A visit to old San Francisco

[gridlore]

Film taken from a streetcar trundling down Market St. in 1905. This was less than a year before the Great Earthquake and Fire leveled the city. The building at the end of the street with the tower is the Ferry Building, which still stands and now serves as a market place as well as still handling ferries from Marin and the East Bay. Look for the cop, the boys hawking papers, and an Army officer on a horse.

Comments

[fusijui.livejournal.com]

Very cool! Thanks for posting this, it's fascinating to look at such a long continuous piece of filmed street activity from this period. What leaped out at me immediately: freight/cargo vehicles mostly horsedrawn, passenger vehicles mostly internal combustion (and then the streetcars, of course). Almost no women out in public at all -- I could only spot three, maybe four (though I didn't watch specifically for them until about the two minute mark). A lot of people walking with an unusually long gait length, by modern city standards -- or is that an illusion caused by the projection speed? And of course, the HATS. Because the past is an alien planet, and they're hiding their antennae.

[(Anonymous)]

That was almost hypnotic. The choice of music is not what I expected (perhaps some Joplin or something?) but it really worked well.

What struck me was all of the people who played chicken with the trolley. Either on foot, or horse-drawn (& often horseless) wagon. I also had fun picking out a lot of the trades costumes we do not see anymore.

Thank you for a glimpse into a past long extinct.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to log on.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

That's really exciting footage.