Month: August 2025

I used that expression a few posts back. The first time, and probably the only time I’ve heard that used, is the bus scene in the film ‘It Happened One Night’ when the travelers are singing the song ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze’. It’s more like Edward Lear “nonsense”,  and I love that movie….. Now, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah; “Alas, alack and Alaska”, the San Francisco Chronicle announced that San Francisco officials have formerly requested the removal of the 1971 structure, the Vaillancourt Fountain. Actually, although I didn’t mind it, I won’t necessarily be sorry to see it go. It resembled the entrails of a giant concrete monster, but it kind of looked pretty when they changed the colors of the water flowing from it. I looked back over my blog to see how many times I posted pictures of the fountain. (Thumbnail images)

  

The 1971 ceremony at the opening of the fountain: (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

  

In case you’ve ever wondered what the back of the Vaillancourt Fountain looks like, and who hasn’t. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

  

1970s and 2023 people in front of the fountain:

  

1970s and 2017 kids playing at the Vaillancourt Fountain:

  

“The Streets of San Francisco, the television show that dares to use the Vaillancourt Fountain for a backdrop.” That might have been a good promo for this episode of the TV show.

  

And as an added bonus, you get a view from the top of Vaillancourt Fountain in the ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ episode. Hmm, now that I think about it, I’m going to miss that ugly thing.

Last weekend and this weekend, I spent some time around the Ferry Building, updating some old pictures from a book I bought at the San Francisco Railway Museum called ‘Tours of Discovery’ by Anthony Perles. It was twenty bucks, but well worth it; most of the vintage pictures in this post are from the book. If you haven’t visited the Railway Museum, you should; it’s a little treasure, sure to satisfy anyone interested in the Muni, Market Street Railway, Cable Car systems. (Thumbnail images)

  

This overhead photo from David Rumsey’s 1938 overhead composition of the portion of San Francisco in front of the Ferry Building where the streetcar and eventual bus “loop” was. The first block of buildings just below the loop were demolished in the late 1950s or early 1960s. To the north of the loop, you can see the pedestrian bridge that crossed over the Embarcadero to where the Embarcadero Plaza is now. Crossing underneath the loop, from the north and south, is the automobile underpass that used to be there.

  

The pedestrian bridge at the northern end of the loop during the 1930s: This picture is from Nancy Olmsteds’s book ‘The Ferry Building: Witness to a Century of Change’.

  

A streetcar approaches the loop from the north during the 1940s: On the right is Pier One, on the left is the two way automobile underpass. I stopped in at the Joyride Pizza in Pier One for a couple slices of pizza. (Tours of Discovery)

  

The Market Street approach to the loop when busses were using it during the 1950s, although this one is heading south on the Embarcadero: I’m pretty close to where the vintage photo was taken and the fire hydrant in my photo may be at the same spot as the old picture. Pier One is on the right in the vintage picture; you can just see a portion of the top of it through trees on the right in my picture. The sign in the upper left of the vintage picture is from the Ensign Cafe in the first building on Market Street of the block of buildings I mentioned earlier that were demolished. (Tours of Discovery)

  

The Ensign Cafe appears in a lot of the pictures of this area from the 1950s, and can be seen in the 1957 film ‘Pal Joey’ in a comparison picture I did years ago.

  

A streetcar approaches the loop from the south, past the old Ferry Post Office/Agricultural Building: That’s some interesting parking on the left in the old photo. It was a cloudy day yesterday, and you can just see the Agricultural Building through the trees in the photo I took from the F Line handicap platform. (Tours of Discovery)

  

Another cloudy day update of streetcars chasing each other through the loop during the 1940s: You can see the old YMCA Building on the right in both photos. (Tours of Discovery)

  

This is a cool picture of a streetcar and a bus entering the loop from Market Street during the 1950s. The first building in the background is where the Embarcadero Plaza is now. The three buildings to the left of it is now the Hyatt Regency. (Tours of Discovery)

  

I’ll close with a photo of the loop from the Market Street Railway in an update I did in 2019.

Saturday was a nice day to redo some of my 1980s slide pictures I’ve posted in the past. As I’ve mentioned in a few past posts, slide photography was very popular in the 1980s, although you had to have some type of projector to view your developed pictures. Also another plus, although I couldn’t have known it back then, slide pictures convert to CDs with much better clarity than prints. It was a picture perfect summer Saturday with events going on all over the City. These are a few redos of slide pictures I took in 1983, 1984, and 1985. (Thumbnail images)

  

Market Street at Powell around 1984. They were just beginning to start running the old streetcars along Market Street at the time. It wasn’t a bad line up, considering that I was catching the tail end of the Pistahan Parade.

  

Two ladies taking a smoke break in 1983, with Union square in the background. They may have been workers from I Magnin. This was as close of a comparison to the spot as I could get Saturday.

  

Another person enjoying a smoke and coffee break at the corner of Powell and Geary Streets in 1983. You can see the construction work on the Powell Street Cable Car Line that shut down the entire cable car system in October of 1982.

  

Powell Street in June of 1984, and the return of the cable cars after all of the lines had been shut down for 20 months.

  

Market Street at Kearny, looking east toward the Ferry Building: I think you can see Lotta’s Fountain on the left in the 1985 slide before it was remodeled back to its original size. You can just see a part of the fountain in my update.

  

The Ferry Building and the notorious Embarcadero Freeway in 1983. That street off of Steuart Street is now called Don Chee Way.

   

Steuart and Mission Streets: The historic Audiffred Building was reconstructed in 1983-1984, but I’m not sure if my slide was taken before the work was finished. You can see both the Bay Bridge and the Embarcadero Freeway in the background of the slide.

