“Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.”
Paul Simon was playing at the Outside Lands Festival in Golden Gate Park this weekend while I was taking these pictures. These are a few stills around San Francisco from the 1940s to the 1960s. The colors on the old pictures may not all be as brilliant as the ones in Paul’s song, but maybe they faded over the years.
A streetcar turns onto First Street from Market in the 1960’s heading toward the Transbay Terminal. Buses are returning into the new Transit Terminal this weekend, but no more streetcars. That’s the Crown Zellerbach Building with its novel turquoise blue shades in the background. (Market Street Railway)
California Street at Grant Avenue in the 1950s: You can have the patience of Job but I don’t think you’ll ever get a shot of two cable cars lining up here going up and coming down from Nob Hill. I don’t think they do that anymore; at least not while I waited. (Vintage Everyday)
Huntington Park on Nob Hill looking toward the Mark Hopkins Hotel in the 1958: (Vintage Everyday)
Grant Avenue in Chinatown between Pine and California Streets in 1965: That’s Old St. Mary’s Church in the background. The sign from the old Shanghai Low nightclub and restaurant is still there. Orson Welles stumbled past Shanghai Low’s while hiding from the police in the 1947 film ‘The Lady from Shanghai’. (etsystatic.com)
Also in Chinatown, Grant Avenue between Sacramento and Clay Streets in the late 1940s.
Looking down Clay Street from Powell in the 1950s: (Vintage Everyday)
Children at the cable car turnaround at Bay and Taylor Streets in the late 1950s: (Vintage Everyday)
Lombard Street in 1959: (Vintage Everyday)
Looking down Hyde Street between Francisco and Bay Streets in the late 1950s or early 1960s: Look at that spooky looking fog devouring Alcatraz in my picture. (theoldmotor.com)
“So what do you guys want to see, the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park, the largest sundial in the world?”
“And you brought us to this boring spot, because?”
“Hey, you said you were taking us to a famous movie location in San Francisco!”
The ‘Sudden Impact’ restaurant was still around as a McDonald’s last time I visited the spot, but it’s been knocked down now and a new building has replaced it. That didn’t “make my day”.
Here’s a picture I posted in February of 2016 showing the McDonald’s.
“Uncle Tim, this isn’t Lombard Street!”
Some of these locations were personal. The little tyke in the red jacket I took a picture of at the top of the waterfall at Golden Gate Park’s Strawberry Hill in the 1980’s is the grown up tyke with me at the bottom of the waterfall.
We took in some of the main attractions too. Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge in the summer is a lot easier than walking on the Golden Gate Bridge, and a lot more scenic. Here we were on our Red and White Fleet tour at near the same spot in the Golden Gate as the 1925 pre Golden Gate Bridge picture. (opensfhistory.org)
A celebration for soldiers returning home after World War One at Market Street and 5th in early 1919: (San Francisco History Center)
“Kiss me once, then kiss me twice, then kiss me once again. It’s been a long, long, time.”
Greenwich at Mason Streets in 1958: The passengers don’t seem too rattled.
Looking down Hyde Street at Chestnut in 1965; cable cars on the left side are heading up the hill, so the car may have slipped back after something broke off of it. You’ll have to take my word for it that Alcatraz is still out there.
Hyde Street at Chestnut looking in the opposite direction of the previous pictures in 1964: Don’t ask me what the chain reaction of this accident was, or how it came about. The truck in front may be about to tow the cable car away, or it may have caused the accident.
Powell Street at California in 1963: Cable car collisions are extremely rare here, if at all, since they put the signal control box on the far right in.
North Point Street at Hyde in 1958: I would guess that the truck driver was at fault; cable cars always have the right-of-way.
Powell Street north of Bush in 1960: Cable car brakes used to slip occasionally long ago, something that fortunately hasn’t happened in a long time, so I’m guessing that the cable car was at fault here. Interestingly, we have a bus, a taxi, a personally owned automobile, and a cable car involved in this one. The only thing missing, very fortunately, was a motorcycle.
Hyde and Washington Streets in August of 1974: A cable car derails after colliding with a pickup truck.
Powell and Jackson Streets in September of 1955:
Washington Street just up from Taylor Street in January of 1958: A cable car heading down hill hit the cement truck here, derailed, and slid twenty feet down the hill.
Washington Street west of Powell in 1953: A rare cable car rear ender.
Powell and Pine Streets, March of 1950:
Powell Street at Pine looking north in the 1950s
Powell Street at Sutter, September of 1957: It must have been Ralph Kramden driving that bus!
