Month: September 2026

In July of 2016 I went to the Fisherman’s Wharf area to take some comparison pictures that were taken in 1975 by photographer Peter Stratmoen. It was a fun day, and turned out to be one favorite posts. The Fisherman’s Wharf area has changed almost as drastically in the last ten years as it had from 1975 to 2016, so I went over to the Wharf again yesterday to update my post, albeit from the opposite direction than in 2016. (Thumbnail images)

  

The view southeast toward Powell Street and the Eagle Cafe in Stratmoen’s photo is impossible to duplicate now because of the Pier 39 Parking Garage. So, as I did ten years ago, I’ll take my picture from the footbridge of the parking garage that crosses over the Embarcadero. The Eagle Cafe, built in 1928, was relocated to the second level of Pier 39.

  

N. Alioto’s Captain’s Cabin Restaurant was at 155 Jefferson Street. The SkyStar Wheel is in the background of the modern picture.

  

Alioto’s, #9 Fishermen’s Grotto, and Pier 45 in 1975: Alioto’s Restaurant is demolished now, something that would have been unimaginable in 1975 or 2016, #9 Fishermen’s Grotto is closed forever, and one fourth of Pier 45 was destroyed by fire in 2020.

  

Looking south down Taylor Street from Jefferson:

  

It’s comforting to know that passing cars can still spoil your shot up Hyde street from the Hyde Street Pier.

  

Looking southwest toward Ghirardelli Square from the entrance to the Hyde Street Pier:

  

The Hyde Street Pier is closed right now for renovation. I included my 2016 photo of the pier because it made a nicer comparison than yesterday’s picture. Below is the link to my 2016 post.

Fisherman’s Wharf – 1975

Amy O’Hair is a historian and author who writes for the Sunnyside History Project. We’ve been in touch with each other on our websites, and yesterday I was able to meet her in San Francisco for a sale she was having for her new book. Amy writes mostly about history in the Sunnyside District of San Francisco, an area that I seldom have visited. One of her articles is about a forgotten San Francisco disaster in 1942 that I’d never heard of. On February 6, 1942, a mudslide due to “massive rains” and contractor carelessness caused a huge pile of loose dirt from Mt Davidson to pour down on to Foerster Street, between Teresita Blvd and what is now Los Palmos Drive, demolishing a number of houses and killing two people. I went to the spot of the catastrophe yesterday to take some comparison pictures of the photos from opensfhistory.org that Amy posted on her article, before heading downhill to Monterey Blvd and Foerster Street to say hi to her, and wish her luck on her book sale. (Thumbnail pictures)

 

Looking south down Foerster Street: The large house center right is still there, as well as a number of houses on the left side of the picture. The bottom photo is behind the house on the right where people are searching for Dora Kammer, who was one of the people killed, along with her brother-in-law Thomas Hill, who was rescued but died from his injuries several days later.

Here is the house on Foerster today where the rescuers were searching behind.

   

A house knocked into Foerster Street by the slide: You can just see the top of a house on the left in the photo through the trees in my picture.

  

This is looking southeast toward some of the houses that the slide stopped short of. The prayers the homeowners in these houses must have said that night. Where I’m standing would not have been a good spot to be at on February 6, 1942.

  

Looking northeast at more of the houses that survived the slide and are still there:

  

Another look southeast on Foerster near Teresita: Several more houses have been built on the right near Teresita Blvd.

 

This was the main comparison picture that I wanted to get. It’s looking north along Foerster Street just below Teresita. The large house at the beginning of the set is in the far background, but can’t be seen through the trees in my picture.

   

Here’s a copy of Amy O’Hair’s book. I like that endorsement! Also, here’s a link to the Sunnyside History Project article.

https://sunnysidehistory.org/2023/12/07/catastrophe-on-foerster-street-the-deadly-landslide-of-1942/

 

 

I’m old enough to remember what the area around what is now known as Levi’s Plaza was like before the plaza opened in 1981, and I first visited it in 1982; old warehouses, bordered on one side by the rusty Belt Line Railroad tracks. It had a special atmosphere though, just as the Embarcadero did, of a bypassing time. We’d walk around the area picking up discarded railroad spikes along the tracks, and on a foggy day there was a feeling that I’ll never get again. Today, there’s clean office buildings, a very comfortable park to relax and have a bag lunch in, (although the park is not as crowded on a sunny day as it used to be) and the best views of Coit Tower anywhere in town, so it’s not a disappointing change, it’s just not the same. Well, what in San Francisco is as it was when I was a teenager? These are some vintage pictures of how the area where Levi’s Plaza is used to look. (Thumbnail images)

  

A 1978 drawing of what Levi’s Plaza would look like when completed: They got it pretty close. (Wikipedia)

  

Filbert Street looking toward Telegraph Hill, circa 1950: The vintage picture is right where Levi’s Plaza is today. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Where Filbert Street used to merge with the Embarcadero in 1949: This might be one of the best vintage pictures around San Francisco I’ve seen. The photographer was Minor White.

