My brief visit to Taraval Street last Saturday got me interested in exploring the area a little more. I headed back out there today on the old L Line through the Twin Peaks Tunnel, now known as the Metro L Line.
24th Avenue and Taraval Street looking east in 1962:
http://opensfhistory.org/maps/
What high school girls looked like in 1943 at the old Lincoln High School on 24th Avenue:
http://opensfhistory.org/maps/
Taraval Street and 24th Avenue looking west in 1949: The old L Line survives.
http://opensfhistory.org/maps/
THE place to see movies on Taraval Street was the old Parkside Theater near 19th Avenue. Although the theater building is still there, (the gray building in the center) it’s now the Parkside Preschool and Kindergarten. Below is the Parkside Theater summer schedule for 1962. (Joseph McInerney Collection)
Coming and going, the east and west side of Yerba Buena Tunnel: Traffic was a lot lighter on the bridge when they took the old picture.
Headed out to the ocean through Golden Gate Park past the McLaren Lodge:
I’m taking “the road not taken” in Golden Gate Park. It looks like there was a lot of storm damage in this part of the park!
Rounding Point Lobos I was lucky to find a parking spot at the beach. Once again had the same idea that several million other people had! (OpenSFHistory.org)
The tide behind the Cliff House was as low as I’ve ever seen it!
The old photo is how it usually looks at Seal Rocks, but yesterday I was able to get as close to Seal Rocks as I’ve ever been, maybe about a hundred feet! I hope they aren’t radioactive like the Farallon Islands are supposed to be!
You don’t get a chance to walk completely around the Cliff House that often.
Saturday I spent time mostly around the southwest side of town. There’s a lot of interesting things to enjoy around there; the Urbano Sundial, Fort Funston, and the San Francisco Zoo to mention a few. What was once the largest swimming pool in the world is now buried beneath the San Francisco Zoo Parking lot.
The most commercial street in the lower Sunset District is Taraval Street but I don’t get over there too often, and it has its own flavor. This is looking east at Taraval and 21st Avenue. (Vintage photo from the Jack Tillmany Collection)
The old map starts a City Hall and that’s where we’ll start. Here, victorious army soldiers march along Grove Street past Larkin at the end of World War Two. The Owl Drug Store building on the right in the vintage photo is now where the San Francisco Main Library is. The old route heads north on Van Ness turning east on Post, but today the drive heads along Larkin Street turning west at Geary Blvd. to Japantown before heading back east along Post.
We’re traveling east along Post St. past Union Square. At Post and Stockton there was a military display in 1943.
We’ll turn north on Montgomery Street and then double back into Chinatown. Here, we’re at Montgomery Street, the “Wall Street of the West”.
We travel awhile through Chinatown, seen here at Pine Street and Grant Avenue, but the old route doesn’t appear to climb up Nob Hill after leaving Chinatown as it does today.
Next, we visit Lombard Street, the “Crookedest Street in the World”
Both then and today, the 49 Mile Scenic drive heads up to Coit Tower. The top photo is from a 1960’s postcard. Either the trees have grown bigger or Coit tower has gotten smaller!
We continue north for a stop at Fisherman’s Wharf, the busiest tourist attraction in California after Disneyland. (They spelled it wrong!)
Now the drive route heads west past the Marina and enters into the Presidio at the Palace of Fine Arts Building, the only survivor of the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915. It’s a long drive so we’ll stop and rest here with Janis for a moment.
On to the Golden Gate Bridge! The top image above is from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film ‘Vertigo’. Kim Novac throws a bouquet of flowers into the Bay before jumping in herself only to be rescued by Jimmy Stewart. This is as close at you can get to the spot today since 9/11.
The Scenic Drive skirts Baker Beach seen here in a vintage picture of a wounded soldier with a child after World War Two.
We’ll continue west through Lincoln Park past the Palace of the Legion of Honor.
Along Point Lobos Drive we turn south at the Cliff House and head down to the Great Highway.
Playland-at-the-Beach was apparently still referred to as Chutes at the Beach in 1939. The early 1970’s picture from the San Francisco Chronicle shows children at the Funhouse shortly before Playland was demolished. The Funhouse was where the building with the Wise signs on it is today. Scenes from the 1948 move ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ starring Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth were filmed here.
We’re traveling down the Great Highway now along with Charlie Chaplin in his 1915 movie ‘Jitney Elopement’ Here, Charlie backs into the car of a villain pursuing him on an unpaved Great Highway. Here’s the spot today.
Both the 1939 route and today’s travel past where the old Fleishhacker’s Pool, the largest swimming pool in the world when it was built, once existed. That’s my seventeen year old mom on the left swimming with her cousin Frances in the pool during a visit from North Dakota in 1939, the same year as the old Scenic Drive Map. Fleishhacker’s Pool closed in 1971 and was filled in. It is now under the parking lot of the San Francisco Zoo. They spelled Fleishhacker’s wrong on the old tour map too. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect! “Tell us about it, Tim.”
