Chinatown, with Old St. Mary’s on the right, in 1943. (Life Magazine)
Boy, those sailor fellows sure do alright! Wow, her coat matches her hair! They’re sitting at the exact spot in 1943 where the San Francisco Main Library is today. Behind them is the Pioneer Monument which was moved farther north in 1993 when the new library was built. Behind the monument in the old photo is the intersection of Hyde and Grove. The building behind the Pioneer Monument in the 1943 picture is, actually, the Orpheum Theater. (Life Magazine)
The crew at the bridge of the World War ll submarine USS Pampanito, and the bridge today. The Pampanito saw a lot of action in the Pacific Ocean during the war.
A Gold Star Ceremony at Chestnut and Baker Streets awarded to Kenneth Campbell of the U.S. Navy who was killed in 1943. They did this a lot during the war. The arrow shows where the Gold Star was placed. The pole is still there, but the Gold Star is long gone and replaced by a No Left Turn sign. (Images of America)
Kids point to a Gold Star Marker placed at 18th and Sanchez in January, 1943 for marine Donald Gray, killed in action at Guadalcanal. (Images of America)
“When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah!” Victorious army soldiers on Grove Street in a victory march at the end of World War ll. The Owl Drug Store on the right was on the corner of Hyde and Grove Streets in the Orpheum Theater Building in the vintage picture. My photo is closer to Larkin Street because the San Francisco Main Library blocks the view of City Hall from Hyde at Grove today, (Images of America)
Pier 15 being deactivated when the war ended: “Alright babes, glad that’s over. Let’s go get a beer!” (Images of America)
Civvies line the Golden Gate Bridge to watch the arrival of Navy troop ships and war vessels coming home again at the end of World War ll. “Welcome home. Well done!”
This wonderful cover for the Saturday Evening Post ran twenty seven days after the official end of World War Two, and paints an image of a happy optimism among the returning sailors. The cable car is getting set to dip down Washington Street at Jones into Chinatown. Cable cars still take the plunge here seventy years later. I first learned of the Post Magazine cover when reading Gary Kamiya’s fine book about San Francisco ‘Cool Gray City of Love’.
This photo is of a little known and interesting incident. There had been many rumors during World War ll that a Japanese submarine had fired a torpedo at the Golden Gate Bridge in the early days after Pearl Harbor. In June of 1946, that rumor turned out to be true when an unexploded Japanese torpedo was found at Marshall’s Beach just west of the bridge. What damage it could have done if it struck the bridge or which submarine fired the torpedo has never been determined. This is not an easy spot to get down to; you can only reach this area at low tide. Sandstone steps lead down the cliff to the beach, and it’s a long and tiring climb back up! Trust me on this one! Because of its secluded and often inaccessible location, it’s also used as a nude beach. Do yourself a favor and trust me on this one too. I tried for as long as time would allow to find the exact rock in the old photo, but 70 years have passed, and much of the time many of the rocks are underwater, so it may not even look the same anymore.’. (Images of America) For more on San Francisco during World War Two, click on the link below for a series of pictures I posted in March of 2015 called ‘World War Two and the San Francisco Giants’.
To me, the most historic Bay Area film location is in sleepy little Niles, California. This is where the world came to know of Charlie Chaplin’s “little tramp”. The top image is of the Essanay Studio where probably the greatest clown in cinema history was created. The old picture was taken shortly before the studio closed. Chaplin filmed a scene of a confrontation with a policeman in his film ‘The Champion’ on the corner where the two children are standing. Today a fire station is located here.
The Hotel Wesley, where Charlie Chaplin stayed while he was filming in Niles, when he wasn’t crashing at Edna Purviance’s house down the street: This building has changed very little in over a hundred years!
Edna Purviance, on the far left next to Chaplin, was his leading lady in most of the movies he filmed in Niles, and she stayed in the house behind them while she was in town. And yes, they were horsing around, but Chaplin got bored of the Niles night life, and left for Southern California. Well, after all, it was only a one-horse town! Edna’s little house has survived, as has the building next to it where Chaplin originally premiered his movies shot in Niles.
The best movie Chaplin made in Niles was his 1915 short ‘The Champion’ with Edna Purviance. This movie was shot entirely in downtown Niles, mainly on the corner of G Street and Niles Blvd. where the Essanay Studio stood.