Powell Street north of Sutter in February of 1974: When cable cars try to sneak in the back door of the bus:
Looking down California Street toward Dupont Street, now called Grant Avenue, from Stockton Street in 1863. San Francisco is proud of its tough and not always refined past and this location typifies much of the legend. Dupont Street, in the heart of Chinatown, was a dangerous place in 1863, complete with opium dens, slave prostitution, regular shanghaiing, and murders. In 1856, San Francisco dared to build a church in the middle of this godless area, Old St. Mary’s on the left, and it’s still there; you can see it peeking out on the left in my picture. In the far back are some of the three mast ships on East Street, now called the Embarcadero, that many drugged sailors woke up in when they were out to sea after being shanghaied. (lostnewengland.com)
A streetcar turns around at the Ferry Building during the 1940s: The Ferry Building is probably the major building associated with San Francisco and ranks right next to the Golden Gate Bridge as one of the city’s top icons. To me, it’s just great to see that old streetcars still rattle past the Ferry Building. (Market Street Railway)
And what says San Francisco more than the clang of a cable car bell? Passengers are no longer allowed to climb on the cable cars while they’re being turned around like here at Market and Powell Streets in the 1950s. We used to do that too when I was a teenager. It’s not a bad regulation; there’s too many people getting on them nowadays, and someone would get hurt. (ebay.com)
The ever changing, never changing Market Street, where a green and yellow streetcar rolls past the old Emporium Department Store in 1971, and nowadays: (hiveminer.com)
Chinatown in the 1950s: The most densely populate area in San Francisco and one of the most flavorful, it remains a must see place that visitors simply do not miss when they come to San Francisco. (ebay.com)
If San Francisco citizens are anything, they’re outspoken. Regular rallies for a cause date back to before the Civil War. Here, at Turk and Fillmore Streets, was a civil rights march for African Americans in 1963.
A little bit of the Mediterranean at the Fisherman’s Wharf Boat Lagoon in the 1950s. There were a lot of boats out of the lagoon catching seafood today, but even when they’re all tucked in there isn’t nearly as many as in the vintage shot. Although Italian signs abound in Fisherman’s Wharf, The Italian and Sicilian presence is no longer prominent here. Those are the masts of the sailing ship Balclutha in the background. (ebay.com)
Artists have a special way of looking at San Francisco. This is on top of the Stockton Tunnel looking north along Stockton Street in Chinatown in a Dong Kingman painting from 1967.
Reminders of San Francisco’s connection with the sea can be found everywhere throughout the city. Here is the Maritime Museum Building, designed to look like an ocean liner, in 1939, the year that building opened. (SF Chronicle)
Construction on the Embarcadero Freeway in 1957 that would imprison the Ferry Building for over thirty four years: I wonder why they ever built that thing. (SF Chronicle)
Broadway, where the Embarcadero Freeway ended, looks like the early 60s: I wonder what San Francisco would have been like if they had completed the freeway. It was supposed to go all the way along the waterfront to the Golden Gate Bridge when it was designed. (SF Chronicle)
California Street down from Stockton Street in 1948 and a picture I took in 2017: I wonder what the House of Lee was. The building to the right of the House of Lee in the vintage photo was called the Trafalgar Building. Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Alan Ladd, and Peter Lorre, filmed a scene in that building in the 1947 film ‘My Favorite Brunette’.
I wonder what Joan was looking at? Joan Crawford and Jack Palance in a behind the scenes photo on Hyde Street near Lombard during filming of the 1952 film noir movie ‘Sudden Fear’. It couldn’t have been the tourists on Lombard Street because they hadn’t started gathering back then. The camera view is looking south toward Greenwich Street. They still had the cobblestone on Hyde Street back then. (ebay.com)
Mysterious Judy Barton (Kim Novak) thanks “Scottie Ferguson” (James Stewart) for pulling her out of San Francisco Bay in a poster scene from the 1958 movie ‘Vertigo’. The scene was in front of Scottie’s house on the northwest corner of Lombard and Jones Streets. I wonder if Alfred Hitchcock had any suspicion that he was filming what would arguably be his most studied movie, except for possibly ‘Psycho’, and the quintessential San Francisco film locations movie. (ebay.com)
Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) and Captain Sam Bennett (Simon Oakland) in front of Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill in a behind the scenes photo during the filming of ‘Bullitt’ from 1968: That’s the Bank of America Building on California and Kearny Streets going up in the background of the vintage picture. I wonder if the new building under construction on the southeast corner of Powell and California Streets will block the view from here of the B of A Building when completed. The steps leading up to Grace Cathedral have been remodeled since 1968. (ebay.com)
Powell Street climbing Nob Hill in the 1940s: The building on the right in the old picture is the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. The Starlight Room at the top of the hotel once had some of the greatest views in San Francisco, rivaling the Top of the Mark. I wonder why the Union Square Marriott built that plain looking hotel and completely blocked most of the view from the Starlight Room. How rude was that?
