The Maritime Museum at Aquatic Park with Ghirardelli Square in the background in 1939: The old and now closed Art Deco restroom and snack bar is on the right. (opensfhistory.org)
The WPA built Maritime Museum opened in 1936 as a casino. Here it’s seen in a picture from 1955. (opensfhistory.org)
The steps behind the Maritime Museum with the Hyde Street Pier in the background in 1972: (opensfhistory.org)
Hyde and Beach Streets in 1971: The Buena Vista Café sign can be partially seen on the right in both photos. (opensfhistory.org)
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, in 1939 my 17 year old mother took a train from Grand Forks North Dakota to spend the summer with her cousin Frances. Here they are swimming in the Bay behind the Maritime Museum that summer. My mom is the teenager on the left, She also took a picture of “The Rock” that day. There were still some pretty rough characters out on Alcatraz at that time, including Alvin Karpis from “Ma” Barker’s gang, and “Machine Gun” Kelly.
Four images of the church: The top photo is Old St. Mary’s before the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. The church survived the earthquake in relatively good shape but was gutted by the fire that destroyed most of San Francisco, as seen in the second picture. The third photo is a rebuilt St. Mary’s in 1951 and the way the church looks today is the bottom picture
Looking down toward Grant Avenue and a burned out St. Mary’s from the south side of California Street: “Old S. F. is a place of the past.” That was probably true; the tong wars and opium cribs of Chinatown were gone, some of the corrupt politicians that ran the town would be forced out of office or put in jail, and Bank of America was founded by a. P. Giannnini. (I used to work for them so I thought I’d throw that in.) Have you spotted the goof up yet? The picture isn’t looking up California Street, but down California Street.
A photo from the Old St. Mary’s Church website shows the beginning of the rebuilding of San Francisco from the north side of California Street, although, St. Mary’s is still in ruins.
Jade Fon was a artist that I learned of when researching for this blog post. He painted a number of images around Chinatown in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but I haven’t learned the date of this painting from the CalArt.com collection I found on Pinterest. Jade took a little artistic license here with his image of St. Mary’s from Quincy Alley that runs past St. Mary’s Square between Pine and California Streets, but that’s okay. You can see Beniamino Bufano’s statue of Sun Yat-sen in St. Mary’s Square on the right in the painting. Only the pedestal of the statue can be seen through the trees from here today.
The statue of Sun Yat-sen in 1959 and today: (Vintage photo by Fred W. Clayton)
One of San Francisco’s legendary figures, “Emperor” Norton collapsed and died during the period of his “reign” In front of St. Mary’s on the corner of California Street and Grant Avenue, (then called Dupont Street) in 1880.
A painting of St. Mary’s Church looking up California Street, (this time we are looking up California Street) from 1981:
A picture at the west side of St. Mary’s on Grant Avenue taken in 1943 during World War Two from a blog entry I posted in October of 2016:
Inside St. Mary’s Cathedral in 1927: I couldn’t get a picture from the balcony because it was locked but it’s still just as impressive from pew level.
I hopped on the F Line in front of the Ferry Building, but not on this one. Like the cute girl in the old photo, I caught one going in the other direction.
I waved goodbye to the old Southern Pacific Building as we started off; it may be hours before I return!
Wow, look at all of the people at Pier 15 heading out to Fisherman’s Wharf in September of 1937! It looks like I picked the right year to go there!
I had the best spot in the house standing at the back of the old number 1895 streetcar built in Milan, Italy in 1928.
I jumped off at Fisherman’s Wharf, feeling slightly under dressed in my old Giants Jersey as compared to that femme fatale from circa 1960 in the center of the old photo.
After taking a pleasant walk around the fishing boat lagoon, I headed into Alioto’s for lunch.
The northeast corner of Masonic and Haight: Drogstore!!! They were originally called the Drugstore Cafe, but had to change their name over objections to the obvious drug use in the area. (Vintage Everyday) 
The northeast corner of Haight and Ashbury with Napoleon and Josephine: 
1418 Haight Street: Notice a lack of “Keep off the grass” signs. 
1535 (now 1541) Haight Street: I wonder if that’s her granddaughter? (Vintage Everyday)
Haight, between Cole and Schrader: I felt like taking my shoes off when I walked past here. 
During the Summer of Love George and Pattie Harrison flew to San Francisco (probably via Trans Love Airways). They walked through Haight-Ashbury to Golden Gate Park and sat with a crowd right here on “Hippie Hill”. George borrowed a guitar from one of the people gathered around them and sang a few songs. After a short time, they left, and I don’t know if George Harrison ever returned to San Francisco. The bottom photo is Hippie Hill today.