Chaplin wanders down G Street past the fence of the Essanay Movie Studio back lot followed by a puppy he shared his lunch with earlier in his 1915 movie ‘The Champion’, and where Charlie and his little buddy were walking today.
Chaplin confronted by a police officer in ‘The Champion’ (Look at that uniform!) and the same corner today.
Chaplin, preparing for the big fight, works out in a scene filmed in the back lot of the studio. Notice the mountain above the fence in the upper left of the Chaplin scene. You can still see it from Niles Blvd. and G Street today. I learned about the mountain comparison from reading John Bengston’s fine book ‘Silent Traces’.
After winning the big fight, Charlie puts the moves on Edna, but when they become aware of the film audience, he kisses her behind his beer jug. (That’s a nice size beer!) Incorporating the audience into the film was a relatively new gag back then.
It’s Orange Rocktober again, and the San Francisco Giants are in the Playoffs, although, as of this posting they’re down one game to nothing. So, I thought I’d put on my old Giants jersey and head to AT&T Park to do then and nows near the park courtesy of opensfhistory.org. No matter what happens tonight, The Giants will be back here on Monday, and this place will ROCK! (Look at the girl posing like the Willie Mays statue for the camera)
The Embarcadero Freeway, which once ran past the Seaboard Hotel at this location, can be seen in the top picture from the chase scene at the end of the 1958 movie ‘The Lineup’. From Rainier Ale to Regal Pale, I don’t know if that was a step up or down! In the bottom picture, Steve McQueen hides a witness against organized crime here for his protection when it was called the Daniels Hotel in 1968’s ‘Bullitt’. (It didn’t work; the hit men got to the witness, and killed him)
It’s also Fleet Week in San Francisco. Look at that line of visitors waiting to board the USS San Diego! Two of the fellows off one of the ships were kind enough to oblige me with a photo in a pizza parlor across from AT&T Park.
Cable cars pause at the intersection of Grant and California to catch their breath before chugging the rest of the way up Nob Hill. They don’t do that really, but I’d like to be a writer someday, so I thought I’d try that line out.
Finding these locations is always fun for me, but it can also be challenging, especially if the location is misidentified. Above are three great pictures taken in San Francisco on December 8th 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. Although their site is a knockout, Shorpy identifies these historic photos as being taken at Montgomery and Market Streets, and that’s not the location. Nothing matched up, nor did any of the old pictures of that intersection that I could find. The key to finding this spot was in the tall building in the distance at the center of the first comparison picture. That looked to me like the old Sir Francis Drake Hotel. If it was, then I had to find out what angle the pictures were taken from. You can’t see the Sir Francis Drake from here anymore, but these pictures were shot on the northeast corner of Sutter and Kearny looking west. I had a weird feeling standing on this corner when I took these, thinking about the people here almost 75 years ago, and what was going on in their minds.
There’s three crossroads in this shot looking down Powell Street toward Market; Geary, O’Farrell, and Ellis Streets. No, that’s not a Stud Hotel sign on the left in the vintage picture; I did a double take too. It’s an Art Studio sign behind the Hotel Stratford sign.
“Patience is a virtue”, only it’s one of the many virtues that I don’t have. Still, when it comes to getting two cable cars in the picture at the only spot where the California Street and Powell Street cable car lines cross as in the vintage photo, I had to be patient. Cable cars don’t always get here at the same time. I got a reasonable facsimile. That little pagoda on the right isn’t a convenient place to go to the bathroom, (I wish!) it’s a control box that regulates which cable car has a green light to go into the intersection before stopping to pick up or unload passengers when they get there together. The old Crest Garage that goes back to the 1920’s is still there behind the cable cars, only now it’s a parking garage.
Tomorrow is the start of Fleet Week, 2016 in San Francisco. That’s the U.S.S. West Virginia coming into the Bay before the United States entered World War ll, and the U.S.S. Iowa going out in 2012. The West Virginia was sunk at Pearl Harbor; the Iowa will, probably, be the last battleship to sail under the Golden Gate Bridge.
