I’m amazed looking over past posts I have done at how many times I have referred to the portion of Geary that runs from Market Street to Van Ness Avenue as Geary Blvd. when it’s actually Geary Street. Also, I wasn’t clear on which came first, Geary Blvd. or Geary St. However, this old 1932 map of San Francisco from wikimedia.org shows that it was originally called Geary Street all the way from Market Street to Sutro Heights. I’ve included the link. I’ll have to do some research to find out when the western portion of the street/boulevard was changed to Geary Boulevard….. Just did, AI says it was in the 1970s; I thought it was earlier. I took a walk along part of Geary Street yesterday to update some vintage pictures from the internet. (Thumbnail images)
Geary Street at Market in 1945: Lotta’s Fountain was in a different spot then; it’s, reportedly, in it’s original spot now. By the way, Lotta’s Fountain’s 150th birthday is being celebrated this year. An addition to the Gothic Mutual Savings Bank Building is where the ‘The Stag’, whatever that was, used to be.
Looking down Geary toward the Palace Hotel from Grant Avenue; I think the vintage photo is from 1910: The building on the right is still named the Magnin Building.
People in the crosswalk at Geary and Stockton Streets in 1957. Ticket that grid-locker! I wasn’t sure which Stockton, Geary crosswalk this was in the vintage picture from the San Francisco Library Archives, at first. It couldn’t have been looking toward Union Square, I Magnin, or the City of Paris Department Store, but the Savings building in the background looked out of place at this intersection. (See next photoset)
So, I looked around for any vintage picture that would verify if the vintage picture in the previous set was labeled correctly. My “go to group” from opensfhistory.org came through with this picture from 1965; the crosswalk in the previous photoset was definitely the one that ran from the City of Paris to the Guaranty Savings Building.
What a great vintage picture this is of a streetcar passing Powell Street from Geary, heading east, in 1942! The St. Francis Hotel is in the background. I couldn’t get a photo with a streetcar entering the intersection, but I’ll settle for a cable car. (San Francisco Library Archives)
Now, we come to my dedication. Dedicating a post to a ghost might seem macabre, but I always felt sorry for Florence Cushing, the young girl who jumped to her death from the top floor of the Union Square Plaza Hotel in 1911, then called the Paisley Hotel, and reportedly still haunts the building. “(She) can check out any time (she likes), but (she) can never leave.” Here’s one of the links with a part of her story. Also in the 1971 picture from the San Francisco Library Archives is the unfinished Westin Tower of the St. Francis Hotel.
https://thehauntghosttours.com/blog/union-square-hotel-haunted-sf/
Mason Street was as far as I got yesterday; I wanted to explore Geary Street all the way to Van Ness Avenue where the twain of east Geary Street meets west Geary Boulevard, but “alas, alack, and Alaska” I’ve had an arthritis flare-up in my toe all month that’s been cutting into my “pounding the pavement” time. This vintage picture is looking east along Geary Street in 1913. The peak of the tall Whittell/Grace Building in the left background is painted white now, so sometimes it appears invisible in some of my pictures. The Hotel Stewart on the right is now the Handlery Hotel. (UC Berkeley Library Archives)
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
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