It’s been damaged by two major earthquakes, eaten by a giant octopus, and, probably, appeared in more motion pictures than any other building in the United States except for the Capitol Building in Washington and the Los Angeles City Hall Building. The Ferry Building is a survivor, and, easily, the “Grande Dame” of San Francisco. (Vintage photo California Historical Society)
Two aerial views of the Ferry Building: The top one is in her hey day showing many of the ferry slips, and below, a rare shot of the Embarcadero Freeway under construction. (Bancroft Library)
Repair work in 1907 on the Ferry Building, damaged in the 1906 Earthquake. Things seem to be getting back to normal with encouraging signs like, “Open For Business” and “San Francisco Will Do it.” That black smoke in the background is from a ferryboat, either arriving or leaving. I don’t think those things would pass emission testing today. (Vintage photo San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park)
The southern wing of the Ferry Building on a busy day in 1907:
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Can I get across here?” (Vintage photo Marilyn Blaisdell Collection)
Another terrific and one of the oldest postcards of San Francisco I’ve seen; the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building tower when it was still called East Street. That’s Telegraph Hill on the left, and Alcatraz out in the Bay.
At the foot of the Ferry Building looking south in 1915: (Vintage photo San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park)
The Ferry Building from the south in 1929: Look at that ferryboat traffic! That’s a Coit Towerless Telegraph hill in the vintage photo. (Vintage photo San Francisco Maritime Historic Park)
The inside of the Ferry Building in the 1930’s (San Francisco Public Library)
Interesting Ferry Building history that I recently learned of: The north side of the building had what was called an “apron” that lowered down to the top deck of the arriving ferry boats to allow passengers to enter the Ferry Building into the upper level where they went through a corridor, and crossed over the Embarcadero to Market Street by the footbridge seen in many old photos. (Vintage photo Thomas I. J. Snead)
The passenger footbridge seen from the Embarcadero: (Marilyn Blaisdell Collection)
This 1942 photo was taken on the last day of the foot bridge before it was dismantled for salvageable war material. The doughboy soldier was there to symbolize 1918 when the bridge first opened.
‘The Falcon in San Francisco’ Oops, wait a minute…… ‘The Falcon in San Francisco’
The Falcon (Tom Conway) being “kidnapped” by a little girl in front of the Ferry Building: It was, probably a backdrop, but that was the location in the film.
This strip of shops directly across from the Ferry Building bordered by Market, Mission, Steuart, and the Embarcadero was demolished to make way for the Embarcadero Freeway. Although patronized regularly by ferry boat passengers, this block had developed into a skid row by the 1950’s. The shady palm tree area was where the stretch of buildings stood. This was where the Occupy San Francisco movement camped at the end of 2011. (Vintage photo San Francisco Public Library)
The Hotel Colchester, just north of the Ferry Building in the 1950’s: Somebody put a lot of artistic effort into that LAUNdRY sign. Below, is the spot that the glamorous Colchester Hotel occupied. (Vintage photo California Historical Society)
Commercial Street in the 1950’s when it ran through to the Ferry Building. (Vintage photo Karl Kortum)
Eventually, the area behind the Ferry Building had become a graveyard of parked 1950’s and 1960’s cars. The Sausalito Ferry launch occupies this location today. (Port of San Francisco Archives)
Like the people of France toward Marie Antoinette, the people of San Francisco turned on their queen and imprisoned her behind the Embarcadero Freeway in 1959. Boy that’s corny writing! (Vintage photo Darius Aidala)
The last of the shabbiness of this area disappeared in 1991 with the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway due to the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989. (Fran Ortiz)
“OH MY! BUT WIELAND’S BEER IS GOOD!” I wouldn’t know, they stopped brewing the beer created by the German immigrant John Wieland in the 1930’s. I always liked this 1905 picture at Sutter and Market Streets. As well as a wonderful period piece, I’ve wondered how many of these people were still alive a year later after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. Center, is the same location today. At bottom, is and old Wieland’s Beer advertisement that can still be seen today on the Old Ship Saloon on Pacific Ave. (TheDailyMail.com)
Hey, that crazy driver is heading up Lombard Street the wrong way! Actually, it’s Vermont Street on Potrero Hill; San Francisco’s real “Crookedest Street in the World”. Check out the Wikipedia link here.
