About thirty miles southeast of San Francisco is another Bay Area town as dear to my heart as San Francisco. It’s the town I grew up in, Castro Valley. The Castro Valley News Facebook page has some terrific vintages pictures of Castro Valley on their site, and on Easter Sunday I got a chance to drive and walk along Castro Valley Blvd. to do some then and nows on some of the many photos on their page. A lot of these pictures bring back special memories to me of a town that was fun to grow up in.
On the western side of Castro Valley Blvd. is the McDonald’s, opened in the 1960’s and still there today, although, the original “Golden Arches” are long gone.
What you’re looking at here was about all there was to Castro Valley Blvd. in the 1930’s; the section between Lake Chabot Road and Stanton Avenue. Some of the buildings in the old photo are still there.
Opened in 1949, the Chabot Theater is still drawing them in today. Watching a film here is like stepping back in time. I sat through a lot of double features here as a kid, when such a novelty existed.
Across the street from Chabot Theater was one of our hangouts in the 70’s, Jenna’s Pizzeria. They had a room with pool tables and a small bar in back of the dining room, and a pretty girl named Sue who made sure your beer pitcher was never empty.
The southeast corner of Castro Valley Blvd. and San Miguel: No, this isn’t a scene from ‘That 70’s Show’.
Directly kitty-corner from the previous picture on the northwest corner of the intersection is this view of a 1976 Bicentennial celebration. On the far left was Winchell’s Donuts, THE place for coffee and donuts in Castro Valley for many years.
Another sad memory when walking along the Blvd. today is the old Daughtrey’s Department Store; closed in the early 1990’s. Across the street at center is the Castro Village, opened in 1948 and a world in itself.
And, of course, Castro Village; designed with the look of an Alpine village, which new developers are sadly getting rid of as much as they can. The toy shop, variety store, and ice cream parlor were “the stuff that dreams are made of” when we were kids. This view is the corner of the Village at Santa Maria and Castro Valley Blvd in the 1970’s and today.
Ah, the old Red Barn Restaurant, our hangout when I was a junior in high school. We usually never had enough money for more than a a coke and a bag of French fries, but we’d sit there for hours and nobody working there minded. It’s now called Norman’s Restaurant.
We’ll end up on the eastern side of the Boulevard and another wonderful memory for me. This building opened up as Value World. They had everything there; a sporting goods section, a snack bar, a grocery store, anything you could want! I remember spending nearly an entire day in the 8th grade walking around Value World with a girl that I had a crush on named Cindy. I’m sure I spent all of my money on her, but I probably didn’t have more than a dollar anyway! It’s now a Rite Aid, and I still think about that day and Cindy every time I go in there.
We’ll start at the Bay Bridge and end up on Twin Peaks. This slide is from 1983. AT&T Park and the San Francisco Giants turned this run down area into one of the most popular places in the City. In fact, people were already heading out to park this morning to watch the Giants play the Los Angeles Dodgers when I took the contemporary picture. The Giants won 4 to 2!
I’m not positive where I took this 1983 picture of the South of Market area, but it was probably on Spear Street between Harrison and Folsom. The pile drivers have long since conquered this area so I had to move down to Folsom to get a reasonable comparison. The white building in the center of the vintage picture is on the corner of Fremont and Mission Streets. This building is to the right of the enormous Sales Force Building in the center of today’s shot and blocked by other buildings now. That’s the Fmbarcadero Freeway stretching across my 1983 picture.
Market Street at New Montgomery with the Palace Hotel on the right: I think I took this one in 1985. The tall Building in the background of both pictures is the old Pacific Bell Building, for many years the tallest building south of Market street.
This is at Bush Street above the Stockton Tunnel looking down toward the Financial District in 1985. The tall building in the center is the Russ Building on Montgomery Street. Just a few yards behind where we’re looking is Burritt Alley where Brigid O’Shaughnessy shot Sam Spade’s partner Miles Archer in ‘The Maltese Falcon’.
This is a zoom in shot up Mason Street and Nob Hill near Ellis in 1985. This used to be a pretty bawdy section of town; I’m surprised I didn’t take more pictures in this area back then! My digital camera doesn’t zoom is as well as my trusty 1980’s Canon Camera did, (I still have it) but I gave it a try. That’s the parking garage on the corner of Mason and O’Farrell on the left.
Market Street west of 10th in 1985: The old Seals Stadium sign on the streetcar gives the vintage picture a nice touch. Gawd, I’m referring to the 80’s as vintage! This was around the time they started running old streetcars along Market Street.
This 1985 slide that I took from Twin Peaks matched up pretty good with a 1960’s picture taken by Michael Bry.
These scenes are from the epilog of the last episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ that Michael Douglas costarred in. In the fifth and final season, Douglas was becoming very successful in Hollywood and decided to leave the series. In a two part episode that opened the season and featured many guest stars including Patty Duke, Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) decides to retired from the police force after being grievously wounded, (for about the 20th time) to become a teacher. Michael Stone, (Karl Maldin) pulls up at Broadway and Taylor Street to let Keller out where he lives. This is a different address than his Telegraph Hill address shown in all of the previous episodes. Also in the car is his replacement Inspector Dan Robbins played by Robert Hatch.
