Dennis Evanosky - Lost San Francisco

MORE SALAMANDER TITLES

www.anovabooks.com

LOST SAN FRANCISCO

Nature and man have conspired to pick off many gems in San Francisco's architectural heritage. Like a parallel universe, an entire city could be formed with the great buildings that have disappeared over the years.

Lost San Francisco takes readers on a journey back to the buildings, parks, stadia, ferries - even cemetaries and prisoners - that time and progress have swept aside. It revisits the building where fortunes were made, where momentous events unfolded and where San Franciscans went to enjoy themselves, like Seals Stadium or Playland at the Beach.

The single biggest moment of loss occurred on April 18, 1906, when the great earthquake that rocked so many foundations was followed by a calamitous fire. It ripped through Chinatown and Nob Hill, treating immigrant business and plutocrat mansion alike. it spawned a wave of new building, turned some cable card to electric streetcars and moved Chinatown towards Porthmouth Square.

Elsewhere, Fillmore lost its illuminated arches to wartime expediency, the Palace of Fine Arts succumbed to fifty years of water damage and two Cliff houses, the Fillmore Chutes and buildings and Angel Island went up in flames. The Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge made the ferries redundant, while the automobile also accounted for the Southern Pacific station.

Organized chronologically from the date of loss, Lost San Francisco is a rich archive of vanished institutions and communities, full or remarkable buildings and the remarkable stories of the men an women who contributed to the city's rich and colourful past.

Eric J. Kos and Dennis Evanosky are publishers of the Alameda Sun, a weekly newspaper across the Bay from San Francisco. Eric wrote for and designed various publications before forming the Sun's parent company, Stellar Media Group, Inc. in 2001. Dennis and Eric are co-authors of San Francisco Then and Now, East Bay Then and Now, San Francisco in Photographs and Los Angeles from the Air Then and Now. They have written and published three other books about the history of Oakland and Alameda.

Picture credit
Front cover: Cliff House (Corbis).

We would like to dedicate this book to the memory of Bay Area visionary Richard Tuck who left a legacy to a very special part of Lost San Francisco: Playland at the Beach.

We would like to especially thank Jeff Thomas at the San Francisco Public Library for his help with the librarys photo collection.

Bibliography

Books

William Bronson, The Earth Shook Sky Burned: A Photographic Record of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire (1996)

Rand Richards, Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the Citys Past (2001)

James R. Smith, San Franciscos Lost Landmarks (2004)

Web sites

National Archives, San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 (www.archives.gov/legislative/features/sf/)

The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco (www.sfmuseum.org)

San Francisco Public Library (www.sfpl.org)

Cliff House Project (www.cliffhouseproject.com)

Herbert Fleishhacker article, Time Magazine
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788910,00.html)

Hunters Point Community (www.hunterspointcommunity.com/history/)

University of California Lick Obervatory (http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/)

John W. Blackett, San Franciscos Cemeteries (www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com/)

Letterman Army Medical Center, California State Military Museum (www.militarymuseum.org/LettermanAMC.html)

San Francisco Cable Car Museum (www.cablecarmuseum.org)

San Franciscos Fox Theater (www.historigraphics.com/fox/)

San Francisco History, Wharves and Buried Ships (www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgshp4.htm)

Picture credits

All page numbers refer to the print edition of this book.

San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library: 8, 9 (middle), 12 (right), 1314, 17, 18 (middle, both), 21 (left), 22 (right), 2324, 26, 27 (middle, bottom), 43, 46, 50, 51 (right), 52 (right), 53, 54 (right, top), 55, 58, 6163, 64 (middle, bottom), 65, 66 (left), 67, 70, 78, 79 (middle, bottom), 8088, 89 (top), 9495, 98 (middle; bottom), 99, 101105, 107 (left, both), 110 (top), 114, 115 (right, both), 116 (right, top), 117, 119 (bottom), 123 (top), 126 (bottom), 127, 130131, 133135, 140, 141 (right), 142 (top).

Library of Congress: 67, 9 (left), 1011, 12 (left), 15, 16 (middle, both), 18 (right), 19, 21 (right), 22 (left), 25, 27 (middle, top; right), 2939, 4142, 4445, 47, 51 (left), 51 (left), 54 (left; right, bottom), 5657, 5960, 64 (middle, top; right), 66 (right), 68 (bottom), 7172, 7576, 77 (bottom, both), 79 (middle, top), 89 (bottom), 9091, 98 (top), 100, 108109, 112113, 116 (left), 118, 119 (top), 120 (left, both), 123 (bottom), 126 (top), 128129, 136139, 142 (middle; bottom), 143.

Corbis: 9 (right), 16 (right), 20, 28, 48 (top), 49, 68 (top), 69, 79 (right), 92 (left), 93, 97 (right, top), 110 (bottom), 111, 115 (left), 121122, 124125, 132, 141 (left).

Anova Image Library: 48 (bottom, both), 74, 77 (top), 92 (right), 97 (left), 107 (top), 120 (right).

Getty Images: 97 (right, bottom), 106, 116 (right, bottom).

San Francisco Aeronautical Society (www.sfaero.org): 96.

Society of California Pioneers: 40, 73.

First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by

PAVILION BOOKS

10 Southcombe Street, London W14 0RA

An imprint of Anova Books Company Ltd

Anova Books, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First eBook publication in 2013

ISBN: 978-1-909815-24-7

Also available in hardback

ISBN: 978-1-86205-934-4

This book can be ordered direct from the publisher
at www.anovabooks.com, or try your local bookshop.

LOST SAN FRANCISCO

Dennis Evanosky and Eric J. Kos

Mission Dolores
SECULARIZED 1834

Father Pedro Font described the day he discovered the site for Mission Dolores in his diary from 1776. We rode about one league to the east (from the Presidio) going over hills covered with bushes, and over valleys of good land. We thus came upon two lagoons and several springs of good water, meanwhile encountering much grass, fennel and other good herbs. When we arrived at a lovely creek, which because it was the Friday of Sorrows (the Friday before Palm Sunday), we called the creek Arroyo de los Dolores. On the banks of the arroyo we discovered many fragrant chamomiles and other herbs, and many wild violets. Near the streamlet, the lieutenant planted a little corn and some garbanzos in order to try out the soil, which to us appeared good.