Those are the opening lyrics to an old Moody Blues song. The singer likes to put his feet up and watch television, which is fine, but I’d probably fall asleep. Last Sunday, a definitive lazy Sunday in my book, I grabbed my camera, and took a walk around the Market and Powell Streets area of San Francisco to update some interesting vintage photographs from the UC Berkeley Library Archives. On some lazy Sundays, Downtown San Francisco is as quiet, uncrowded, and peaceful as some of the vintage pictures here. (Thumbnail images)
Market Street on July 15, 1934 during the Longshoremen’s Strike that shut down the Port of San Francisco: The view is looking toward Grant Avenue. The streets were relatively quiet and empty. The Wells Fargo, the Bankers Investment Building, the Gothic Bank of America, the Chronicle, and the Hobart Buildings on the north side of Market Street can still be seen.
A streetcar crew fixes a broken power line in front of the Emporium Department Store in May of 1938: The Humboldt and Call Buildings are in the background.
The intersections of Market, Ellis, and Stockton Streets in November of 1939:
A solitary figure on the North side of Maiden Lane on July 15, 1934 during the Longshoremen’s Strike, and a solitary figure in the south side of Maiden Lane Sunday: I have no idea what that thing covering up the Dewey Monument in Union Square in the vintage picture was all about; I’ll have to do some research. You can just barely see the monument through the trees in my photo.
Powell Street at O’Farrell on July 15, 1934, during the strike: The old Omar Khayyam Restaurant Building is in the right foreground, the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, now called the Grand Beacon, is in the far right background, the St. Francis Hotel is on the left.
I don’t know what was going on on January 17, 1939 in San Francisco, when this picture was taken, but the streets were packed! I looked the date up on the internet; that was a Tuesday! That reminds me, the Moody Blues had a song about ‘Tuesday Afternoon’, as well. The view is looking east from Market and 5th Streets.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
That is a lot of work for something temporary around the Dewey Monument. If it came and went fast enough to evade historical documentation, could it have been one of those plaster ‘buildings’ that was constructed for the World’s Fair and then demolished? If so, it would have been a long way from the Fair.
Well, this is the AI answer to that, Tony, as accurate as that may be.
“In 1934, the Dewey Monument in Union Square was covered by a Gothic tower erected by the Knights Templar Conclave. The monument, which commemorates Admiral George Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, was dedicated on May 14, 1903. The Knights Templar Conclave later removed the tower, but in 1939, a temporary building was constructed in the park for the Golden Gate Exposition”
That is still weird. Why obscure the Dewey Monument? Why not build something separate? Well, at least it made a cool photograph, and it was probably cool at the time.