Incidentally, did you know that the old Cliff House, like a chameleon, would change colors during different times of the year and periods of the day? On evenings with a blazing sunset on the horizon, it would appear red like the top left picture. During the months of autumn, it would take on a brown, rustic hue, as at the top right. As the darkness of the night approached, it would turn black, like the picture in the lower left. On sunny spring mornings, the reflection from the Pacific Ocean often turned the building blue, as seen in the picture at lower right. Okay, you’ve already caught on that I’m teasing; this was how the Cliff House was painted during different periods from the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s. For more on the Cliff House click on the link below for a series of posting I did in September of 2015 about the western side of San Francisco.
New York City has Broadway, Paris has Champs-Élysées, London has Oxford Street, and San Francisco has Market Street. I’ve seen all four, but Market Street is home. It starts at the Ferry Building where reminders of the nautical and transportation center this area once was still exist, The Embarcadero, the Southern Pacific Building, the Matson Line Shipping Building, now the PG&E Building, and, of course, the Ferry Building. Moving up to Montgomery Street, this is the “Wall Street of the West” area, and where the money is. Next stop is the shopping district, where Stockton and Powell meet Market. On “Black Friday” the day after Thanksgiving, this area is more like a combination of Disneyland in the summer, Times Square on New Year’s Eve., and Mexico City during the Soccer World Cup Championships; PACKED!!! Farther up from here, you’re on your own, this is the Tenderloin. It’s often crazy, and not pretty! This spot was also once known as the Theater District with only two reminders left of San Francisco’s version of the “Great White Way”, the Golden Gate Theater and the Orpheum. Our tour ends at Civic Center. This is the hub of city government and its officials; where the really crazy people are!
Our tour starts at the Ferry Building. After World War l, cable cars stopped running on Market Street. They were replaced by streetcars and what were known as “Dinkeys”; a combination, of sorts, of a cable car and a streetcar. Here’s a Hinky-Dinkey at the Ferry Building in 1947 along with what the caption reads is a “Super Twin Motor Coach”.
A great bustling shot of Lotta’s Fountain at Geary, Market, and Kearny in 1930. In 1999, Lotta’s Fountain was restored to its original size and moved back to the original spot it was at before it was extended in 1916.
Across Market Street is the old Call Building at the beginning of the Twentieth Century and today after its 1938 remodeling. Notice Lotta’s Fountain in its original size and location.
4th and Market Street in 1945; no John Payne and Alice Faye movie, but many of the buildings across Market can still be seen today; the Phelan Building at the far left, the old First Nationwide and Chronicle Building, the two reddish buildings in the center, and the Hobart Building, just behind them.
6th and Market Streets in 1947: You can see the Flood Building through the haze of both pictures on the left across Market Street.
Two angles of a crash in front of the old, and long gone, Paramount Theater at 1066 Market in 1940: Let’s hope that the accident wasn’t serious, and that none of the cream doughnuts were damaged!
Another photo in front of the Paramount from 1939: The girl at the bus stop looks, kind of, cute! From here on out this is, not particularly, my favorite stretch of Market Street.
Jones and Market, looking toward Twin Peaks in 1939: I have no idea what that coat is that’s attacking that lady, but I hope she made it home okay!
More trouble at Jones and Market Streets! Looks like some type of accident, but it doesn’t look too serious.
A military parade at 7th and Market Streets in 1947: Dr M. O. Garten, offering free consultation, Dr. V Libkits, Dentist, Rosenberg’s Health Food Store, but I don’t see the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe. All of the buildings they’re parading past have been demolished, but the dark building in the background can still be seen on theright.
The Golden Gate Theater opened in 1922. Just about every performer in the business has been on the stage here from Judy Garland to Diana Ross. (dsoderblog.com)
Hyde at Market Street with the Orpheum Theater on the left in 1957: That looks like a hole in the left rear end of the bus. Air conditioning!
We end the tour at the Orpheum Theater at Hyde and Market Streets. This Grand Lady opened up in 1926 as a vaudeville house, and still packs them in today.
Tourism has changed the Golden Gate Bridge Promenade drastically since this 1940’s picture was taken. I think it’s a very romantic picture.
A heartbreaking image of a mother comforting her frightened child on Telegraph Hill looking toward Russian Hill and the Golden Gate just after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire:
San Francisco Police chase Buster Keaton down Powell Street past Washington in a scene similar to a Keystone Kops movie in the 1922 short film ‘Day Dreams’. It’s remarkable to me how well this location compares to today!
