Lately, to myself, I’ve been referring to my picture taking trips as to being “out in the field”. It sounds a little James Bondian, although, I don’t look like James Bond, and my trips in the field aren’t usually as precarious as Bond’s. Still, I do seem to capture what looks like an occasional SPECTRE agent in some of my pictures. Going out in the field often leads me to Chinatown, as intriguing and mysterious of a place as any Bond has visited. (Peter Stratmoen)
It’s hard to tell the SPECTRE agents from the tourists in Chinatown because it’s so crowded! (Peter Stratmoen)
Trips out in the field can bring me to the same place over and over, especially, if it’s one of the most photographed locations in San Francisco like the Powell Street cable car turntable. (The Vintage Everyday site)
When in the field I regularly scout for out of the way book stores looking for San Francisco lore. Sometimes, I can’t believe what some stores let get away; like two books I recently found. Here, is a 1949 autographed copy of Herb Caen’s most famous work, ‘Baghdad-by-the-Bay’ with its terrific San Francisco Chronicle illustrations like this one of Pacific Street when it was the International Settlement. Was it really like that?
Also, another find is a book that I just recently learned about, ‘Laughter on the Hill’ by Margaret Parton with wonderful 1940’s style drawings. Margaret writes about a year she spent in San Francisco just before Pearl Harbor, and although her adventures are often banal by today’s standards, she, obviously, loves San Francisco, and her colorful descriptions of the City during this period are a delight to read. The inscription from Margaret herself reads, “To Dorothy – who really began this book – with all love and gratitude from Margaret.” May 21, 1945. That taxi driver in the cartoon certainly is giving Margaret a helping hand!
Being out in the field would be a lot easier if I moved into San Francisco. Here’s a nice place! I’ll just knock on the door and see what they want for it. That’s the Haas-Lilienthal House at California and Franklin Streets then and now.
Powell Street near Ellis: When morning trips in the field take me to this area, there’s a place right across the street from where you’re looking called Tad’s Steak House serving delicious and modestly priced breakfasts. I try to plan as many trips in the field around this area as possible. (Vintage picture from Randy Shaw’s book ‘The Tenderloin’)
Being out in the field in Golden Gate Park can sometimes involve an encounter with an apparent offspring of ‘Kronos’, the “Planet Robber” from outer space!
Trips out in the field usually involve stepping into the past, and no place is this more vivid than the ever changing – never changing Market Street. The building on the right would later become the Emporium and is now Bloomingdale’s. The domed Humboldt Building is still there, and right behind that is a good look at what the Call Building, a survivor of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, used to look like before its crown was removed and it was remodeled in 1938. The Call Building, now called the Central Tower, is the brown and white striped building behind the Humboldt Building.
Well, James Bond himself out in the field at Fisherman’s Wharf! Hey, 007, let me give you a trade secret when out in the field here; try the Blackened Red Snapper at the Grotto. (A View to a Kill)
“Sneakin’ Sally through the alley.” That line has, absolutely, nothing to do with this collection of San Francisco alley photos, but I like it, so I threw it in. Top row, left to right; Mary Pickford, Hollywood’s first “America’s Sweetheart” came to San Francisco in 1918 to film ‘Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley’. Film scholars and this amateur movie sleuth haven’t been able to positively identify the alley used in the movie, but many think it may have been Waverly Place as it empties into Washington in the right photo. Ninety eight years is a long time, and things change, but there are still a lot of things about this location that don’t line up to me. Still, it’s the favorite comparison, so, I’ll include it here, and keep looking. Second row from the top; Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” character chases a terrorist suspect, who has detonated a bomb in the men’s room of the police station Harry works out of, up Osgood Alley in North Beach in the 1976 film ‘The Enforcer’. To me, this is what a San Francisco alley is supposed to look like; it levels out at the bottom of Telegraph Hill on to Pacific St where the old fire station is, and is surrounded by old brick buildings. Btw, Harry caught him; like Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, he always gets his man! Second row from the bottom; Buster Keaton, here at 2nd and Minna Streets from the 1922 movie ‘Daydreams’. The building at the end of the alley was demolished before 1939 to build the Trans Bay Terminal. In the center photo Keaton races west down the alley ahead of, just about every member of the 1922 San Francisco police force as a streetcar passes heading south on 2nd. At the far right, looking east down Minna Alley in the modern picture, you can see the end of the demolition of the Trans Bay Terminal Building in progress. Bottom row; I like this comparison of children in a Chinatown alley. The photo on the left is by turn of the 20th Century photographer Arnold Genthe, a fellow who had nothing better to do than to go around San Francisco taking pictures. Now, I ask you, “Who does that?” Actually, his photographs of early San Francisco, particularly, Chinatown are considered masterpieces, and one of his pictures, taken down Sacramento Street after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake is considered one of the ten best photographs of all time. Although not as quaint as the pre 1906 picture, children in Chinatown today still have a customary flavor in their style.
