Month: October 2025

On August 7^th 2010, the Transbay Terminal that opened in January of 1939 closed forever. It was completely demolished by September of 2011, and was replaced by the Salesforce Transit Center. From this bus, and one time train, terminal, my friends and I would discover San Francisco, starting at age 14 in high school. We would take the long bus ride from Castro Valley, and from here we discovered Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Playland-at-the-Beach, the Cliff House, Golden Gate Park, Telegraph, Russian, and Nob Hills, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Embarcadero, and all of the rest of the wonderland of San Francisco. Because it was a special place to me, I brought my digital camera over on the last day of the operating terminal, and took as many pictures of the outdated Transbay Terminal as I could get. Yesterday, I looked through the San Francisco Library Digital Archives and the UC Berkeley Library Archives to find pictures that matched as close as possible to the pictures I took fifteen years ago. After the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, extensive retrofitting was done to the Transbay Terminal, so you’ll see a lot of columns in my pictures that weren’t in the vintage photos. (Thumbnail images)

  

The intersection of Mission and Fremont Street, looking toward the terminal in the 1950s and August 7^th, 2010: (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

Looking east from 1^st Street in August of 1953: (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

Looking toward intersection of Mission and 1^st Streets in June of 1958: (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

Finishing up work inside the Transbay Terminal in October of 1938: : (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

January 14, 1939, the first trains arriving at the Transbay Terminal: (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

  

Not the same stairs, but possibly the same level these two socialites from Berkeley are descending to in 1939. (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

I don’t remember the downstairs bench area for passengers waiting for a bus or train being that claustrophobic. The vintage pictures was in June of 1939. (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

  

A Key System train in 1939,. and a bus in 2010: (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

  

A long line to board a Key System train in June of 1948: (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

Passengers in July of 1953 board the Zephyr Train from the Key System Train Service that ran back and forth to and from the East Bay along the Bay Bridge. (SF Library Digital Archives)

  

The approach into the terminal by both train and bus came through this portion of the building. I don’t know what the bus back up in the undated vintage photo from the SF Library Digital Archives was all about.

  

Crowds lining up to board modern and outdated buses in 1973, and a lone figure boards a near empty bus on August 7^th 2010: (SF Library Digital Archives)

 

One for the road; June 15^th 1939, August 7^th 2010: (UC Berkeley Library Archives)

This post is about construction work in progress around Market Street in the past. Hold on….. I’m working on getting the job done, but the post is under construction, and it might not turn out to be all that it was built up to be. Groan! Actually, the post might not be too thrilling to some of my readers, (“Construction work!”) but to me, it was a challenge. This was one of the most difficult posts I’ve ever worked on! Lining these pictures up was a problem for various reasons; the same spots for some were difficult to pin down, a number of them were shot from out in the street, which can be dangerous to try to duplicate, the lighting wasn’t always good, and one of them I had to go back and redo because I was in the wrong spot. I’ll post them in the order I took them, from Spear Street to Van Ness Avenue. (Thumbnail images)

  

The Hyatt Regency on Market and Drumm Streets, going up in the early 1970s: (San Francisco Digital Library)

  

This was the one I had to redo. It’s on Market Street, east of 2^nd Street in 1968. My first take was west of 2^nd. Like many of the vintage pictures in this set, it was taken during the construction of BART. The Ferry Building, Southern Pacific Building and what you can see of the PG&E Building in the far right background line up pretty good. You can make out part of the blue-green curtained Crown Zellerbach Building in the center. Most of the buildings on the left are still there, but can’t be seen behind the trees in my photo. The vintage picture is from the San Francisco Digital Library collection of James A. Martin photos from his great sfmemory.org site.

  

Looking toward Market Street and the Hobart Building from 2^nd Street in 1970: (San Francisco Digital Library)

    

Looking south down 2^nd Street from Market Street in 1970: One block down, you can see several of the buildings on the corner of Mission Street and 2^nd that are still there. The Clock Tower Building at Bryant and 2^nd Streets is in the far background of both photos. (San Francisco Digital Library)

  

Looking east from New Montgomery in March of 1970. The Hobart Building across Market Street is on the left. (San Francisco Digital Library, James A Martin)

  

Looking across Market Street toward the Palace Hotel in 1913: I don’t know what was going on then, but it wasn’t BART construction. (opensfhistory.org)

  

Looking west along Market Street near Grant Avenue in 1973: (San Francisco Digital Library)

  

Looking north along Powell Street from Market Street in March of 1968: The Flood Building is on the right, across from Number 1 Powell Street, and the Sir Francis Drake (Beacon Grand) Hotel is in the far background of both pictures. (San Francisco Digital Library, James A Martin)

  

Market Street at 8^th Street in October of 1967: (San Francisco Digital Library, James A Martin)

  

Market Street at Van Ness Avenue in May of 1971: I wish I would have gotten better lighting for this one. From 1968 until 1961 the Carousel Ballroom was named Fillmore West, with some great rock and roll venues from concert promoter, Bill Graham. You can see Twin Peaks in the far right background of both photos. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Some I won’t, and some I can’t. (Thumbnail images)

  

I took this picture in December of 2015 of Market Street at Drumm. The older picture is from a now defunct Facebook page called Vintage Facebook. I got just about every mode of transportation traveling on Market Street in my photo; Waymo wasn’t available yet. The 50 on the Ferry Building was celebrating the upcoming Super Bowl in February of 2016 at Levi’s Stadium. The 60^th Super Bowl will be back at Levi’s Stadium in February of 2026.