This scene is looking down Broadway from Taylor Street toward the east entrance to the Broadway Tunnel.
Stone and Keller say their goodbyes. I was getting kind of sad watching this part!
And so Keller wanders off into the sunset, except that he’s heading east. The show was not popular after Douglas left and folded at the end of the season. That’s a Mason Street Line cable car passing by down the street in the three images.
We’ll start on the southwest corner of Mission at 1st Streets. Across from where I’m standing a Walgreen’s Drug Store now occupies the spot in the building where a Foster’s Restaurant once was located.
A short ride on the #1 Muni Line from the previous picture will take you up Sacramento Street to Joice Alley between Powell and Stockton streets in Chinatown. Cable cars don’t climb Nob Hill up Sacramento Street anymore like in the vintage picture from the early 1900’s, but Muni # 1 does, and is about the easiest way to get up Nob Hill.
Half a block up Sacramento from Joice and two blocks left down Powell and you’re at the intersection of Powell and Pine Streets where this picture from the 1950’s was taken. It’s a lot easier walking DOWN Nob Hill! (Americathebeautiful.com)
Powell Street heading south down Nob Hill flattens out at Sutter Street where this 1951 picture looking west along Sutter from Powell was taken. The Hotel Cartwright is still there. (SF Chronicle, SF Gate)
If Bonnie and Clyde would have reached retirement age: (They were jaywalking) This picture is looking west along Mission Street toward 5th Street. The building with the clock in the background is the San Francisco Chronicle Building on the southwest corner of Mission and 5th Streets. (SF Chronicle, SF Gate)
A block and a half back to Powell and you can catch a cable car for a late afternoon lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, although I took this picture in March. The cable car line at Powell and Market Streets wasn’t long at all on this “helluva” nice spring day today!
Well, the 2018 tax season ends today. I’m thinking of dying my hair to cover up the additional gray that developed since January. The computer system of the Internal Revenue Service Department crashed yesterday, so the tax season was extended to today, April 18th, the one hundred and twelfth anniversary of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire in San Francisco. There’s probably significance here, the IRS shakes up a lot of people too. Now I can get back to doing something that’s more fun than telling people, “I’m sorry, you’re not going to get a refund this year!” and that’s blogging. In honor of the occasion, I headed over to Market Street to do a couple of 1906 Earthquake pictures.
This photo is at Market and Battery Streets looking west. The damaged Call Building and the destroyed Palace Hotel are at the left center. You can still see the rebuilt Palace Hotel and the remodeled Call Building, now called the Central Tower, from here today. (Vintage photo, SF Chronicle)
This is looking east on Market Street near 5th. The Flood Building at Powell and Market Streets is at left center. The Call Building on the right, prominent in the vintage photo, is behind the domed Humboldt Building built after the earthquake. The Ferry Building, seen in the old picture, is blocked out by the white freight truck in my photo. (SF Chronicle)
Recently, I unrolled an old poster that I’ve kept in various closets since Gerald Ford was President. I remember when I bought it long ago I was impressed by the novelty of how all of the buildings in the Downtown San Francisco area had been drawn into it. If you can zoom in on it close there’s a lot of interesting things to see on the difference between San Francisco today and in 1974. At the lower right near the Ferry Building is the Vaillancourt Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza. Notice that only two buildings of the Embarcadero Center had been built then. The Embarcadero Freeway can be seen. Moving along Market Street from the Ferry Building so many new buildings have gone up in Downtown San Francisco since then. The Bank of America Building and the Transamerica Pyramid, the two tallest buildings back then, can be seen. Union Square was mostly covered by grass. The old Belt Line railroad still ran along the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf. Major tourist attractions like Coit Tower and Lombard Street are easily found, and to the right of Fisherman’s Wharf Pier 43 with the Balclutha docked to it was still there. Pier 39 had not been turned into a tourist attraction yet.
Turk, Mason and Market Streets after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire:
Sutter Street between Powell and Stockton Streets in the early 1950’s:
Grant Avenue at California Street during World War Two with Old St. Mary’s Church on the right:
Downtown San Francisco during the 1906 Earthquake and Fire:
It always amazes me that Charlie Chaplin stumbled down these exact steps on Alice Street in Oakland one hundred and three years ago in his movie short ‘A Night Out’ from 1915.
California and Powell Streets during the 1950’s:
Grant Avenue at Filbert Street in the 1952 movie ‘The Sniper’:
Humphrey Bogart on Hyde Street at Greenwich in the 1947 film ‘Dark Passage’:
The Cliff House from Sutro Heights in 1949: Actually, you can barely see the famous restaurant from here anymore because of the overgrown trees.