As we circle around Lake Merced we’ll travel past the spot where the last duel in California took place in 1859. Senator Broderick came up with the short end of the stick. The concrete markers are where the two men stood before firing.
After Lake Merced the 49 Mile Scenic drive heads north along Sunset Blvd. to Golden Gate Park. Let’s stop for a breathtaking view of the Sunset District at Quintara and 15th. The vintage tinted photo is from Bill Yenne’s terrific collection of then and now San Francisco pictures.
The 49 mile drive enters Golden Gate Park and passes many of the park’s attractions including the De Young Museum seen here in the old photo with my mom on the right during her 1939 visit. The old museum building was demolished and rebuilt and this is entrance to the De Young Museum today.
The first major variation from the 1939 Scenic Drive is in leaving Golden Gate Park. Back then the drive exited the park at 19th Ave. going south to Sloat Blvd. then follows Portola Drive to Twin Peaks. In the vintage picture an unfortunate driver is getting a ticket in front of the original Shriner Hospital Building on 19th Ave. I wonder how much it cost him. Today’s Scenic Drive exits the Park at Stanyan traveling past the Haight-Ashbury area then follows 7th Ave. to Portola Drive and up to Twin Peaks. Lovely Stern Grove is forgotten.
The view from Twin Peaks, one of the best shows in the house, during the 1950’s and today:
After leaving Twin Peaks, the tour drive follows basically the same route to Mission Dolores, seen in the top picture in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’.
After Mission Dolores none of the original route is used today. The Scenic Drive travels past Dolores Park to Cesar Chavez Street to Highway 280, passes AT&T Park and the Ferry Building, and then doubles back to City Hall by way of Howard Street completely bypassing Market Street. In the top photo from Hannah Clayborn’s collection Roman Rodriguez, sitting on the lawn, reconstructs his murder of 16 year old Hilda Pagan to the police at Dolores Park in 1952. I can’t get much information on this murder today and I wonder who the lady with her hands to her face was? I hope it wasn’t Hilda’s mother. A top portion was added to the small building they sat at, and it was a restroom and snack bar when I took my photo several years ago. It was demolished during the 2015 remodeling of Dolores.
Back to the 1939 route: We’re on Market Street, near the Palace Hotel. The top picture is from the famous 1906 film ‘A Trip Down Market Street’. A portion of the old Palace Hotel, destroyed during the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, can be seen on the right in the film photo.
The 1939 route bypasses the Ferry Building, (How rude was that?) for the more traveled by that time Trans Bay Terminal. The top pictures are of a bus leaving inside the terminal in a scene from the 1973 film ‘The Laughing Policeman’ and a bus leaving the terminal on the day the building closed in August of 2010.
From here we’re on our way to the Fair across the Bay Bridge, seen in the opening shot of the Humphrey Bogart movie ‘The Maltese Falcon’.
We’ll end up at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. The top picture is from a short color film entitled ‘The Cavalcade of San Francisco’ narrated by James Fitxpatrick. That was a long drive, I’m tired!
I’ll close with a photo of today’s 49 Mile Scenic Drive for comparison.
It might have been nice to have Lombard Street all to myself like in the 1957 photo at the top, but this is one spot where crowds make it more fun; unless, of course, you live on Lombard. (opensfhistory.org)
Fillmore Street above Vallejo Street when cable cars climbed the hill:
The old Dutch Windmill at the northwest corner of Golden Gate Park: It’s a lot tidier here today.
I’ve covered in previous posts the old stone bridge at the southwest corner of Golden Gate Park where streetcars crossed over, but on the northwest corner across the park from where the stone bridge once stood there can still be found a little known tunnel that the trains passed through as they made their way across the western side of the park. (opensfhistory.org)
“Been there, done that!” At the top is a slide picture that I took in 1983 looking down Broadway from Russian Hill and the same spot today. It’s weird how little this view has changed!
A map of the former mansions from Elizabeth Gray Potter’s ‘The San Francisco Skyline:
We’ll start at the corner of Powell and California Streets and the mansion of Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University in Palo Alto. Actually, I ended up here so that I wouldn’t have to walk UP Nob Hill, but you didn’t need to know that. It looks like Mark Hopkins was building his home up California Street from Stanford’s when this photo was taken. The Stanford Court Hotel is here today. That’s the Mark Hopkins Hotel behind it. (Vintage photo Ron Henggeler)
Probably the most Gothic looking of them all was Mark Hopkins home on California and Mason Streets. Today the Mark Hopkins Hotel occupies the corner.
