. (San Francisco Main Library Archives)

  

The Reed Feather Company Building at 950 Battery Street is now the Feather Factory Hotel. (San Francisco Main Library Archives)

 

Street work on Battery Street near Pine, looking toward Market Street in 1916: Both of the buildings on the southeast and southwest corners of Battery and Pine have survived. (opensfhistory.org)

  

Probably the most well known man made object on Battery Street is the Mechanics Monument on the corner of Battery and Market Streets. Dedicated in 1901 as the Donahue Fountain, it was a survivor of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, as seen in the vintage photo. In May of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt spoke to a large crowd using the monument as a backdrop. (Source, Wikipedia). The 1906 picture is from the San Francisco Main Library Archives.