Commercial Buildings

The view looking up California Street from Sansome Street in San Francisco, in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

California Street in 2015:

California Street is at the heart of San Francisco’s Financial District, and this area was hit hard by the 1906 earthquake and the subsequent fires. Most of the buildings in this scene appear to have been supported by load-bearing masonry walls, which easily crumbled as the ground shook. However, several taller buildings in this scene survived serious structural damage, including the 1904 Merchants Exchange Building in the left center, and the 1901 Kohl Building in the right center of the photo. These modern skyscrapers were built with steel frames, which have more “give” in an earthquake than brick or stone, allowing the building to bend rather than crack, and both are still standing today, amid newer and much taller skyscrapers.

The other surviving feature from this section of California Street is the cable car line, which is visible in the middle of the street in both photos. It was once one of 23 lines in the city, but after the earthquake most were replaced with less expensive electric trolleys. However, this line remained in operation because of its geography; Nob Hill in the distance was insurmountable for conventional trolleys, which did not have the traction to get up the steep grade. Cable cars, though, are literally pulled up the hill by a continuously-running cable under the street, which allows it to climb far steeper hills than the trolleys. Today, the city’s three remaining cable car lines are mostly used by tourists, but the California Street line still sees a significant number of commuters, because of its location in the Financial District.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.

The view looking up Post Street from Kearny Street in San Francisco, shortly after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The view in 2015:

The first photo was probably taken a matter of days after the fires had subsided in San Francisco, because there does not appear to have been any work done on cleaning up after the disaster. The street is still completely covered in debris, including the mangled remains of one of the city’s steam fire engines on the right side. It was one of 38 such vehicles that the department had, along with a sizable force of over 500 men. However, after the earthquake hit they found that their firefighting capabilities were limited by the fact that the earthquake had destroyed many of the water mains. This lack of water, combined with poor leadership decisions on the part of the city government, allowed fires to spread throughout much of the city virtually unchecked.

Today, at least one of the buildings from this photo is still standing. Located in the center of the photo a block away at the corner of Grant Avenue, the Shreve Building had just opened a few months before the earthquake. It was occupied by Shreve & Co., a prominent jewelry store, and it had been specifically designed to withstand earthquakes and fires. This was put to the test very quickly, and despite the earthquake and the building being gutted by fire, it remained structurally sound and was soon repaired.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.

Another view looking northeast on Market Street, from near the corner of Fifth Street, in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Market Street in 2015:

These photos were taken about a block west of the ones in the previous post, and some of the same buildings are visible in both, including the Mutual Savings Bank Building in the distance on the left side of the street, and the Call Building in the distance on the right. Although heavily altered, both survived the earthquake and are still standing today, although they are mostly hidden from view in the 2015 scene here.

The first photo shows the city in the process of cleaning up after the earthquake. Many of the other photos of Market Street shows large crowds walking down the street, apparently inspecting the damage, but most of the people in this scene are working. Some are picking up debris with shovels, while others are hauling it away in wheelbarrows. In the distance, some sort of a steam engine appears to be assisting the workers as well. In the foreground, the piles of bricks, twisted metal, and charred wood give an indication of the work that was still to be done.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the city rebuilt, and a few of the buildings in the foreground were restored, including the 1904 Flood Building to the left and the 1896 Emporium department store to the right. Today, not much is left of the pre-earthquake department store building, though. The entire building had to be rebuilt except for the Market Street facade, which was preserved. Nearly a century later, in the early 2000s, the building was again gutted and rebuilt, and converted into Westfield San Francisco. It is now occupied by Bloomingdale’s, and everything in the building is new except for the facade and a glass dome from the 1908 reconstruction.

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.

Looking northeast down Market Street in San Francisco near Fourth Street, in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The view in 2015:

As mentioned in this earlier post, Market Street was and still is largely the commercial center of San Francisco. However, much of the street was either leveled by the 1906 earthquake or destroyed by the fires that were started by the earthquake. The first photo shows a number of completely destroyed buildings, but there were some left standing, a few of which were repaired and still exist today.

The tall building in the center of the first photo stands relatively unscathed amid the rubble on the left side of the street. This was the Mutual Savings Bank Building, which had been built just four years earlier. This twelve-story building survived the earthquake, and despite a major addition in 1964 it is still standing today at the corner of Market and Geary Streets.

The most prominent building in the first photo is the Call Building, also known as the Spreckels Building, on the right side. When it was built in 1898, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, and was the home of the San Francisco Call newspaper. It was designed to be both earthquake proof and fireproof, and both of these were put to the test just eight years later. It survived the earthquake itself, but like so many other buildings in the city it was gutted by the fires that followed. However, it was still structurally sound, and it was repaired. Today, it is still standing as the Central Tower, but it is completely unrecognizable from its 1906 appearance. In 1938 the exterior was completely remodeled to match the popular Art Deco style, which brings up the Ship of Theseus question: if the interior was replaced in 1906, and the exterior replaced in 1938, is it still the original 1898 building?

This post is part of a series of photos that I took in California this past winter. Click here to see the other posts in the “Lost New England Goes West” series.