 

I don’t often read Miss Manners, but this one in the entertainment section of the San Francisco Chronicle recently caught my eye. It started me wondering about whether any of my photos have involved intrusion or invasion of privacy, as I don’t always pay attention to the reaction of people in some of my shots. At other times, I ask people if they would mind posing in some of my pictures, which to my recollection, has never made anyone uncomfortable. However, looking back through some of my posts I do remember a few times when my camera may not have been welcome. Still, for the most part, I think my picture taking is tactful and not invasive. Here is the Miss Manners letter and reply, and a few of my then and nows in answer to Miss Manners and her Gentle Reader. (Thumbnail images)

On the Proprieties of Public Photography

{DEAR MISS MANNERS: As a frequent tourist, I take lots of photos wherever I go. I try not to be intrusive, but it isn’t feasible to ask permission of anonymous people in public spaces, and U.S. courts have ruled that nobody has a right to privacy in such settings. Everyone carries a phone these days, and the number of people taking photos has increased exponentially as a result. Candid photos are much more interesting than posed photos or photos without people. Social realism is a movement in art and photography. I think it’s important to capture the people and settings that reflect our times. I do not sell them, but I share the best ones with friends. I avoid taking photos of people who appear to be homeless or mentally ill, because it seems exploitative. Perhaps what was once considered rude has become acceptable and prevalent. Perhaps there is a distinction between candid photos in public versus private settings among family, friends and acquaintances. In the latter case, it seems appropriate to share these with the people photographed, offer them copies and destroy any they deem offensive or unflattering. In foreign countries, I’ve encountered people who took offense at public photos, but never in the U.S.

GENTLE READER: Indeed, everyone has a camera. If you are photographing the public activity of our time, you must have countless pictures of countless people taking countless pictures — mostly of themselves. Yet Miss Manners feels obliged to tell you that there are also many in the United States who dislike being photographed in public and private gatherings, but feel forced into it by photographers who are not as sensitive to their feelings as you seem to be. Often, they are reluctant to speak up, feeling that they are being constantly captured by security cameras anyway. Prevalent, yes; but not acceptable to all. It is a matter of respect, not of law.}

 

I don’t think these kids on Market Street were all that thrilled about me taking their picture, but I wanted people in the match up I was doing on the Fred Lyon picture, and they just happened to wander by.

  

I don’t remember this officer at the Golden Gate Park Police Stables being all that excited when I asked him if I could take his picture to match it up with the 1950s picture from Images of America, but he obliged.

This was too good of a match up of people on a bench in Golden Gate Park to miss the opportunity, and I don’t remember anybody in the modern photo getting mad at me. I didn’t worry about the feelings of the people in the older picture

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In my eagerness to get my picture, I may have missed a mugging going at Kezar Stadium. Hope not.

You’ll usually get a wave or a smile when you take a picture of people on a passing cable car.

  

I don’t remember much about this slide picture I took in 1985 at the foot of the Hyde Street Pier, but I do remember that I thought the kid looked pretty cool just sitting on the post watching the 1985 traffic, and it’s one of my favorite pictures.

  

Haight and Cole Street in 1967: Occasionally, I share what I’m doing with people who get in my picture, and maybe the girl in the crosswalk with blue-green hair would have been interested  if I had showed her the picture of Janis on the same corner when she past by, but I didn’t.

 

Sometimes, I’m not paying attention to the people in my line up, and then I notice things, like the pretty girl with a Victoria’s Secret bag crossing Ellis Street at Powell, when I look at my photo later. (Peter Stratmoen)

  

And then, there are people who don’t mind if I asked them if I can take their picture, like these three sets, and that makes me feel good. These two were kind enough to pose for me when I showed them the older photo of Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon. The girl was named Joyce, but I couldn’t remember the fellow’s name. I hope they were able to see the post.

  

This fellow at Fisherman’s Wharf didn’t mind posing for me, (here he goes again with that corny line) he wasn’t crabby about it at all!

  

Tricia, a girl I met in the Haight on the day after Christmas in 2020, was kind enough to pose for me holding a photo taken at Haight and Ashbury Streets in 1967. She even showed me where Jimi Hendrix lived on Haight Street for awhile.

  

Still, there are some who are not that happy to see me, like this girl on Haight Street. She was a little concerned about why I was taking a picture of where she lives. When I went to show her the photo from Vintage Everyday I was updating, she just went back inside and closed the gate. Oh, well, maybe it was her mom in the vintage photo.

 

And sometimes, when you know you’re probably intruding, you just have to pretend that you’re taking a picture of something else, and look for a picture later on that closely matches yours. (opensfhistory.org)

I like this picture from the 1939 WPA Guide to San Francisco, and I wanted to see if I could find the same spot, which isn’t hard when you use Google Maps. It’s on Grant Avenue, looking south toward Washington Street.

  

Sacramento Street in 1948. It amazes me that this urban children’s playground, now named Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground has been around since 1927. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

  

Grant Avenue, next to Old St. Mary’s: I hope this Chinatown Cinderella got home before her 1956 Dodge turned back into a pumpkin. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

  

Waverly place, looking north toward Washington Street in 1965: This image is from the 1965 film ‘Once a Thief’. Amy, from the Sunnyside History Project website, enlightened me about this movie, which also features scenes from Fisherman’s Wharf, the Hyde Street Pier, and SOMA among other San Francisco locations.

  

Washington Street, west from Grant Avenue in 1973: Anybody who is familiar with San Francisco in the 1970s will remember the terrible thing that happened here in 1977 when gunmen stormed into the Golden Dragon Restaurant and shot five innocent people to death, wounding eleven others. I think I read somewhere that all of the murderers involved in this crime have been released from prison now. (opensfhistory.org)

  

Old Chinatown Lane, off of Washington Street in 1984. There was a tour guide taking people down this alley when I took my picture yesterday. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)