I wonder if they’ll ever paint the Cliff House blue with waves again like they did in 1972.
Mission and 3rd Street, looking north toward Market Street in 1937: (SF Gate)
Market Street at 5th in 1946, looking toward the old JC Penny Department Store:
Mission Street near 5th in 1948, looking west: Notice the Remedial Loan Company Building on the right in the vintage picture. That’s where Sam Spade made Brigid O’Shaughnessy hock her jewelry to retain him as a detective in the novel ‘The Maltese Falcon’. “You’ll have to hock them. The Remedial’s the best – Fifth and Mission.” Spade tells her. The Remedial’s still around, now named the Provident Remedial. (San Francisco Chronicle photo, courtesy SF Gate)
O’Farrell Street near Stockton in 1948, looking east: You can see a cable car on the old O’Farrell Line in the background. (San Francisco Chronicle photo, courtesy SF Gate)
Geary Street at Stockton in 1954, looking east: Watch out for the lol! The beloved City of Paris Store, demolished in 1979 is on the right; in the far back of both pictures is the Palace Hotel. (San Francisco Chronicle photo, courtesy SF Gate)
Roadwork on the California Street Cable Car Line at Mason Street in 1957: On the left is the Fairmont Hotel, on the right are the Mark Hopkins Hotel and the Stanford Court. (hiveminer.com)
Alfred Hitchcock filmed a scene where the cable work was being done in the previous 1957 photo in his movie ‘Vertigo’. James Stewart follows Kim Novak south along Mason Street, before turning east onto California Street around the construction area, seen here in the film.
Mason Street at Post in 1973, looking north: (SF Gate)
Mason Street near Geary in 1973, looking south and probably taken the same day as the previous picture: You can see the letters for the Mason, O’Farrell Garage, blocked by signs in my picture, on the right. (SF Gate)
Before I left I stopped by to visit the newly reopened Salesforce Transit Center, closed since September of 2018. The top drawing is an artistic rendition of what the Grand Hall would look like before the transit terminal was built. They got it pretty close. (Tes.com)
So, I had a thirteen year relative from Texas who’s never seen San Francisco before out for a visit last weekend. He wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, names that are folklore to him. Alcatraz is booked for months in advance, and the idea of visiting the Golden Gate Bridge by land on a summer weekend is a joke! I did the next best thing; I took them on a Red and White Fleet tour boat ‘Bridge to Bridge’ cruise. Most of the photos from the cruise are more of a now and then collection because I took the pictures first and searched for vintage pictures that make a close comparison afterward.
We sailed out from Fisherman’s Wharf. Among the things you can see in the top photo are the Bay Bridge, Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower, and the World War Two Liberty Ship the Jeremiah O’Brien. The bottom photo is Russian Hill and Hyde Street. The brick building at the bottom of Russian Hill is the old Del Monte Cannery. We’re going to visit there later in this post.
Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge on a Red and White tour in 1968 and on a Red and White tour last weekend: (opensfhistory.org)
The tour sails under the Golden Gate Bridge circles back and heads for Alcatraz Island. The top picture was taken in 1952. There were still a lot of tough prisoners on the “Rock” then. The penitentiary is at the top of the hill. (opensfhistory.org)
The top picture was taken in 1937. Al Capone was still out there then. In May of 1946, prisoners rioted and took over Alcatraz in a bloody two day battle. Check out the You Tube link below for a newsreel of the story. (opensfhistory.org)
The tour continued to the Bay Bridge, seen in the top photo from the 1960s, and cruised along the shoreline back to Fisherman’s Wharf. (vintagestockphotos.com)
Before we left, we stopped at the Visitors Center in the old Del Monte Cannery. I have been by here dozens of times and I’ve never stopped in to the Visitors Center. It’s fantastic; just loaded with vintage San Francisco waterfront history. The picture on the left is looking up Hyde Street from Jefferson Street in a slide picture I took in 1985. The Cannery is on the left.
The Visitors Center winds through a large portion of the Cannery with very interesting films and displays to view, much of which used to be housed at the Maritime Museum down the street.
I wonder whose baggage they were.
The last “Dirty Harry” movie, ‘Dead Pool’ made in 1988, had an assassination attempt on Inspector Harry Callahan scene filmed here. Callahan, (Clint Eastwood) steps into the glass elevator with actress Patricia Clarkson. Harry has rubbed the mob the wrong way and they’re out to get him.
Two bad guys fire hundreds of rounds from automatic weapons as the elevator descends.
