San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

With the extended tax season here in California, I thought things might slow down, but they haven’t. I just leave the office every night tired, and saying to myself over and over again, “Refund, good; balance due, not good.” Yesterday, though, I took a few hours off to go over to SF and update some nourish looking pictures taken along Market Street. It was a pretty and warm day, and people around town were enjoying themselves after that crazy winter. (Thumbnail images)

I started at Market and Powell Streets, looking across Market toward the old Emporium Store. The domed Humboldt Building is in the background.

The Powell Street cable car turnaround in the 1940s: This isn’t a bad line up, considering that the turntable isn’t in the same spot as it was back then.

I moved along Market Street to 4^th to get this update. The old State Theater marquee is on the right.

Crossing over Market Street from 4^th to Stockton Street, and a better look at where the State Theater was. The Call Building, now called the Central Tower, is in the background of both pictures:

The southwest corner of 3^rd and Market Street, looking toward the old Chronicle Building:

“Now, I’m standing on the corner of Third and Market. I’m looking around. I’m figuring it out. There it is, right in front of me. The whole city, the whole world. People going by. They’re going somewhere. I don’t know where, but they’re going. I ain’t going anywhere.” – From the play ‘The Time of Your Life’ by William Saroyan.

I ended up near the Ferry Building, looking back up along Market Street. The Southern Pacific and Matson Shipping Buildings are on the left. On the right, the Hyatt Regency is now where the Terminal Hotel was.

“The Terminal Hotel. Once you stay with us, you’ll never leave.”

Pingbacks is a Word Press expression for when you create a link to another blog post. Usually it refers to one blog creator linking to a post from another individual’s blog, and is allowable, as long as the other blog accepts the pingback. These are pingbacks from my blog to my own posts, so I don’t think any rules are being broken here. It’s kind of self-serving, but with the 2023 income tax season extended to the fall here in California, I’ll be spending a lot more time in the office this year than usual, and I may not be able to get  “out in the field” as often as I’d like to for awhile. These are pingbacks to some of the post that I enjoyed working on the most. Each of the following pictures will have a link to the post that they originally appeared in.

‘The perfect San Francisco day, split over three days’

https://sfinfilm.com/2019/08/20/the-perfect-san-francisco-day-split-over-three-days/

‘This Was San Francisco’

https://sfinfilm.com/2017/02/07/this-was-san-francisco/

‘Nineteenth Century views from Nabob Hill’

https://sfinfilm.com/2020/09/07/nineteenth-century-views-from-nabob-hill-thumbnail-images/

‘Experiment in Terror revisited’

https://sfinfilm.com/2017/08/25/experiment-in-terror-revisited-for-keith-and-janet/

‘Down these streets’

https://sfinfilm.com/2016/09/19/down-these-streets/

‘San Francisco in the 1980s’

https://sfinfilm.com/2016/08/18/san-francisco-in-the-1980s-for-a1-photo-and-video-lab/ 

‘A Nob Hill Mystery’

https://sfinfilm.com/2019/05/04/a-nob-hill-mystery/

‘San Francisco in the 1960s’

https://sfinfilm.com/2016/06/09/san-francisco-in-the-1960s/

‘Mom and the summer of 1939’

https://sfinfilm.com/2014/11/19/the-summer-of-1939-9/

‘San Francisco movie locations through the decades’

https://sfinfilm.com/2016/12/25/san-francisco-movie-locations-through-the-decades/

The San Francisco Saint Patrick’s Day Parade will be happening this Saturday, March  11^th.  With the extended tax season, I may be able to catch some of it this year, but it looks like rain. These are past Saint Patrick’s Day Parades in San Francisco. (Thumbnail images)

Civic Center Colleens on Larkin Street near McAllister in 1974. The State Building is in the background. (Vintage photo SF Chronicle / SF Gate)

Market Street at Grant Avenue in 1951: The Korean War was being fought during this time. (SF Chronicle / SF Gate)

Maiden Lane in 1948, my favorite San Francisco St. Patrick’s Day Parade picture:

Saint Patrick driving the snakes away from Market Street at Powell in 1954: (SF Chronicle / SF Gate)

“Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling!” McAllister Street, looking back toward Larkin in the 1950s: The Asian Art Museum Building, the San Francisco Main Library Building then, is in the background. (San Francisco Public Library Archives)

I took the new Central Subway back to Chinatown recently to stop in at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory before closing time at 7:00 PM. There’s something special about Chinatown after dark that’s almost as magical as Main Street in Disneyland at night. Later, I walked around Chinatown to update some old pictures and postcards of Chinatown at night. (Thumbnail images)

The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory is in Ross Alley. Long ago, this alley was an extremely dangerous place to be in, complete with hatchet men and Tong wars. In the cookie factory, you bring your fortunes in and the lady there puts them in a freshly baked fortune cookie, molds it into shape, and puts the cookie in a pagoda decorated little box.