Huntington Park now occupies the spot where Collis Huntington’s mansion was. To the left is where Charles Crocker’s mansion stood. Grace Cathedral occupies that location today. (Vintage photo from SF Gate)
A crumbled City Hall seen through the doorway of Alban N. Towne’s mansion at California and Taylor, across from Grace Cathedral: The only thing that survived was the marble entrance, now out at Lloyd Lake in Golden Gate Park. This is the corner that Towne’s home and the “Portals of the Past” once stood. The portals were about where the car is leaving the parking garage.
Today, beautiful Grace Cathedral Church sits on the corner of California and Taylor Streets where Charles Crocker’s little shack was. Does anybody really need a house that big, anyway?
The only survivor was James Flood’s home, gutted but still standing. Today it houses the Pacific Union Club. (Vintage photo from the Library of Congress)
The original Castro Village Shopping Center that opened in 1948 is still here.
Castro Valley Blvd. in the 1950’s: 7up, “You like it, it likes you!”
Castro Valley had a KFC (then called ‘Colonel Sanders Chicken) claim to fame in 1969.
Last month, a Castro Valley History Exhibit presented by Lucille Lorge and Randy Vanderbilt at the old Castro Valley Adobe Building featured a film of a drive along Castro Valley Blvd. circa 1956. This was before my family moved here, but much of the street was the same as it was when I grew up here, except there were more sidewalks by the time we got here.
Auctions were held in this building when we were kids, (No, not like the one in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride!) but we were more interested in Winchell’s Donuts next door.
Pete’s Hardware, dating back to the 1920’s, might be the oldest surviving business in Castro Valley.
Ah, the old Dell Café. Who doesn’t have a memory here that grew up in Castro Valley?
Chabot Theater that opened in 1949 was showing ‘Miracle in the Rain’ with Jane Wyman: This was released in 1956; that’s where I’m dating this film from. The second feature ‘Ten Tall Men’ with Burt Lancaster was released in 1951 and was probably a more enjoyable movie.
Where Daughtrey’s Department store was located before they moved down near Castro Village.
San Miguel Avenue: Sprouse-Reitz and the Louis Store have been replaced by a savings and loan, and H&R Block. And they call that progress! Lucca’s Delicatessen is still there though.
The small, peaceful, and comfortable main library on Redwood Road was built in the 1960’s to replace an old wooden structure that served as the library before this one. It was a great place to study and sleep during high school. It’s closed and fenced off now since it was replaced by the new library on the south side of town.
Two olds Oldmobiles, I mean, two old Oldsmobiles on the north side of the Ferry Building:
I would have liked to have taken a better lineup on this vintage picture from the Shorpy Collection on California Street near Montgomery, but when you’re double parked in a valet parking zone with your car door open (Yeah, that was me) you only have time for one shot before a parking attendant drives away with your car!
California Street just down from Powell on Nob Hill:
The Maritime Museum in the 1970’s: I don’t know if these are “vintage” cars, but at least they’re older than the one I drive!
At the foot of Van Ness: This is as close of a match up as I could get on this one, most of the hill here that used to be called Black Point is over grown and closed off now. You can hardly see the Maritime Museum, but two things still visible are Coit Tower and you can still make out the circular snack bar and restrooms building, long closed, through the trees. Clint Eastwood ran out of the old train tunnel across the street, also closed now, to answer a telephone call from the psycho “Scorpio” at this building in 1971’s ‘Dirty Harry’.
I was riding in the back of an old streetcar on Market Street, relaxing after a long day of relaxing, when I took this picture. When I got back, I thought it lined up pretty good with an old slide I took while riding on a street car on Market Street in 1984. It shows three things; Market Street hasn’t changed an awful lot in 33 years, I still have the same habits that I had back then, and I was a better photographer in 1984. The old 1984 photo was taken with a Canon camera with a telephoto lens that was great for zooming in on girls and other wildlife. I still have it, but it’s not computer compatible.
The Press Coffee Shop at 5th and Jessie Streets next to the old Mint Building in the 1920’s: It looked like it was a cozy little place.
The Winged Victory Statue at the intersections of Turk, Mason, and Market Streets after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire: The statue stood about where the pedestrian island is today. A survivor of the disaster, the Flood Building, is on the right. The Winged Victory Statue survived too and is now at Montgomery and Market Streets.
“Hitch” and Herb in Union Square in 1963: Alfred Hitchcock with Herb Caen promoting his new movie, ‘The Birds’. Although most of the buildings behind them on Post Street are gone now, the one that Williams-Sonoma occupies is still there.
PJP2 at the G.G.B.: Pope John Paul the 2nd blessing the Golden Gate Bridge in 1987.
SFGate is a fine website that has many San Francisco Chronicle pictures from ‘Our San Francisco’. Here is their collection of some of the best San Francisco movies. It’s not a bad list, but it doesn’t have ‘Experiment in Terror’ in it. Below, is the link to the article on their selections. Click on the arrow at the right of the images or slide them if on your smart phone to advance the pictures. If you don’t know what the first picture is from, I’m not going to tell you.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 