They do a lot of damage to the elevator, but don’t kill Harry or the girl. Personally, I wouldn’t trust hit men who can fire guns for three minutes through glass at helpless targets and miss!
It didn’t do them any good. Harry comes out shooting and dispatches them.
All they did was mess up his tie.
The glass elevator in the Cannery is gone now. The elevator shaft where Harry and his friend almost got “the shaft” is in the background.
I started out where I entered the city yesterday, at the BART escalator near the Hyatt Regency, seen here in 1976. It looks pretty busy that day and I’ll bet that most of those BART passengers, if not all of them, paid for their tickets! (hiveminer.com)
Where the California Street cable car line comes into Market Street in 1960: (hiveminer.com)
Market Street at New Montgomery Street next to the Palace Hotel in 1966: (hiveminer.com)
This one confused me at first. It was taken at Market Street and 3rd Street, looking toward Kearny, in 1978. At the left is the doorway to the old Mutual Savings Bank Building, at the right is Lotta’s Fountain, but where is the old Chronicle Building, one of the oldest buildings in Downtown San Francisco? I did some checking; in 1962, they covered the Chronicle Building behind a steel façade to modernize it so it would fit in better with the skyscraper boom beginning in Downtown San Francisco around then. And how dumb was that! The Chronicle Building was the American Savings Building in the 1978 picture. (Flickr)
Now, I’m at the Flood Building on the corner of Powell and Market Streets. It looks like they were doing a little road work here in 1948. (hiveminer.com)
Right here is the Powell Street cable car turnaround, seen here in 1949: (hiveminer.com)
They were working across Market Street from Powell in 1948 as well, at the long gone Hale Brothers Department Store next to the Emporium. (hiveminer.com)
I turned around at 7th and Market Streets at the Odd Fellows Building. From here on, Market Street is more of a “no man’s land” until you get to Van Ness. Anyway, it seemed to me that this ten block walk was a lot easier when I was sixteen! The vintage picture was taken in 1984, around the time they came up with the idea of running vintage streetcars along Market Street. This developed into today’s Muni F and E Lines. (Dave Glass)
I first became interested in this portion of Vallejo Street in the mid 1980s after watching a movie called ‘Hell on Frisco Bay’, made in 1955 and starring Alan Ladd and Edward G. Robinson. (IMDb)
The east view along Vallejo Street on the steps between Montgomery and Kearny Streets from a slide picture I took in 1985 and now: The view from here is spectacular! The pier at the end of Vallejo Street is Pier 9.
Another slide picture I took on the Vallejo Steps just above Montgomery Street in 1985. If it wasn’t for the cars you could hardly tell the difference.
In a 1957 episode entitled ‘The Witness’ from the television show ‘Harbor Command’ Inspector Ralph Baxter tracks down a witness to a murder who’s hiding in a house on the Vallejo Steps. He goes down the steps to the house where the man is hiding to convince him to turn himself in.
Baxter goes down the steps to the house with the dark painted door on the left. The house has been remodeled and the door is painted white today.
Inspector Baxter notices a suspicious man in the doorway of a house across the street from the where the witness is hiding. Sure enough, the man turns out to be one of the gang trying to locate the witness to kill him. The bottom picture is the doorway where the bad guy was watching from.
The opposite side of the Vallejo steps from where Baxter walked down seen in the episode.
Vallejo Street between Montgomery and Sansome Streets in a slide I took from 1985. Trees block some of the view today. A house has been built now in the empty lot to the left of the van in the 1985 picture.
In a ‘Harbor Command’ episode from 1957 entitled ‘Gold Smugglers’ two dental assistants have been forging the dentist’s name to order gold that they’ve been stockpiling. They murder the doctor when he finds out what they’ve been doing. They attempt to smuggle the gold out of San Francisco. Naturally, Inspector Ralph Baxter will spoil their plans before they get too far. Here, they try to make their escape in a taxi on the Embarcadero at the foot of Vallejo Street. You can see construction work on the soon to be finished Embarcadero Freeway in the right background of the show scenes.
Now, back to Alan Ladd: In ‘Hell on Frisco Bay’, Ladd plays an ex police officer wrongly convicted of manslaughter who’s just been released from prison. He comes back from San Francisco to try to find out who framed him. Sometime around 1985 I recorded the film on a VHS video recorder, and was interested in the location of this scene. Ladd is shadowing a mob moll to locate a witness to the murder he was framed for. The movie is finally available on DVD, and I watched it again last night, probably the first time since 1985, to get my captures.
Although the location wasn’t identified in the Alan Ladd and Eddie G. movie, it was easy from the scene to track it down to Vallejo Street and Hodges Alley, between Montgomery and Sansome Streets, where I took the 1985 slide in the top picture.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 