Grant Avenue near Clay Street during the 1950s; lit up in the vintage picture like ‘Neon Noodle’ in the old Daffy Duck cartoon, ‘The Great Piggy Bank Robbery’. (opensfhistory.org)

Grant Avenue near California Street in a postcard from the 1960s:

The old Lipo Lounge, at Grant Avenue near Jackson Street, is back open again. You can see part of their neon sign in my picture. The Lipo has this circular and exotic looking entrance. (opensfhistory.org)

The Dim Sum Building, across the street from Old St. Mary’s Church, all lit up in 1911:

Grant Avenue near Pacific Avenue during the 60s: Near Broadway, this used to be a favorite dining area in Chinatown at night, but it’s kind of quiet now.

Often when I’m “out in the field” looking for vintage picture or movie locations, I’ll spot examples of artistic expression that I wouldn’t have seen if I wasn’t looking for something else. (Thumbnail images)

An interesting reproduction (maybe) of an old 1904 painting on the wall of the men’s room in the Pier 23 Restaurant on the Embarcadero:

I’m not sure about this one on Clay Street in Chinatown. Picasso may have liked it, but the girl with her butt where her stomach should be makes me wonder if I really do know anything about art.

In front of the new Transbay Terminal on Mission Street, during the Holidays: You see, if you look at it from the other side, it says JOY. “Yes, Tim.”

It’s a tough job, and they’re recruiting them younger and younger nowadays. This painting was on Oak Street at Franklin a few years ago, but it’s gone now.

They even decorate some of the public toilets with a Downtown San Francisco map; a great place to get one’s bearings. Yeah, I wasn’t looking for art when I stopped here.

There’s also a place where you can create your own artistic expression; the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in Ross Alley. Bring your own fortunes or prophesies, and they’ll put them in a freshly baked fortune cookie.

Street artists in Ross Alley getting ready for the 2023 Chinese New Year Parade that will run on Saturday, February 4^th:

I guess façade lighting can be considered art, even if it’s for a lost cause. It was lively and exciting in San Francisco last Saturday night when I took this picture of City Hall, but quiet and lonely the following night.

Now we come to my kind of art. These are enlargements of old comic book covers in the window of the toy store at Maiden Lane.

I’ve been hearing scuttlebutt from Fisherman’s Wharf that they may be tearing down these two famous restaurants, Alioto’s and #9 Fishermen’s Grotto, in the not too distant future. I hope it’s not true, but it probably is; they’re just empty and sad looking now anyway. They’ll probably replace them with a Chipotle and Poke Bowl take-out. The place just won’t be the same anymore without them. (Thumbnail images)

(Vintage photo opensfhistory.org)

(Vintage photo from Foundsf.org)

(Vintage photo Gene Gallagher Photos)

(Vintage picture from the Charles Cushman Collection)

I first learned about the book ‘San Francisco, Portrait of a City’ by Taschen Publishers last spring. It looked promising, but at $75.00, it seemed a little pricey, so I thought I’d wait awhile to see if I could buy a cheaper copy later. The price didn’t come down much by year’s end, but I did find a copy for sale at $55.00 in December on the internet. Here’s the first thing I’ll say about the book; it’s probably the heaviest book I’ve ever tried to read. At nearly ten pounds, if you were to drop it on your foot, you could possibly become crippled for life. The reason for this is that for each chapter, the text is printed in English, German, and French, separately. This makes the already oversized book weight three times as much as it normally would. The pictures aren’t repeated though, so for each chapter, the picture descriptions in the book appear in all three languages. That being said, if you can find a good desk or drafting table to prop it up to, the book is well worth browsing through. Mainly, this is because of the terrific vintage pictures throughout the book; some of which I’ve cover in the past from different sources, but many that I’ve never seen before. The cover picture here is at the Grant Avenue at Bush Street entrance to Chinatown during the 1950s. My update on the right is from June, 2022. (Thumbnail images)

First: So, you think the Skystar Ride in Golden Gate Park is exciting? Well, look at this beanbag! He’s going to walk down the giant rail on that ball. This attraction was held in the 1894 Midwinter Exposition, in the same area of the park where the Skystar is now.

