# Video Footage of San Francisco pre-earthquake 1906



## Ichiban (Aug 21, 2008)

I didn't see this posted anywhere so I thought I'd share.

I recently watched a 60 Minutes news piece showing footage of a trolley going up San Francisco's Market Street just days before the 1906 earthquake. Enjoy!

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7372854n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox


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## desertpunk (Oct 12, 2009)

The vid has been out for a while, mislabeled 1905 when it was actually taken just one week before the 1906 quake:


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

^^At least US cities looked vibrant those days...


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

And here is the same trip after the earthquake. Not the best quality though. 





And the market street in 2005 as an comparison.


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## sweet-d (Jul 20, 2010)

the video after the quake is very interesting.


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## Dimethyltryptamine (Aug 22, 2009)

truly incredible. San Francisco looked amazing back in the early 1900s.


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## Bricken Ridge (Feb 16, 2008)

Interesting to see trolleys still running on the same line. Nice videos.


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## jabroni (Mar 24, 2011)

Look at the biker in the 2005 video around the 2:20 mark.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

joshsam said:


> ^^At least US cities looked vibrant those days...


Most of them were awful places: wood buildings having to cope with far more extreme weather than Europe, and boom towns (like SF at the turn of the century) that were filling up with immigrants and internal migrants copying, often, with cramped housing and unsanitary living conditions.

They are a model of what to avoid, not what to emulate.


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## ThatDarnSacramentan (Oct 26, 2008)

Suburbanist said:


> Most of them were awful places: wood buildings having to cope with far more extreme weather than Europe, and boom towns (like SF at the turn of the century) that were filling up with immigrants and internal migrants copying, often, with cramped housing and unsanitary living conditions.
> 
> They are a model of what to avoid, not what to emulate.


How does the building quality relate at all to the vibrancy of the street life? :crazy:


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

ThatDarnSacramentan said:


> How does the building quality relate at all to the vibrancy of the street life? :crazy:


The quantity of people walking on streets of many cities around 1900-1920 (a scene captured in diverse movies of cities on both sides of the Atlantic) has less to do with any resemblance of quality of life but with the lackluster infrastructure and cramped housing of those times.

People on streets, on itself, is not a valid indicator of any quality of life in any city. Crowded streets are not an enough condition for "vibrancy", unless one classifies any agglomeration of people as vibrant - even, say, an agglomeration of gangsters or war refugees.


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## ThatDarnSacramentan (Oct 26, 2008)

I expected as much from you.


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## Skyrazer (Sep 9, 2009)

Topic will degrade into another pitiful debate about Suburbanist's views in 5....4....3....2....


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## Ichiban (Aug 21, 2008)

I'm not sure what type of "reputation" Suburbanist has but he has said nothing unreasonable regarding quality of life of early 20th Century cities.


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## Skyrazer (Sep 9, 2009)

It's not so much about the validity of what he said, it's just his propensity to derail countless topics on this board due to his contrarian views with most of this board's community.

I blame those whom argue with him more than himself however. Dunno why so many others feel they need to petulantly come out arms swinging at every post he makes, even if some of them are rather....contentious to say the least.


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## DFWMetro (Jul 1, 2011)

This 1906 film was a promotional film it was thought for a long time that it was done in 1905, but after recent research by a historic movie expert it was shot four days before the earthquake and was shipped out one day before the earthquake to New York City. In this film most people were recruited to make San Francisco look livelier, the movie camera was a new curious novelty in those days and most people stare at it. Notice that the same motor cars make many U-turns to reappear in the film as there were only a few motor cars in 1906, also every person is wearing a hat to look dressy with the exception of only one. It is also eerie to see that most people in the film may have died just four days later in the earthquake.


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## Huhu (Jun 5, 2004)

desertpunk said:


> The vid has been out for a while, mislabeled 1905 when it was actually taken just one week before the 1906 quake:


Some of the driving in this video is rather disturbing.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Huhu said:


> Some of the driving in this video is rather disturbing.


The first schemes for driver's licensing and basic traffic rules were not devised until 1912-1915, together with the first traffic lights and so on. It was pretty much a traffic jungle, anyone could drive a vehicle and you had to carve your space on roads.


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## Lordpenguinton (Aug 19, 2009)

Kinda sounds like Naples and Rome when I was there in the 90's.


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## Sweet Zombie Jesus (Sep 11, 2008)

Skyrazer said:


> I blame those whom argue with him more than himself however. Dunno why so many others feel they need to petulantly come out arms swinging at every post he makes, even if some of them are rather....contentious to say the least.


It's nice to have a 'verbal punchbag'. Crap day at work? It's okay, here's a guy who actually thinks (or is an elaborate troll, I'm still not sure) that mass clearances of urban neighbourhoods and communities were/are a good idea, and that cities ought to be spread out and segregated to the most extreme possible level. He constantly posts much the same thing, and is lampooned every single time, only for him to bounce back up and say the same thing... again. One can't help but not join in. Aaaaaah... don't that feel better? 

Just kidding Sub... we love ya really


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## mgk920 (Apr 21, 2007)

ThatDarnSacramentan said:


> How does the building quality relate at all to the vibrancy of the street life? :crazy:


Urban firestorms were a constant worry in those days with wood-frame construction. There were only the barest levels of municipal fire protection and no building and safety codes to speak of (inadequate exits, no sprinklers, etc).

Also, in the case of San Francisco, SOME people may have known about the area's seismic instability, but even those few learned people had no idea of what to do about it in the areas of public safety and building design.

AND, notice those horses? THAT was how most people and things were moved around within cities in those days. Just the pollution issues with them made cars and trucks the ultimate SOLUTION to urban mobility in the eyes (and noses) of those alive in the very early 20th century. The streetcars (cable cars and electric trolley lines, especially) were economically successful then because at that time, they were a true improvement over the horse and ones' own feet for local mobility. They began failing financially when cars had became more common by the 1920s.

Mike


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