When Coit Tower opened the concept of a psycho shooting at people with a high powered rifle from the top of the building would have been unimaginable! But that was 1933, and this is 1972, I mean, it was when this episode of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ was filmed. The sniper is shooting from the first left window from the center of the tower.
The sniper’s view from Coit Tower and the view today:
Papa Cop (Karl Malden) and “Buddy Boy” (Michael Douglas) arrive on the scene.
“Go!”
The approach.
The takedown.
“Bridges? We ain’t got no bridges. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ bridges!”
San Francisco Churches: Upper left, the green Jaguar parked in front of Mission Dolores was driven by Kim Novak in the 1958 film ‘Vertigo’. Parked behind her is Jimmy Stewart’s Desoto. Miss Novak portrays a woman who believes that she is being possessed by the spirit of a lady named Carlotta Valdes who killed herself in 1857, and she must do the same thing. I feel better about my own hang ups now! Upper right, two intriguing individuals at Grace Cathedral; Robert Vaughn, the Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Dianne, the Girl from T.R.O.U.B.L.E. Both made an impression on my life; one of them was a childhood hero, and one of them gave me my dog ‘Danny’. No, Dianne wasn’t the childhood hero. The steps to the entrance have been remodeled since the Robert Vaughn scene from ‘Bullitt’ and the balcony he’s looking from has been removed. Lower left, dazed survivors of the 1906 Earthquake wander down California Street passed a burned out Old St. Mary’s Church in Chinatown on the left, and St. Mary’s today, seen behind the pagoda building. The biblical passage under the clock above the entrance is from Ecclesiasticus, Chapter 4; “Son, observe the time and fly from evil” (I wasn’t that good of an altar boy, I had to look that up) Lower right, Cecil B DeMille made two versions of ‘The Ten Commandments’, the 1956 film that deals, largely with the Exodus, and the lesser known 1923 movie that is two stories in itself; the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments, and a modern day (1923) story of two brothers, one good, one bad. The modern story was filmed mainly in Washington Square during the building of Saints Peter and Paul Church. The evil sibling who is contracting the construction uses faulty cement for the foundation which causes a wall to collapse on the mother of the two who has come to visit her good son working on the structure, and kills her. The wicked brother goes insane because of this. The only reason that I can see for the updated part of the movie, is to show what can happen to us if we break God’s Commandments. Of course, that doesn’t explain why the kindly mother had to get crushed, but I try not to examine these lessons too deeply.
Gone, the old Transbay Terminal Building: My picture was taken on August 3rd 2010, four days before the Transbay Terminal closed forever. That building in the background of the vintage picture was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and had to be demolished. 
Gone, old timers in Chinatown who still referred to Grant Avenue as “Dupont Gai” or Dupont Street up until the 1980’s: This was the street’s original name until after the 1906 Earthquake. 
Gone, many of the vintage Victorian houses in the Western Addition near Fillmore, demolished in the 1960’s and 1970’s: However, some of these houses, like this one, survived, when they were sold for practically nothing, relocated and restored. Here is this lucky one today on Ellis Street near Divisadero. (Dave Glass) 
Gone, Haight-Ashbury during the “Summer of Love”: 
Gone, the trains that used to run to Fisherman’s Wharf: That’s the Cannery Building on the right.
Kearny Street near Jackson: See the little tower near the bottom of the enormous Bank of America Building? If you did notice that, you might have thought to yourself, “Now, why does that look familiar?” It’s gone in the modern picture. We’ll get back to this in a moment. (Vintage pictures by Peter Stratmoen)
Looking down California Street from Grant Avenue: This fellow seemed to have a propensity for taking pictures on dark and gloomy days; the Edgar Allan Poe of 1970’s photography. Notice the building with the clock on it on the left in the older picture. You may wonder, “Now, where have I seen that before?” And then you’ll think to yourself, “Oh, yeah, the previous picture! I can’t remember Tim’s pictures from one to the next!” I should have posted this on the Fourth of July; that building was the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company Building. It was designed to look exactly like Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both adopted. It was demolished in 1986.