Today, on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, I visited the aircraft carrier USS Hornet CV-12 in Alameda. CV-12 was commissioned in November of 1943, nearly a year and a half after the battle of Midway, but she saw plenty of action from World War Two through the Viet Nam War. It was also CV-12 that picked up the astronauts Neil Armstrong, “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins after their historic first trip to the moon in July of 1969. The previous Hornet CV-8 which was at the Battle of Midway was lost in November of 1942. It was at this same spot that Hornet CV-8 sailed out from Alameda with the Doolittle Raiders when they bombed Japan in April of 1942.
The command center of the aircraft carrier is called “the island”, seen in the top photo in April of 1945. I was able to take a tour of the island on Sunday.
World War Two fighter planes on the aft or rear section of the flight deck in 1945 and the aft of the flight deck with San Francisco in the background from the control section of the island:
A plane lands on the aft of the flight deck during World War Two: Notice another plane in the upper right preparing to land. The bottom picture is the fore or forward section of the flight deck seen from the island.
Fort Mason from the air during the 1920’s and Fort Mason on Saturday: Fort Mason was a major embarkation point for the Pacific Theater of the Second World War, and the scope of activity that took place here during the war is hard to comprehend. (Vintage photo from OpenSFHistory.org)
The entry gate to Fort Mason in 1953: (OpenSFHistory.org)
It was here at the old Fort Mason Train Tunnel that Clint Eastwood encounters three hoods while trying to deliver ransom money in one of my favorite scenes from 1971’s ‘Dirty Harry’. The bottom photo is where Harry entered the tunnel today. There has been much talk about reopening the tunnel for bicyclists or an extension of the F Line of streetcars, but nothing has come about yet.
The unveiling of the Fort Mason stone marker in 1925: The wording is different today and I’m not even sure it’s the same stone, but it’s still impressive.
Besties in the 1950’s on the Baker Street steps in Pacific Heights:
An interesting picture showing the filming of a scene with sisters Katrin and Christine Hanson (Barbara Bel Geddes and Peggy McIntyre) walking down Kearny Street on Telegraph Hill for the 1948 movie ‘I Remember Mama’. I’m guessing that the guy looking out the window was just somebody living there at the time. (Vintage photo from Vienna’s Classic Hollywood)
Victorian besties above the old gingerbread Cliff House:
1940’s besties at the tea house in the Japanese Tea Garden. Period pictures like this are historical today; after Pearl Harbor the name of the Japanese Tea Garden was changed to the Oriental Tea Garden and all Japanese cultural artifacts were removed. The lady waiting on the two “besties” was probably Chinese. The teahouse is still inside the garden today.
Besties at the Top of the Mark:
No, these ladies at the entrance to Frontierland aren’t part of the show, that’s how people dressed in the 1950’s. Boy, people sure were funny looking in THOSE days, huh? (You can see where this is going)
President Jimmy Carter jogging through Frontierland: This picture was taken in 1982, after his tenure as Commander in Chief.
The old Skyway to Fantasyland through the Matterhorn, and the People Mover: It’s hard to believe that two people died from falling off the People Mover; It was always the slowest ride in the park! You can still see the People Mover track today.
A parade advertising the different lands to visit on Disneyland’s opening day, July 17th 1955: (Vintage photo from Omg Cute Things)
Those aren’t characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean in the top photo. That’s my mom and dad, my brother Pat, my sister Julie’s kids, Beverly, Carrie Ann, Stacy, and me on Main Street in 1981.
“Don’t try this at home!” Anybody who has driven into Yosemite National Park by way of Route 120 knows about the long tunnel you pass through shortly after entering the park. If you stop your car after exiting the tunnel and walk back about half way, there’s a side tunnel running off of the main tunnel that you can walk through to get a great view of Yosemite Valley. The bottom picture is the view from the side tunnel. Cars passing by you when you’re walking in the tunnel sound like airplanes taking off!