  

My update on a 1982 picture of the western side of Levi’s Plaza sort of juxtaposes, (Am I using that word right?) the previous vintage picture. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

  

Looking southwest across Battery Street in 1958: The lower wooden portion of the Filbert Steps, visible in the 1958 picture, have been used in at least three film noir movies shot in San Francisco; ‘Dark Passage’ from 1947, ‘Raging Tide’ from 1951, and ‘The Sniper’ from 1952, all covered on my blog. This part of the wooden Filbert Steps was replaced in the 1980s. (opensfhistory.org)

  

Another great picture right where Levi’s Plaza is today, taken during the early 1950s. (Cushman Collection)

  

Looking west along Filbert Street from Battery, circa 1940: It’s kind of interesting trying to find buildings from the old picture today on Telegraph Hill. (opensfhistory.org)

 

Looking across the Embarcadero from Greenwich Street toward Pier 23 during the 1950s: This is where the northern side of Levi’s Plaza is now. The TIN ANGEL, I think I’d like to have gone in there. (San Francisco Library Digital Archives)

 

Sometime, very early in the 80s, I bought a little plastic case containing matchbooks from a large number of restaurants and nightclubs around San Francisco. I probably didn’t pay a fortune for it, maybe as much as ten dollars, but I don’t think I’d sell it today, not even for twice what I paid for it. I think I remember buying it at a gift shop in Fisherman’s Wharf. I don’t pay much attention to it, and the plastic case the collection came in is on the verge of disintegrating now, but the matchbooks are still in fine condition, although it’s unlikely that they’d spark anymore. Most of the restaurants are closed now, but some of them are still in business, and a few of them are promising to reopen someday. So, to make a short story long, I took pictures of the front and back of some of the matchbooks that I’ll post along with some pictures of the restaurants, or the locations of where they were. (Thumbnail images)

  

  

We’ll start up on Telegraph Hill and Julius Castle in the 1940s, the favorite restaurant of Samuel Spade of Maltese Falcon fame. The restaurant is scheduled to reopen soon. (opensfhistory.org)

Just south of Julius castle on Montgomery Street, half way down the Filbert Steps, is the Shadows. Shadows went out of business in the early 1990s, and look at that great menu cover! (vintagemenuart.com and Flickr)

Let’s head down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Alioto’s and # 9 Fishermen’s Wharf Restaurants, they went together like fish and white wine. Alioto’s is gone now, and it’s unlikely that the Grotto will ever reopen. What a pretty couple they made.

  

Aw, the magic of Fisherman’s Wharf to me was mostly #9 Fishermen’s Grotto at dusk. The vintage picture is from 1975. (Peter Stratmoen)

  

Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto in 1949: (opensfhistory.org)

 

And a twilight photograph from an old souvenir book that I’ll never be able to duplicate again.

  

In May of 2025, I did an update of a Vintage Roadside photo looking north past the intersection of Jefferson and Taylor Streets. Over Labor Day weekend, I updated that update; note the gap where Alioto’s used to be.

  

Tarantino’s Restaurant, seen here in 1960, will never reopen either. Curiously, they spelled Fisherman’s Wharf wrong.  (opensfhistory.org)

 

On that somber note, we’ll head over to the Buena Vista Cafe, alive and still kicking. My update of the matchbook cover I have, and and an ebay.com poster of it, doesn’t quite add up, but it’s not bad.

  

  

We’ll hitch a ride on MUNI #30 down Columbus Avenue, and get off at Bimbo’s 365, one of San Francisco’s oldest nightclubs. I’ll bet that matchbook may be a collector’s item someday. The vintage picture is from 1970. (San Francisco Digital Library Archives)

  

   

Heading into Downtown San Francisco, and a stop at 65 Post Street, where the Old Poodle Dog Restaurant used to be. In 1957, four holdup men held the diners in the restaurant hostage during a holdup, while police surrounded the building. The bad guys got away, but two of them were later caught. The vintage photo is from Hannah Clayborn’s book ‘Historic Photos of San Francisco Crime’.

We’ve moved down to the Embarcadero to try to locate where Earthquake McGoon’s was when I bought my matchbook covers. It used to be at 630 Clay Street, as seen in the vintage photo of the Turk Murphy Jazz Band from the Stanford University Library but had moved to 128 Embarcadero by the 1980s. (ebay.com) There is no longer a 128 Embarcadero, and AI says that would have been located across the Embarcadero from the YMCA Building. I don’t always trust AI, but if so, that would be about where the bottom photo I took is.

  

Heading north a block and a half, and we’ve come to where Sinbad’s Restaurant was. The first photo is looking toward the Sinbad’s sign in an update of a 1987 picture I took of my sister and nieces. The Embarcadero Freeway is on the left in the older photo. The second picture is Supervisor Dianne Feinstein with the owners of Sinbad’s when it opened in 1975. (San Francisco Library Digital Library Archives) Sinbad’s Restaurant closed in 2016, an was demolished for the new Ferryboat Terminal in the bottom picture.

  

  

We’ll double back to Union Square and Maiden Lane. The only vintage picture I could find of the Iron Horse Restaurant in Maiden Lane was a 1990s photo from the San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. This was where Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had their wedding reception in 1954. The Iron Horse is still open today.

  

   

Now we’re at Geary Street and Van Ness. Ah, the legendary Tommy’s Joynt, Johnny Carson’s favorite, as well as many other celebrities. The vintage picture is from 1981. (SF Library Digital Library Archives)

  

We’ll head west to the Pacific Ocean for the deliberate finale. I still believe that the Cliff House Restaurant will be open again someday, just like I believe that the San Francisco Giants will be in the Playoffs again someday. I was never completely happy with the New Millennium remodeling, but like baseball again, any team in the World Series is better than no World Series at all, and any Cliff House is better than no Cliff House.

  

The Cliff House in the 1950s: I’ve lost the source of the vintage picture, my apologies.

  

An untrue blue view (kind of stumbles along) of the Cliff House, and an update I did from Sutro Heights in 2018: (Everyday Life in the Western United States)

  

By the time the Cliff House closed for remodeling in 2003 it had three great Gift Shops. The one on hand after the 2004 reopening wasn’t too bad, but not the same. I’ve lost the source for this vintage photo too.

  

I’ve never had an unhappy visit to the Cliff House, but the dismal visit I took in January of 2025 was the least happiest. The vintage 1960s picture from ebay.com is of the Cliff House I loved the best.