California Archives - Page 8 of 8

Lost New England Goes West: Palace Hotel, San Francisco

May 15, 2016May 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Looking north on New Montgomery Street from near Mission Street in San Francisco, in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The view in 2015:

The Palace Hotel, seen on the left side of the photo, opened in 1875 as the city’s largest hotel, with seven floors and 755 guest rooms. It featured such modern conveniences as bathrooms in every guest room and hydraulic elevators, and it was also designed to withstand both earthquakes and fires. To prevent earthquake damage, the brick exterior walls were two feet thick and reinforced with iron bands around the building, and it featured modern firefighting equipment such as hydrants around the building and a 358,000 gallon cistern in the basement.

The earthquake reinforcements apparently helped, because the building survived it with minor damage while, as the first photo shows, most of its neighbors were leveled. However, the earthquake started a number of fires that soon spread throughout the city. Although the hotel’s designers had planned well for a fire emergency, the staff was poorly trained and the city’s fire department had limited resources and manpower, so ultimately the fires reached the hotel, which was quickly gutted by the flames.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the hotel was rebuilt on the same site, and it is still standing today. It reopened in 1909, and like its predecessor it hosted a number of prominent guests. Many US presidents have stayed here, with the most notable presidential visit being Warren Harding, who died here on August 2, 1923 during a visit to the west coast. Several hours later, Calvin Coolidge was inaugurated as president on the other side of the continent, in the parlor of his father’s house in Vermont.

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.

Lost New England Goes West: Market Street, San Francisco

May 15, 2016May 3, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The view looking southwest on Market Street from Second Street in San Francisco, in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Market Street in 2015:

Market Street is one of the main streets in downtown San Francisco, and at the time of the 1906 earthquake there were many important businesses along here. The first photo is undated, but it was likely taken within a week or so of the earthquake, and many of the people on the crowded street were likely surveying the damage for the first time. Walking along here, they would have seen a number of buildings that had either been destroyed by the earthquake itself or gutted by the fires that raged throughout the city for several days afterward. Many of these were subsequently demolished, including the Palace Hotel in the distance on the left. This prominent hotel was destroyed in the fires, and its replacement is still standing on the site today. Other displaced businesses included the Postal Telegraph Company, whose building on the far right was destroyed. When the photo was taken, the company was operating out of a tent, as seen in front of the building.

However, some of the buildings from the first scene are still standing today, although they have since been dramatically renovated. Nothing in the foreground survives, but the Call Building in the distance on the left, which was at the time of the earthquake the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, was repaired and later renovated as the Central Tower. On the right side, two historic buildings are still standing, including the red-brick Chronicle Building in the center of the photo. However, just about all that is left of the original building is the exterior facade, as the interior has been completely gutted by both the fires and by subsequent renovations over the years, including the addition of a tall tower on top of the 1890 structure in 2007. The last historic building in this scene is barely visible just beyond the Chronicle Building. Built in 1902, the Mutual Savings Bank Building survived the earthquake, and despite an addition in 1964 the original building is still standing today.

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.

Lost New England Goes West: Union Square, San Francisco

May 15, 2016April 30, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Union Square, seen from the corner of Post and Stockton Streets shortly after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Union Square in 2015:

Today, Union Square is one of the premier shopping areas in San Francisco, but 110 years ago it was, like the rest of the city, covered in earthquake debris and surrounded by burned-out buildings. The most prominent building in the first photo is the St. Francis Hotel, on the right side of the scene. Completed only two years earlier, the building survived the earthquake itself with minimal damage, but a combination of damaged firefighting infrastructure and poor city leadership allowed fires to spread throughout much of the city. The hotel was completely gutted by the fire, as the first photo shows, but it remained structurally sound. Soon after the photo was taken, a temporary hotel was built in the middle of the square, where it housed guests until the burned-out hotel reopened a year and a half later. Now known as the Westin St. Francis, it has been expanded several times, and today it still stands overlooking Union Square.

Another Union Square landmark from the first photo is the Dewey Monument, located in the center of the square. It was designed by sculptor Robert Aitken, whose later works included the pediment atop the US Supreme Court Building, and it was dedicated in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt, in honor of Spanish-American War hero Admiral George Dewey and recently-assassinated President William McKinley. The 85-foot tall monument survived both the earthquake and the subsequent fires, and it is still standing in Union Square today, although it is now partially hidden by the palm trees around it.