The Yosemite Lodge swimming pool in the 1940’s with Yosemite Falls in the background: I couldn’t get a good line up with the falls from the pool area now so I took my picture from the parking lot of the lodge. When we showed the old photo to a nice guy who works near the swimming pool area, he informed us that the old pool used to be where the parking lot is now. So there! The bottom photo is the pool today. (Period photo from Vintage Everyday)
Taking a break near some rapids along the Merced River with my brother, Kevin:
Inspiration Point from the tunnel; looks like the early 1960’s. (Vintage Everyday)
It wasn’t as busy at the Route 140 entrance to Yosemite last week as it was on this Memorial Day in the 1940’s. (L.A. Times)
The rock tunnel along Highway 140 in 1949:
“Denial is a river in Egypt.” Face it, guys, she drowned! On July 7th 1901, Sadie Schaeffer, Sadie Young, and Johnnie Van Campen went rafting down the Merced River in a small boat built by Van Campen. When they got near where El Capitan is, Sadie Young left the boat because she was nervous about the water. Shortly after, the boat overturned. Van Campen made it to shore but Sadie Schaeffer drowned in the river and her body was never found. Since she was never located, her friends put an epitaph on her grave marker in the Yosemite Cemetery that sounds a little optimistic, if not morbid! It reads, AH, THAT BEAUTEOUS HEAD, IF IT DID GO DOWN, IT CARRIED SUNSHINE INTO THE RAPIDS.
I didn’t make it up to Glacier Point this year; this was a picture from last summer. I was wondering about the girl on the ledge; might even be Sadie Schaeffer! Below, is the link to a post I did on Yosemite National Park last summer.
We requested permission to come aboard, and logged in at 6 bells. (I think that’s 11:00 AM)
Our little astrological tugboats, ‘Taurus’ and ‘Sagittarian’ pulled us away from Pier 45.
We headed out to sea and the passengers began to mingle about. That’s my brother Kevin mingling with his telephone.
I headed down into the engine room for a steam bath.
A painting on board shows what the hold of the ship where war supplies were loaded would have looked like during World War Two, and what the hold looks like today.
Our original charted course was to take us around Alcatraz, and then out past the Golden Gate Bridge for a wreath laying ceremony in honor of veterans lost. Many friends and relatives of veterans gone had brought flowers, wreaths, and ashes to place in the ocean during the ceremony. However, when we rounded Alcatraz Island and headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge the captain announced that the fog was too heavy for safe navigation, and we changed our course for China Basin, just below the Bay Bridge for the ceremony.
Things got a little tricky as we headed back toward China Basin. I was standing on deck next to one of the crew members when I heard an announcement on his communication radio, “We have an emergency!” and the Jeremiah O’Brien came to a stop in the water. That’s never a good sign! The captain announced that our engines had stalled. Don’t get too far ahead of us, tugboats!
I want to point out, though, that there was never any emergency. Our little tugboat companions on the port and starboard side of the ship kept us from drifting to or away from San Francisco. Nobody on the ship got nervous and the band playing music on deck did not start playing ‘Nearer, My God to Thee’. If you’re going to be stranded on the sea, try to have it be on an historic ship serving free and unlimited coffee, doughnuts, hot dogs, and beer!
It was decided to hold the memorial service where we were stopped. In a touching ceremony, people remembered or said goodbye to the friends and loved ones they have lost.
Afterwards, our little sidekicks stayed with us us back to port.
The Jeremiah O’Brien was at Normandy Beach during the D-Day Landings delivering supplies. In 1994, she sailed on her own steam through the Panama Canal to Europe to be part of the 50th Anniversary ceremonies. Of the thousands of ships that were part of the D-Day landings, the Jeremiah O’Brien was the only one to make it back! That’s quite a feat! In this photo aboard the ship, the crew tips their hats to a passing ship carrying the Queen of England during the anniversary ceremonies.
California Street looking toward Chinatown and Old St. Mary’s in the early 1950’s: You have to get a little farther out in the street to see the Bay Bridge from this spot now. (opensfhistory.org)
The International Settlement in North Beach in 1955: This was where all of the bawdy nightclubs and their “fallen angels” use to be located. (opensfhistory.org)
North Beach in the early 1970’s: They’re always protesting something in San Francisco. What do they have against Fresno? Pause for laughter…….. Still waiting. (Bolditalic)
Grant Avenue and Green Street in North Beach in the early 1970’s: I used to hang out a lot at Grant & Green in the 80’s and 90’s; they had some great bands playing here. (Bolditalic)
Writer Richard Brautigan and his ten year old daughter, Ianthe, on Telegraph Hill at Filbert Street in 1970: Brautigan killed himself in 1984; Ianthe is now a writer and poet, as well. (Vernon Merritt)
“Joltin’ Joe has left and gone away.” This was the spot where Joe DiMaggio’s Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant, seen here in 1954, was located. Joe opened the restaurant in 1937. (bcx.news)
DiMaggio’s Restaurant from the Fisherman’s Wharf Boat Lagoon in a snapshot my teenage mom took in the summer of 1939: You can still see four of the buildings that were in my mom’s photo.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 