Old San Francisco before the earthquake.

I feel like it is still the same, I am going to share that with my Mom.

Born and raised in SF for 20 years. I am a true native (most people in SF ask "so . . . where are you from" and they NEVER hear back "Uh, I'm from here")

Kimberly
 
My mom grew up in San Francisco in the 1920s and 30s but that film even predates her!
 
They had gopros back then, cool. Also cool that page had a link to this. Aviation related(ever so briefly.)
 
John Baker said:
It seems impossible, but at one time, people could survive without a million laws and regulations, not even traffic laws...how could that be?

-John

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/silent-film-of-old-san-francisco-before-its-destruction-1503300106
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What makes you think that laws didn't exist? How many people died in that earthquake due to the buildings codes which did in fact exist at the time not take into consideration earthquakes? The fact is many did not survive that earthquake. Now find how many died in the more recent Loma Prieta quake, or Northridge. Look at what structures collapsed and which didn't and look at their relationship between build date and regulation dates.
 
Ahh the good old days, when life expectancy was about 40 and nobody had indoor plumbing. No doubt our nostalgists miss all the polio and cholera epidemics too. Darn all that government regulation!
 
steingar said:
Ahh the good old days, when life expectancy was about 40 and nobody had indoor plumbing. No doubt our nostalgists miss all the polio and cholera epidemics too. Darn all that government regulation!
Click to expand...

Perhaps a short life is what one pays for freedom.

-John
 
steingar said:
Ahh the good old days, when life expectancy was about 40 and nobody had indoor plumbing. No doubt our nostalgists miss all the polio and cholera epidemics too. Darn all that government regulation!
Click to expand...

Polio was eliminated by government regulation?
 
The street was surprisingly devoid of horse poop.
 
John Baker said:
It seems impossible, but at one time, people could survive without a million laws and regulations, not even traffic laws...how could that be?

-John

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/silent-film-of-old-san-francisco-before-its-destruction-1503300106
Click to expand...

At the time that film was made, it was illegal for Chinese people to own land in California.

There were regulations about mining runoff at the time because it was destroying downstream land used for agriculture. There were regulations about the railroads, many of them self-serving. There were even gun laws.

There were plenty of laws. Some of them stupid, some of them not so stupid. But the wild west? No. Not in 1906. MAYBE 50 years earlier.
 
Henning said:
Weren't you lamenting the deaths of people who exercised their freedom to do what they wanted in a different thread?
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That could be, I don't know. I'm here to have fun, my moods change from one day to the next. Could you post a link so I can see who I was for that day?

-John
 
John Baker said:
That could be, I don't know. I'm here to have fun, my moods change from one day to the next. Could you post a link so I can see who I was for that day?

-John
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Lol, forgot which thread, one of the pot threads most likely, probably the 'safer' one.
 
John Baker said:
Thanks Henning. See, I'm a completely different person today. I was younger then though, so I'll give myself a little wiggle room on that.

-John
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There is no subject that does not contain a conundrum between ends of its spectrum.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The street was surprisingly devoid of horse poop.
Click to expand...

I ride horses (and care for 50 horses as a volunteer on weekends).

This is EXACTLY what I thought when watching this video. Funny. I can just imagine the pooper scooper men, risking getting run over, cleaning the streets.

Then again, now I remember, horses did have poop bags they could hang from the tail. Perhaps they were wearing these poop catching bags.
 
Everskyward said:
My mom grew up in San Francisco in the 1920s and 30s but that film even predates her!
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My mom's parents were survivors of the 1906 quake. They grew up in San Francisco.

You never called it anything except "The City" or "San Francisco". And growing up we always dressed when going to The City. As a young boy I wore a coat and tie. That's just the way it was.
 
I would have sworn that I saw fleeting glimpses of horse sh*t on the street. I think they may have been edited out in the cutting room. For those of you who are younger, a cutting room is like editing something in Photoshop, except they actually cut out sections of the film itself then glued it back together.

Going to a moving picture show in those days was a big deal, so I'm guessing that they did not want to offend the faint of heart in the audience, even though they probably had to step over mounds of the stinky stuff to get into the theater.

-John
 
John Baker said:
I would have sworn that I saw fleeting glimpses of horse sh*t on the street. I think they may have been edited out in the cutting room. For those of you who are younger, a cutting room is like editing something in Photoshop, except they actually cut out sections of the film itself then glued it back together.

Going to a moving picture show in those days was a big deal, so I'm guessing that they did not want to offend the faint of heart in the audience, even though they probably had to step over mounds of the stinky stuff to get into the theater.

-John
Click to expand...

There was also masking to the prints as well as retouching the negs with die. Painstaking bloody processes.
 
Thank you so much for posting that! As a former San Francisco resident and history buff, it was a thrill. How much the city has changed and yet how much it is exactly the same. You see why with more powerful cars on the horizon that traffic laws were enacted!!:eek:

The history of San Francisco is really interesting and it has always been an outlying city, a rouge city in American history. In the late 19th and early 20th century it was actually quite libertarian actually. It has a fairly long history of live and let live policy... until the last twenty years or so.:(

Now it's a place where they guide, instruct and ultimately force you to live "correctly". I used to love the city and thought if I could afford it, I would always have a place there. Now I'm older, wiser and avoid it as much as possible.

Anyhow, it's creepy to think of how many of those people frolicking in front of the cable car, going about their seemingly important business that day, no doubt some being rude to one another, were dead four days later, or at least homeless with nothing. :sad:
 
Jim Logajan said:
I was all set to use Twain's alleged famous quote:

"The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

But according to Snopes, it looks like Twain never wrote such a thing:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp
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There is actually a lot of truth in that. I went through basic training at Ft. Ord, CA, just south of San Francisco. It is a strange damp cold that goes right through you, it literally chills you to the bone.

-John
 
John Baker said:
There is actually a lot of truth in that. I went through basic training at Ft. Ord, CA, just south of San Francisco. It is a strange damp cold that goes right through you, it literally chills you to the bone.

-John
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I doubt if you could get a BUDS candidate to extol on the warmth of San Diego either.:rofl:
 
It only seems cold to summer tourists who arrive without jackets.
 
Everskyward said:
It only seems cold to summer tourists who arrive without jackets.
Click to expand...
Kind of like today for 60% of the country. While many are not below average, it is certainly colder than most would expect on a bright sunny day!
PS: Wind chill yesterday was -10.
 
I walked three miles in single digit temperatures this morning with the coldest north wind I've ever felt. Northern Californians don't know the meaning of the word.
 
steingar said:
I walked three miles in single digit temperatures this morning with the coldest north wind I've ever felt. Northern Californians don't know the meaning of the word.
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Nor do we want to! Human beings are not supposed to live in crappy environments like that. Living in single digit climate zones is unnatural.
 
MAKG1 said:
Never went to a Giants night game in August when they were at the Stick, eh?
Click to expand...
Haha, not a sports fan. But I doubt it's any worse than a Packers game at -10 F.
 
Everskyward said:
It only seems cold to summer tourists who arrive without jackets.
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I always love pointing out the people riding those open top double decker buses touring the city and looking like they are straight up in pain, huddled there clutching their parkas and hooded sweatshirts. Welcome to sunny San Francisco!
 
Everskyward said:
Haha, not a sports fan. But I doubt it's any worse than a Packers game at -10 F.
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I'm not so sure about that.

I'm not a sports fan either (heck, I only pay attention to schedules because of the TFRs), but I've frozen my butt off at the Stick at night even after hauling every blanket I could carry.
 
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