Don’t let anyone tell you that the Mel’s Drive-in scenes from the 1973 movie ‘American Graffiti’ weren’t filmed in San Francisco because they were. Although the hangout was closed up and slated to be demolished, George Lucas had it reopened for the movie scenes. The drive-in was knocked down after the movie was filmed. At the upper right, actors Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, and Charlie Martin Smith on the set. Below left was a discrimination protest during the 1960’s at Mel’s. At bottom right, is 140 South Van Ness, where Mel’s used to be. 
An anti Vietnam War protest at Fillmore and Fulton in 1967: The City Hall Building is in the background. 
Heading west to Yerba Buena Island and San Francisco on the old Cantilever section of the Bay Bridge, something we’ll never do again in this lifetime. 
An old proclamation asking visitors not to come to crowded San Francisco during World War Two. I’m sure they came anyway. 
Quite a different welcoming for visitors from Super Bowl City at the foot of Market Street, which opened on January 30, 2016: At the lower right are two of my tykes in 2002 where Super Bowl City is today.
‘Bullitt’ wasn’t the only movie filmed in San Francisco to include a chase scene. In the upper left side of this movie collage is a chase scene from Buster Keaton’s 1922 film, ‘Daydreams’. In a Keystone Cop-like scene, San Francisco police chase Buster north on Powell Street across Washington on the edge of Chinatown. This spot looks, remarkably, the same ninety six years later! In the upper right hand corner, Jack Lemmon squeaks his Thunderbird past a cable car at the Taylor and Bay turntable in the 1964 movie, ‘Good Neighbor Sam’. The view is blocked now, but a 76 gas station is still on the right side corner, and it you look close, you can see the Cost Plus Imports sign, still in business here, behind the gas station. At lower left is a chase scene down the Alta Plaza steps from the 1972 movie ‘What’s up, Doc?’ with Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. This scene was filmed without the permission of the City of San Francisco, and caused damage to the steps, still visible today. At lower right, probably, my favorite scene from a Clint Eastwood movie. Clint runs into the old Fort Mason train tunnel carrying ransom money in the 1971 movie ‘Dirty Harry’ and encounters three hoods who try to rob him. Big mistake! “You don’t listen, do you, ass++++?” The old train tunnel is now closed off.
The historic Jackson Square in the 1950’s: “We’re number one!” So, there’s the little guy who invented that! (Phil Palmer) 
Montgomery and Jackson in the 1920’s. A Globe Beer sounds good!
Baker Street from the Palace of Fine Arts Lagoon in the 1950’s (Phil Palmer) 
“The light at the end of the tunnel.” Coming west out of the Yerba Buena Tunnel in the Summer of 1971.
I’ve covered this film before, but I watched it again the other night, and it always reminds me of what a pleasure this 1947 movie is for San Francisco lovers! It’s not, necessarily, a well made movie, some of the scenes are downright weird, and the doctor who does the plastic surgery on Humphrey Bogart is creepier than Freddy Krueger, but for vintage San Francisco locations it’s at the top of the list.
Near the opening scenes, Lauren Bacall picks up an escaped murderer from San Quentin, nicknamed, “Mad Dog” Parry, in her woodie and believing in his innocence, sneaks him across the Golden Gate Bridge to her apartment on Telegraph Hill. People end up dead around Bogie all through this movie, and Bacall, trustingly, continues to believe his innocence. Why can’t I meet a girl like that? Here, she smuggles him through the old Art Deco toll booths, (now obsolete) past a police roadblock.
Bacall pulls up to her apartment at 1360 Montgomery Street. A number of scenes were filmed in and around this building for the movie. It is said that Lauren Bacall lived in these apartments before breaking into the movies.
Near the end of the film, a small-time blackmailer tries to kidnap Bogart, who drives the hood to a spot under the Golden Gate Bridge to…… straighten things out. This spot is now off limits to the public since the 9/11 attacks.
After a struggle for a gun with the blackmailer causes the punk to fall from the bluff under the bridge, Bogie looks down reflecting that he now knows who killed his wife and framed him, sending him to prison; it’s Agnes Moorehead. “Oh, darn it, Tim; you spoiled the ending for us!” Well, of course, it’s Agnes Moorehead, it’s not going to be Lauren Bacall!
After he accidentally kills Agnes Moorehead, (there seems to be a pattern here) Bogie hops on a speeding cable car at Hyde and Greenwich. A cable car’s top speed is about nine miles an hour, but he still makes his getaway. “Mad Dog” Parry has a rendezvous with Lauren in South America where they lived happily ever after. I hope he didn’t accidentally kill her too.