  

I knew that I couldn’t safely get a good line up picture of Dustin Hoffman diving across the Bay Bridge in the ‘Graduate’ if I was driving, so I asked my kid to ride along and take the shot when I said “Now”. I got into the same lane as in the movie, and at the right spot when I called it, he got it perfectly.

  

I got about as good of a comparison of this 1960s picture of California Street climbing Nob Hill where “little cable cars climb halfway to the stars” as I’m ever going to get.

  

This tinted 1851 daguerreotype was taken toward the Bay from where the Hills Brothers Coffee Building is now. I wondered whose silhouette is in the old picture; something I will never know. Nor will ever be known whose silhouette is in my photo. I didn’t set that up; she just walked by in the shadows when I snapped my picture. I enjoy little breaks like that.

   

I can still dodge traffic and run across the Great Highway at Point Lobos Avenue to get another update here, but it won’t read ‘Cliff House’ anymore.

(Addendum, 11/12/2025: The owners of the copyright to the Cliff House name, Mr. and Mrs. Hountalas, have donated the Cliff House name to the Western Neighborhoods Project, and the name will be restored to the building. I may do an update of this one after all.)

  

I had to climb down a gully at Dolores Park to get this update, and also, had to be very careful and alert so that I didn’t become a MUNI J Line streetcar casualty.

  

The spot in the end zone where Dwight Clark made “The Catch” thrown by Joe Montana on January 10, 1982 at Candlestick Park. The play put the 49ers in the Super Bowl and started a football dynasty. My picture was during a tour in 2014 of the stadium shortly before they demolished it. Both Dwight and Candlestick Park are gone now.

  

Since I took this update in 2018 of the old Hap Jones Motorcycle Shop on Valencia Street in 2018, they’ve demolished the structure and put up another very boring looking building.

  

I’ve never been able to get a good line up with vintage pictures of the northwest view from the Top of the Mark at “Weeper’s corner”. Recently, I found a picture in my computer that I took of some friends up there in 2015. I compared it up with some of the vintage pictures I had of the view, and it matches up about as good as I’m ever going to get.

   

A few years back, a friend of mine named Nora asked me if I could help locate where this picture of her mom and dad in San Francisco in the 1940s had been taken. She remembered her mother telling her the photo was taken in San Francisco, but not where. Nora sent me the picture and we were able to identify where they were walking. Based on the Union Furniture Building and Weinstein’s Department Store across Market Street, and the shape movie theater marquee behind them, they were walking past the Warfield Movie Theater at 982 Market Street. Nora and I did some more detective work recently, and the movie showing at the Warfield was ‘The Kid From Brooklyn’, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, which premiered at the theater on July 24^th 1946, dating the year of Nora’s picture for us. No need to do this one again.

  

I would probably redo this photo of my 17 year old mom, on the left, with her cousin, Frances, sitting on the old Sloat Blvd entrance to Fleishhacker Zoo, every time I have visiting relatives. However, they closed and fenced off that old entrance in 2012.

Me and ‘Danny’ out at Ocean Beach near the end of his run. I’d redo this one tomorrow, if I could.

I took a walk east along Market Street from 9^th Street to 4^th Street to photograph the locations of the movie theater palaces that lined both sides of this portion of Market Street from the beginning of the 20^th Century until most of them were closed and demolished by the 1970s. It’s fascinating to think what this area must have been like, especially on Saturday afternoons during that period. This stretch of Market Street is boring at best now, and often uncomfortable to walk along, but here long ago with its fashionable department stores, clean sidewalks, and a host of movies to select from, was the area for the residents, not the tourists (Thumbnail images)

  

I started at 1350 Market Street, and where the Fox Theater, probably the most beloved San Francisco movie theater, used to be. Demolished in 1963, it’s where the Fox Plaza is now. (Vintage picture from the SF Chronicle)

  

Mentioned in the Gelett Burgess poem, ‘The Ballad of the Hyde Street Grip’ and destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, the rebuilt Orpheum Theater at 1192 Market Street is still around and has a performing arts only venue now. (blogspot.com)

  

In spite of efforts in the 1990s to keep it around, the Embassy Theater at 1125 Market Street was demolished in 1994. (SF Gate)

 

Across from Jones Street, the United Artists Theater at 1077 Market Street, originally the Market Street Cinema, was demolished in 2016. The Centre Theater next to the United Artists Theater at 1073 Market Street survived as a film theater until 1987. The third theater seen here in the group was the Guild Theater at 1071 Market Street. Like the Centre Theater, it closed in 1987 and is currently vacant. The small building the Guild was in is to the right of the streetcar in my photo. The Centre was in the building with the fire escape next to it. (Reddit)

  

Another masterpiece, the Paramount Theater at 1066 Market Street, closed in 1965 and was demolished that year. (opensfhistory.org, outsidelands.org)

  

Once owned by Howard Hughes and with live appearances from notable stars like Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland, the Golden Gate Theater at 1 Taylor Street is stage only venue now too. (blogspot.com)

  

The building that the Warfield Theater was in at 982 Market Street has survived and the Warfield now has a music only venue. (blogspot.com)

   

Both the Esquire Theater at 936 Market Street and the Telenews Theater at 930 Market Street closed in the late 1960s and were demolished in 1972 to create Hallidie Plaza. You can see the #1 Powell Street Building in the background of both pictures. (sanfranciscostory.com)

   

The little State Theater at 787 Market Street, at 4^th and Market Streets, was as far east along Market Street that the theaters got, I think. It closed in 1954, and was demolished in 1961. (SF Chronicle)