California Street, just down from Stockton Street in 1915: Old St. Mary’s Church is blocked from the view here now. The Lenox Apartment Building on the right, next to the pagoda Sing Fat Building, would later serve as the Trafalgar Building in the 1947 movie ‘My Favorite Brunette’ Starring Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour.

A two page image of the San Francisco skyline from a ferryboat during the 1920s: My update isn’t a bad attempt, as far as bad attempts go, considering my picture was taken several nautical miles north of the path the ferryboat in the vintage image was taking. Some of the buildings still around, that you can see from left to right in the vintage picture, are the Hills Brothers Building, the Pacific Telephone Building, the Call Building, the Hobart Building, the Hunter-Doolin Building, the Matson Building, the Russ Building, the Mark Hopkins, and the Ferry Building.

The Chinese New Year Parade, coming up Pine Street near Grant Avenue in 1934, was a much smaller event back then. At the end of Pine Street, at Market Street, you can see the Matson and PG&E Building in both pictures. The enormous Russ Building, once the tallest building in San Francisco, can be seen peeking out on the right in my photo. The little white building with the uneven windows in the foreground on the right is still around.

Another two page picture, one of my favorites in the book, is looking west along Market Street from Montgomery Street during the 1950s. The Palace Hotel is on the left.

Several posts back I asked if any of my readers ever wondered what people from the 1970s looked like in front of the Vaillancourt Fountain. Of course, I was just in a silly mood…… However, have you ever wondered what people looked like in front of the Crown Zellerbach Building on Market Street in 1962? Actually, they all look kind of bored.

In December of 1942, when bison were being herded into their current Buffalo Paddock location near Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park, kids taunting the bison caused one of the animals to break free and start running through the park. A bison charging through Golden Gate Park, now that’s scary! The police weren’t equipped to corral it, and they didn’t want to kill it. “I’m a cowboy who never saw a cow. Never roped a steer, ‘cause I don’t know how! And I sure ain’t fixin’ to start in now.” So, the equestrians from the horse stables of the park, chased the desperado down Fulton Street, and lassoed it at Fulton Street at 6th Avenue. Even James West would have been out of his league here. It’s a good thing that Buffalo Bill was dead by then or he’d have shot the animal, like he was so famous for doing. The vintage Fulton Street photos are from an article by Peter Hartlaub of the S. F. Chronicle.  (Thumbnail images)

I got another chance during the last week of December, 2022 to do a little more exploring along the Embarcadero, probably my favorite street in San Francisco. You can still experience a lot of the old-time atmosphere during the days when San Francisco was a larger port city than Oakland when you walk along the street. If you close your eyes, you can hear foghorns, trains passing, and the loud voices of the long-ago port workers. That’s probably because you can still hear foghorns during thick fog, the F Line streetcars are always rattling past, and there’s more people walking along the Embarcadero now than there ever was in the past, and they can be just as loud as the longshoremen unloading ships. The vintage pictures are from the San Francisco Public Library Archives. (Thumbnail images)

Pier 19 and the old Belt Line railroad tracks during the 1930s:

I know it was a convenient way to get to Downtown SF, Chinatown and North Beach, but what a blight the Embarcadero Freeway was on the landscape.

In case you ever wondered what people in front of the Viallancourt Fountain during the 1970s looked like, and who hasn’t? The fountain gets a lot criticism for being ugly because it looks like the entrails of a giant cement robot, but I like it.

One block south of the Ferry Building during the 1950s: The Johnson’s Café and Naval Uniforms buildings are gone, but the Audiffred Building on the right is still around.

This old strip of buildings that ran from Market Street to Mission, between Steuart Street and the Embarcadero, was demolished during the 1960s.

100 Drumm Street, then, and where it would have been today. I know the area had to change, but you don’t see Americana, like in the old picture, much around San Francisco anymore.