Powell Street at O’Farrell Street during the 1950’s:
Dong Kingman was a Chinese American artist who first gained recognition as a Works Progress Administration painter during the 1930’s. Wikipedia writes of him as “one of America’s leading watercolor masters.” In 1967, “Kingman”, as he preferred to be called, co-created a book about San Francisco along with columnist Herb Caen entitled ‘San Francisco – City on Golden Hills’. In the preface Caen writes, “It is entirely appropriate that Don Kingman should be my collaborator on this book, for San Francisco – the city of his heart and mine – has been spiced and enriched by the strong flavor of China ever since it came of age as a world metropolis.” The text by Herb Caen is accompanied by paintings from Dong of a modern San Francisco, many that now seem nostalgic. Dong Kingman died in May of 2000. These are then and nows of some of his paintings from the book.
California Street, looking down toward Chinatown and Old St. Mary’s Church before the skyscraper boom of the late 1960’s:
Maiden Lane, looking toward Stockton Street and the St. Francis Hotel: Dong has the Dewey Monument in Union Square a little closer to the south side of Maiden Lane than reality, but that’s art.
Market Street at the Embarcadero across from the Ferry Building looking south: Some of the structures in the background are the Bay Bridge, the Embarcadero Freeway, and the YMCA Building. The block of buildings where the Ensign Café was at were demolished at the end of the 60’s.
You can see the Ensign Café in a scene from the 1957 film ‘Pal Joey’ where Frank Sinatra dodges from the police across the street at the Ferry Building.
Candlestick Park before it was enclosed in 1971 to accommodate the San Francisco 49ers football team moving in:
Another view of Candlestick Park from the hill behind it taken during the year it was demolished in 2015. Ah, what fun we had at that place, family and friends!
When you stand on Hyde Street between Chestnut and Bay Streets looking toward the Bay and Alcatraz Island, you’re looking at one of the most beautiful views in San Francisco.
Ocean Beach at the Great Highway, looking toward the Cliff House and the long gone Playland-at-the-Beach: Playland was where the condominiums on the tight are today.
The eastern side of the now remodeled Broadway Tunnel on the edge of Chinatown: That’s a Mason Street cable car, a line that still exists, passing by on the right in Kingman’s painting.
Flat Stella at the Cliff House: She got kind of messed up when I threw her in the Pacific Ocean, but she was better later on after she stopped coughing.
Stella in Chinatown: I told her that the Chinese are very big on paper ornaments so if she didn’t behave herself, I’d sell her into paper slavery.
Stella at the Palace of Fine Arts: Stella said to me that the lady in the old picture was weird looking. I said to her “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
Stella at the oldest church in San Francisco, Mission Dolores: Stella asked me who Dolores was. I just told her that she was Father Junipero Serra’s big sister.
Stella at the Golden Gate Bridge: Stella was really impressed with the bridge, and she asked me if it was real. Everybody started laughing at her, and I kind of felt sorry for her!
Karl Malden played Inspector Michael Stone and Michael Douglas played Inspector Steve Keller. They got along just as well with each other as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin did in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and saved each other’s life about as often. Here they are at the old Rustic Bridge at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. In the dialog at this point Malden is saying, “It’s so peaceful, we should come here more often.” This is about one of the most peaceful spots in San Francisco. The path is different and there are more trees here now.
They walk along Stow Lake past the bridge for awhile.
In one episode Steve Keller actually sleeps with one of the costars. That was a rarity! However, they didn’t live happily ever after. The girl he’s sleeping with, Brenda Vaccaro, turns out to be a hit lady for the mob who’s killed at least ten people. Somehow, that’s not a turn off to me! Maybe, it’s a “guy thing”. At the end of the episode, she goes to the Palace of Fine Arts to make another “whack”.
This was about where she was sitting.
Keller confronts her after the killing at the Palace, and finds out who she is. He hesitates shooting her. Well, that’s love!
Papa Cop, Stone, pulls up here on Baker Street just in the nick of time.
Stone prevents her from spoiling every good memory Keller had of her, and she’s off to jail.
Now, off to Mission Street and the Embacadero under the old Embarcdero Freeway where there’s Salvation Army Band playing music to the winos in the area. This may have been one of the corny moments I was telling you about.
A miserable drunk stumbles across the Embarcadero. Oh, wait, that’s not polite! I mean, an intoxicated homeless person finds comfort in the bottle while living on the streets.
Why, it’s Leslie “Don’t call me Shirley” Nielsen! Nielsen plays an alcoholic cop who accidentally gets his partner killed while drunk on the job.
“Well, time for a little R&R!” They sure tidied this spot up today. That’s the old YMCA Building in the background.
Hot on the scene of another murder, the boys pull into the old Brocklebank Apartments on the northeast corner of Mason and Sacramento Streets, Nob Hill. The entrance to the Brocklebank is very similar to the entrance of the Mark Hopkins Hotel.
Keller heads across California Street from the Mark Hopkins Hotel to a telephone booth.
“Welcome to Tenderloin Travel.”
There was some type of busy terminal here once but it couldn’t have been an airport. The “Airlines Terminal” sign may have been doctored for the episode. There’s a Hilton Hotel here now.
As the boys say goodbye to Stefanie, we’ll say goodbye to the boys. Karl Malden is dead now, and I don’t read much about Michael Douglas’s health nowadays. I hope he lives as long as his dad has.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 