Putting on the feedbag with a few horse traders at the Stock Exchange Building at Sansome and Pine Streets: 
“Now, stay there, Fifi!”
“Nice looking dog, lady! Let me guess, its name is ‘Spot’, right?”
I love this picture; a couple of bobby sox artists near the statue of Sun Yat-sen in St. Mary’s Square. 
The following were some of San Francisco’s prominent 1949 visitors.
Bob: The same in real life as he was in his movies! 
Class is where you find it. 
Old Banjo-Eyes was a little weird! 
He was a great architect, but he sure wasn’t very imaginative when it came to verbal praise!
“Look, it’s a UFO!”
A 1949 color (sort of) photo of the Cliff House. It’s more popular now than ever, and the food is good, but, to me, there’s something missing since the remodeling of 2002. The consensus is that it’s for the best, but when the sun rises on one side of the world, it sets on the other. Hmmm, I’m getting a little too profound here! 
This discarded 1949 San Francisco News edition at Sutro Heights reads, “IT’S 92! HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR. 
A Columbusless Coit Tower: There’s that helicopter again. Hey, don’t follow me, I’m not Sean Penn! 
“Hey Mister, wash your car?”
This old 1949 cartoon map of San Francisco is fun to look at. I like the Coit Tower and Mount Davidson Cross being dragged into place. From day one until I lost him, Danny loved chewing on my books and magazines, anything paper. It looks like he got to this one too. I hope I didn’t bawl him out too much! 
Speaking of Danny, days like this on Ocean Beach make me miss my little man so much! (Vintage photo, Robert L. Fraser)
A couple of years ago, I stopped into the Wells Fargo History Room on Montgomery. They have an authentic stagecoach from the old West on display there. It, probably, was never robbed by Black Bart nor had John Wayne riding shotgun, but it’s neat to see. 
They also used to have a contraption there where you could have your picture put on phony money images. This is what they gave me when I asked the government for bail out money a few years ago!
Speaking of money, This is where some of the hard earned tax dollars that you give back to the government used to come from; the old San Francisco Mint at 5th and Mission Streets, seen here after the 1906 Earthquake. This building has caused some controversy because there are swastikas at the base of the old lamp posts in front of it, placed there before the swastika was notorious. Of course, I don’t mean to be insensitive or offensive to people bothered by this symbol, but it is a, relatively, unknown San Francisco fact, so I’ve posted a picture of one of them. At the far right in the modern picture of the Mint is the corner of the old Pickwick Hotel, where Sam Spade stashed the stolen bird statue when it came in to his possession in the Maltese Falcon. 
Sometimes, these things are nothing but fun! Here’s the set up; Brian Donlevy is on trial at the old Hall of Justice Building on Kearny for murdering his unfaithful wife’s lover. (He’s innocent) Anna May Wong has information that may save him but will not testify, although she comes to the courthouse out of guilt. Ella Raines, Donlevy’s new squeeze, spots her and the chase is on. Follow me now as we trail these dames through Chinatown.
It starts at Kearny and Washington as Anna jumps into a cab, and turns to head up Washington Street.
Ella grabs a cab and follows her.
They race up Washington past Portsmouth Square to Grant.
Turning left on Grant, they drive south toward Clay Street.
Anna May looks back to see if she’s still being followed.
There’s an old axiom that I just made up that says that you can’t have a movie chase scene without breaking up the continuity. In the next scene they’re back to a point in the chase that they were beyond in the previous scene. Now they’re back at Grant crossing Washington!
Now the chase turns into Ross Alley from Washington, another impossibility considering the way they were going, but I’m not complaining, I’m just enjoying the ride.
They stop part way down the alley where an old passageway leads to Old Chinatown Alley.
Stretching her dress to the limit, (I held my breath at this point, but it didn’t rip) Ella chases Anna May down the passageway. The passage is closed now.
They enter into Old Chinatown Alley, and Anna May runs into the house of her father to hide, behind where the pallet jack and the boxes are today.
When confronted in the house, Anna May explains that she was only afraid that her testimony would have hurt Donlevy who she cares a great deal about, and agrees to testify. Everybody lives happily ever after except Donlevy’s wife who goes to jail.
Union Square after the 1906 Earthquake: This link here is to SFGATE’s story today about the last earthquake survivor. There’s also a neat slide show of old earthquake photos.
San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now 