Fisherman’s Wharf at dusk in the 1950’s: This one was a “labor of love”; the top photo just might be my favorite San Francisco picture.
Hyde at Greenwich in the 1950’s: I should have waited for a cable car like Fred Lyon did, but I enjoyed the scenery too much.
Another Cushman Collection photo; men at work, at 3rd and Mission in the 1960’s: I like the girls at work in the modern picture too.
The Fisherman’s Wharf Lagoon in June of 1940: “Come all ye young sailor men, listen to me; I’ll sing you a song of the fish in the sea!” Behind where Alioto’s is today was the enormous gas tank that stood in Fisherman’s Wharf from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. The old picture is from the Cushman Collection of color photographs at the Indiana University.
Another great picture from the Cushman Collection of color photos from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, this one from 1953.
Hyde at Lombard Streets: To the right and out of the picture is the “Crookedest Street in the World”. When driving in San Francisco, remember, cable cars always have the right of way. By the way, that large house on the corner once belonged to Fanny Osborne Stevenson, the wife of author Robert Louis Stevenson.
This one is right in my backyard! Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland filmed a scene in Downtown Hayward from the 1973 movie ‘Steelyard Blues’. The film was not well received as it was made shortly after Fonda’s controversial visit to North Vietnam that many people resent her for to this day. Here Sutherland spots Fonda on a bus, and chases her down Mission Blvd to the B Street corner, and the same location today.
At a McDonald’s several blocks from AT&T Park, a movie line that, I think safe to say, is of historic significance, was first heard. In the fourth “Dirty Harry” installment ‘Sudden Impact’ from 1983, Clint Eastwood utters the immortal words, “Go ahead, make my day.” while punking down a bad guy. This line was so popular that President Ronald Reagan used it in referring to his veto pen if Congress presented him with any further tax increase bills. However, the restaurant was not a McDonald’s back then. McDonald’s sure spruced up the pole that was behind Clint Eastwood when he entered the restaurant!
After the April 18th 1906 Earthquake, about the only thing left standing on Nob Hill was the entrance to the A. N. Towne mansion on California Street. One year later, on April 18th 1907 when the top photo was taken, the city was rebuilding and the pillars were still there. “Well, we might as well get rid of that doorway now. Throw it out in Golden Gate Park.” Today, it’s the ‘Portals of the Past’ at Lloyd Lake. (Okay, I sneaked one of me in).
The Cliff House in 1957 in what, just might be, the best picture of the Cliff House I’ve seen. I’ve been going out there since my mom and dad first took me there when I was around eight years old, and I still go out there all the time. There seems to be a pattern here!
Barbara Lawrence looks back at the Ferry Building after arriving in San Francisco in the 1949 film ‘Thieves Highway’. From the look on her face, she had a rough boat ride! Behind her is the Southern Pacific Building, built in 1916.
Now, you didn’t think I was going to leave Chinatown out, did you? This rare early 1940’s Kodachrome picture captures Chinatown beautifully! I also got a pretty good line up on this one.
In the 2014 version of Godzilla, (the year 2014, not the 2014th time it was filmed) Godzilla wanders off into the Bay next to the Pier 7 walking pier at the end of the film after demolishing just about all of San Francisco.
This was the scene that got me started on these then and nows. I was watching the 1948 movie ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ a few years back. At the part where Orson Welles escapes from the old Hall of Justice and runs across Kearny Street to Portsmouth Square in the rain, I thought, “I know where that is! I wonder what it looks like now?” There are some fine then and now photographers, and I don’t pretend to be any better, but I don’t think anybody enjoys doing this more than I do. (Good for you if you spotted the 1948 ’99¢ Store’ on the corner of Kearny and Clay Streets)
Mason Street on Nob Hill: (Fred Lyon)
The Fairmont Hotel: (Fred Lyon)
City Lights Books, North Beach: (Phil Palmer)
The Fairmont and the Mark Hopkins Hotel: (Fred Lyon
The stretch of Market Street from Powell to Hyde used to be San Francisco’s “Great White Way”. The building left of the Woolworth’s sign was demolished for Hallidie Plaza. All of the movie palaces are gone now.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
