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.
Two images of the Hyde and Beach Streets intersection in the 1970’s: I was going to put this one in the previous post of rejects, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. For more posts on San Francisco’s cable cars click on the link below.
I’ve had a cold from outer space or somewhere that’s been knocking me around all week so I haven’t been able to go over to San Francisco to take any pictures. I thought I’d post some pictures I wasn’t particularly happy with just to keep busy. They’re from interesting locations, but for various reasons I wasn’t pleased with them; the lighting was bad, the capture wasn’t good, or they just weren’t interesting pictures. We’ll start with this fascinating image from Buster Keaton’s 1922 short film ‘Daydreams’. Buster, being chased by San Francisco police, runs down Lombard Street and turns north onto Taylor. Construction began the same year on the “Crookedest Street in the World” at the top of both images, but it’s difficult to see how far along the work was from the movie scene. I don’t know if this film is available on DVD, I got the image from a fine San Francisco movie locations site on the internet, but when I went back to find the name of the site and give credit, I wasn’t able to locate it anymore.
I’d like to redo this one of Barbara Lawrence in front of the Ferry Building from the 1949 movie ‘Thieves Highway’. I took my picture late in the day and it’s not a good shot.
Actually, I’m enjoying this one more now that I’ve posted it; it’s an interesting capture from a 1972 version of ‘The Streets of San Francisco’. A Winnebago, “We’re giving ‘em away!” full of bad guys drives along the Embarcadero south of the Ferry Building. There’s a lot of interesting things to see in the film shot, such as the old YMCA Building in the center, the Embarcadero Freeway, but mostly, to me, the building with the scotch advertisement on the side. This was the Daniels Hotel where the witness Steve McQueen was guarding was rubbed out by hit men early in the 1968 film, ‘Bullitt’.
Not bad, not good, but it is Clint Eastwood. “Dirty Harry” Callahan crosses 2nd Street from Minna Alley to do justice, (his kind) to three holdup men in the 1976 film ‘The Enforcer’.
The only thing good about this silly one is the location. Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal roll under the dragon during the Chinatown New Year parade on a stolen messenger bicycle causing it to race out of control down Jackson Street in the 1972 movie ‘What’s up, Doc?”. The parade route normally follows Grant Avenue when celebrating the Chinese New Year, but Grant isn’t as steep as Jackson so the scene wouldn’t have worked there.
Tyne Daly and Clint Eastwood on the neglected Municipal Pier at the foot of Van Ness Avenue when it was in a little better shape in the 1976 movie ‘The Enforcer’ It’s an interesting location, but I took the picture at sunset rather than during the day when it would have been a better comparison.
This comparison of the Telegraph Hill portion of Montgomery Street from the 1947 film ‘Dark Passage’ speaks for itself as to why it’s so forgettable.
Half Dome in the 1940’s: (Vintage Pop 88)
Mother Curry, who founded Curry Village in 1899: The name has been changed to Half Dome Village. As my friend Cindy pointed out, it’s at the bottom of Glacier Point not Half Dome, and I don’t know why they’re changing these names in Yosemite, anyway.
I don’t know who they were, but that’s Yosemite Falls in the background.
Nurses at the Ahwahnee Hotel, now called the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, during World War Two: The Navy took over the hotel during the war, because they thought the serenity of Yosemite would be beneficial to shell shocked sailors, but the isolation of Yosemite actually made many worse!
Now, off to Inspiration Point, and as beautiful of a view as you’ll find anywhere:
We’ll head through Wawona Tunnel, as they did in the 1950’s for the long drive up to Glacier Point.
The view from Glacier Point:
I couldn’t get too much information on how old this adobe is at the top of Glacier Point.
This is the lesser known bluff, and Yosemite does not advertise its location, and discourages people from going out to it. I climbed up there after I took the picture and went out on the rock a ways where I took the picture at the bottom, but I didn’t go to the edge. I didn’t for two reasons; one, there was nobody there with me to take my picture, two, I wouldn’t have gone out to the edge if I was Captain America! That’s three thousand feet straight down!
Guess I don’t look like I did in 1994, but I’ll bet that old bike I rented doesn’t either!
Humphrey Bogart Plays a San Quentin escapee who has had plastic surgery to hide his identity from the police in the 1947 film ‘Dark Passage’. After the operation, he climbs up the Filbert Steps of Telegraph Hill to his hideout, Lauren Bacall’s apartment on Montgomery Street. 
The steps turned here, as they do today, and begin their climb up Telegraph Hill. The wooden portion of the steps here was deemed unsafe in the late 1970’s and was replaced at this section.
We’ll keep tagging along with our tired little escapee on his trek. The original wooden stairs from this point on are still there. 
“Come on buddy, you can make it, we’re almost there. I’m just as tired as you are!” That house picture left of Bogie, the “Captain’s House”, was built during the Civil War, and can still be seen from the Filbert Steps today! 
“Made it Ma; top of the world!” He looks a little done in.
A rare picture of prisoners on Alcatraz Island congregating in the exercise yard: Not sure if it was a problem or a friendly gathering, but there are prison guards in the middle of the crowd. Below is the corner of the exercise yard where the inmates were gathered.
Stockton Street, between Union Square and Maiden Lane in the 1950’s: These two gathering places will be fenced off from each other for some time to come due to the underground Stockton Metro tunnel being built.
Dirty Harry, (Clint Eastwood) heads into the old train tunnel that runs under Fort Mason with ransom money to save a kidnapped child, and runs into three bad guys who try to rob him. In one of my favorite scenes from a Clint Eastwood movie, when they don’t “get lost” as he tells them to, he kicks one in the stomach, knocks another over with the money bag, and puts his .44 Magnum in the face of the third saying, “You don’t listen, do you, ass—-?” I tidied the word up a little, this being a family blog. The tunnel is fenced off now, but there are continuing efforts to have it opened as part of a bike trail, which would be a great idea!
“Where the buffalo roam.” In Golden Gate Park in the 1940’s: the buffalo were in a different part of the park, and other animals were confined in the area with them. The few buffalo left in the Golden Gate Park now are fenced in an area near the ocean called Buffalo Paddock. The fences are necessary not just to protect the visitors, but also to keep the buffalo safe from any harm from passing cars or being eaten!
No description is necessary. (Vintage photo Darius Aidala)
That elegant lady in front of Fishermen’s Grotto #9 at Fisherman’s Wharf in the 1950’s had better get the service that she wants! The old Standard Station designed like a ship across the street remained in Fisherman’s Wharf from the 1930’s to the 1970’s, although, by the 70’s it had been remodeled to a more standard looking Standard Station. (Jerome Zerbe)
I’ve seen this Alfred Hitchcock movie, it’s scary! Actually, the little girl in the thick of it at Union Square in the 1950’s was a safe as the pigeons were! (Gene Wright)
“Lady, look out!” This image from the 1960’s at California and Stockton Streets wasn’t as precarious as it looks; cable cars stop in the intersection…… I hope! (Nick Carter)
“I’m a goin’ fishin’ too!” Kids on the way to make the catch of the day, stop to visit a street musician and his buddy at Fisherman’s Wharf in the late 1960’s: They’re just up from Pompei’s Grotto on Jefferson Street. (Martha Rosman)
“Hey look, honey, I can see Al Capone!”
A child looks at the Robert Louis Stevenson Monument at Portsmouth Square in Chinatown in 1939.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 