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.

Lost New England Goes West: Hall of Justice, San Francisco

May 15, 2016April 30, 2016 by Derek Strahan

The Hall of Justice at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco, shortly after the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2015:

When the 1906 earthquake hit San Francisco, the Hall of Justice building was just ten years old. Despite what the first photo shows, it actually survived the earthquake itself. It had been seriously damaged, but neither the building nor the 77 prisoners housed on the upper floors were in any immediate danger. In fact, on the first day of the disaster the mayor made the Hall of Justice his temporary headquarters, since City Hall had been completely destroyed.

However, the situation here soon deteriorated. The earthquake had started a number of fires throughout the city, and a series of poor decisions on the part of city officials allowed the fires to spread. One of the ill-fated tactics was to attempt to create firebreaks by destroying buildings. In most cases, though, this was counterproductive, because the explosives tended to do a better job of igniting the buildings rather than destroying them, which only exacerbated the problem.

By nightfall on the first day, the fire was approaching Portsmouth Square, and the Hall of Justice was hastily evacuated. The prisoners were transported to another prison, and the bodies in the morgue and the police records were removed from the building and piled up in the middle of the square, covered in canvas. As the city burned around the square that night, two police officers guarded the pile. There was virtually no water available for firefighting, so the officers emptied bottles of beer onto the canvas to keep it damp, thus saving both the corpses and the records.

The first photo shows Portsmouth Square perhaps a week or so after the fire. By then the bodies and the police records had presumably been moved to a safer location, and the square was instead covered with tents of displaced residents. The burned-out remains of the Hall of Justice loom in the background, with the frame of the cupola dangling from the top of the building. It was beyond saving, and was demolished soon after. Its replacement was completed in 1910 on the same spot, and it stood here until it was demolished in 1968 to build the 27-story hotel that now stands here. Today, the only thing left from the first photo is Portsmouth Square itself, which is a major focal point within the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.

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.

Lost New England Goes West: Ferry Building, San Francisco

February 9, 2018April 28, 2016 by Derek Strahan

Author’s note: Although the main focus of this blog is New England and the northeast, I sometimes include photos from other parts of the country. This is the first in a series of then and now photos of California that I took this past winter.

The San Francisco Ferry Building in the aftermath of the April 18, 1906 earthquake. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The Ferry Building in 2015:

San Francisco is not an island, but for most transportation purposes it might as well be. Except for those traveling from the south, any approach to the city requires crossing either the San Francisco Bay on the eastern side of the city, or Golden Gate to the north. Prior to the construction of these bridges in the 1930s, the only way to do this was by ferry, and as a result this building was once among the busiest ferry terminals in the world.

The ferry terminal was built at the foot of Market Street along the present-day Embarcadero, and opened in 1898. Just a few years later, its durability was put to the test by the disastrous April 18, 1906 earthquake that, along with the resulting fires, destroyed much of the city. The first photo was probably taken only days after the earthquake, and it shows that, in contrast to the rubble and charred telephones in the foreground, the building survived with minimal damage. Interestingly, the first photo shows a makeshift barbershop on the far right side amidst the debris. The hand-written message on the side of the tent reads “Shaving 15¢” and, in smaller lettering, almost as an afterthought, is “Hair Cut 25¢.”

In the years following the earthquake, the terminal continued to be a vital part of the city’s transportation system until the completion of the Bay Bridge in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge the following year. Some ferries continued to operate out of here, but much of the interior was altered as passenger traffic declined. Another major change came in the 1950s, when the Embarcadero Freeway was built through here. Much like the Central Artery in Boston, this elevated highway cut off the city from the waterfront, and the ferry terminal was largely isolated.

The building survived another major earthquake in 1989, but the Embarcadero Freeway did not. It was heavily damaged in the earthquake, and was demolished in 1991 and replaced with light rail tracks that are visible in the distance of the second photo. At the same time, restoration work also began on the ferry terminal. Today, some ferries still depart from here, but the historic building is also used for office space and as a marketplace, and a year-round farmers’ market is held in front of the building three times a week.