Looking down Ellis Street from Powell: Did the sun ever come out for Mr. Stratmoen? You can see the John’s Grill Restaurant on the right in both photos. Although it’s a favorite of Maltese Falcon aficionados today, it wasn’t as well known for its connection to the book and movie back then. Time has made a relic of it. (I know, who’s going to notice John’s Grill when the picture has a pretty girl with a Victoria’s Secret bag in it!)
On a more serious note, notice the Imperial Palace Restaurant in the modern picture. Although small in scale compared to the events of these days, two years after the vintage picture above was taken this was the scene of San Francisco’s worst mass shooting in modern history. On September 4th 1977, a Chinatown gang attempting to kill members of a rival gang opened fire on customers. Five people were killed, and eleven others were injured. None of the victims were gang members. It came to be known as the Golden Dragon massacre, which was the name of the restaurant at the time of the shootings.
We’ll start at Aquatic Park. Trees block the view of Ghirardelli Square from this spot today. (Vintage photos from Peter Stratmoen)
Hyde and Jefferson Streets: Some things don’t change in 41 years, like, passing cars ruining a picture. That’s the old Del Monte Cannery Building on the left.
Taylor Street, looking south from Jefferson Street: You can just see a little of the Sea Captain’s Chest Gift Shop sign at the right. The Sea Captain’s Chest was THE place to buy gifts at Fisherman’s Wharf for decades and can be seen in the 1962 movie ‘Experiment in Terror’.
Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto: Hey, where did all those people come from?
Jefferson Street, east of Taylor Street: The Wax Museum is now Madame Tussauds.
The Eagle Café was in the same place in 1975 as it was when it opened in 1928. When the Pier 39 Garage structure was scheduled to be built in 1978, the Eagle Café was going to be demolished. Instead, they relocated it across the street to the top level of Pier 39. My picture is from the Pier 39 Garage about where the Eagle Café originally was.
The Golden Hinde is a replica of a ship captained by Sir Francis Drake for an expedition he took in 1577. Built in 1973, she sailed from Plymouth, England to San Francisco on her Maiden Voyage and arrived in May of 1975, where she docked at Pier 43. This area has changed drastically since 1975. The only thing left of Pier 43 is the archway, Pier 41 next to it was demolished in 1976, and Pier 39 was razed for the tourist site that’s there today.
As nighttime approaches, a billowing and carnivorous fog threatens to devour the Hyde Street Pier. Gawd, I’m a lousy writer! Several more ships have been berthed here since 1975, like the Balclutha, built in 1886, and seen at the end of the pier.
Approaching Union Square from Powell Street on a gloomy day in the 1970’s: (Peter Stratmoen) 
Two views of the southwest corner of Union Square in the 1960’s: Probably everybody knows someone who looks like one of those people in the top picture! The Gray Line Tours was the ancestor to today’s Hop On Hop Off Bus Tours. (William Gedney) 
The lesser photographed eastward view of Maiden Lane from the Stockton Street Union Square Garage entrance in the 1950’s: That construction mess is from the Muni Metro Central Subway project that will run to Chinatown, and is scheduled to be completed by 2018. (Phil Palmer) 
The northwest corner of Union Square in the 1960’s and a couple enjoying their Second Amendment Right to bare arms: (William Gedney)
Clint Eastwood wasn’t really “good” in ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, (1979) any more than he was “good” in ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. He plays Frank Morris, one of three men who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962, and was never seen again. Here he is plotting the escape in the same exercise yard the Alcatraz inmates used to use. 
These were the bad guys in the 1971 drama ‘The Organization’ starring Sidney Poitier as Virgil Tibbs. Here they are at Montgomery and Market Street closing a drug deal that will end in a shootout and chase through the unfinished Montgomery Station BART tube. In 1974 , ‘The Streets of San Francisco’ television show filmed a drug bust and chase at the same BART Station in a series of pictures I posted in December of 2014. Check out the link below for that post. The #5 MUNI bus still runs along McAllister and Fulton to Ocean Beach today.
I used to think the Columbus Tower Building on Columbus Avenue was an ugly building, but I was only part right. It’s so ugly, that it’s beautiful! It was being constructed in 1906 when the San Francisco Earthquake severely damaged the building and it was completed in 1907. The top photo shows the framework for Columbus Tower right after the earthquake.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 