— By Jane Parton |
We've all oohed and aahed over the Victorian era footage of the carriage ride down Market Street (My, that man's derby hat looks positively smashing! … are those horses?) but honestly, I find the footage in this video from 1984 far more compelling.
It's just some guy driving down Broadway onto the Embarcadero Freeway (for those of us born post-Loma Prieta who don't actually remember it, that part is actually pretty cool) and across the Bay Bridge. Towards the end he's listening to “White Lines” by Melle Mel on the radio. Basically this video is everything - well, almost everything, since the 49ers aren't in this - that I've imagined being awesome about San Francisco in the 80s, all rolled into one. If I actually were to time-travel to the city in 1984, I'm pretty sure that I'd inevitably end up intervening in my parents' budding romance and screwing up my future existence, but after seeing this, I think it's a risk I'm willing to take.
This second video is much prettier than the other one and shows many different parts of the city, like Fisherman's Wharf when it was actually charming and not horrifying, and Mission Street when those empty theaters that will soon be condos were actually theaters. The parts shot around Nob Hill look basically the same as today, but the rest is mind-blowing.
Maybe it's just the aged quality of the film, but in this old footage the city looks so clean and well maintained, and everyone's dressed really well. I guess the world of the early 1960s really did look exactly like Mad Men! Let it be known that I fully support a resurgence of skinny ties in the Financial District suit-wearing population. For now when I want to see cute sixties style my only option is to go to Edinburgh on Wednesday nights.
So anyway, you know how sometimes on Mission Mission they post about something from San Francisco way back when and all the old timers take to the comments and reminisce? I'd be really psyched if that were to happen on this post. I love all those stories about how much cooler this city was before the dot-com boom.
Comments (6)
No, we don’t want those incoherent assholes commenting on this site. Let them stay over there. This place is so much nicer without that blog’s retarded readership.
Go rent/pirate DVDs of The Streets of San Francisco, you can get all the vintage SF driving footage you want.
born AFTER Loma Prieta? christ, i feel old all of a sudden.
not to get my Grampa Simpson on, but this reminds me of a whole lotta shit. Like how the Haight wasn’t all fucking shoe stores and violent bums in the 80s - they had cool comic book stores and stuff there.
I actually have a stash of Super 8 film and 8mm videocassettes from around then that I really need to digitize because they’re all about at that point where they’re gonna vaporate. I filmed a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in 1988 on one of those warm winter days. I also used to set up a tripod in my car and film shit like this too, as well as comedians at the old Holy City Zoo in the Richmond.
I’ll leave you with this - pictures from the film “The Lineup” when they were just starting to build the embarcadero freeway. The movie has some awesome shots of Sutro Baths and more from 1958
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gdewar/sets/72157622890892113/
What did Mission Street in was construction of Bart. The street was a mess for years and never really recovered.
I just remember coming back to the City from college during the height of the dot-com boom and seeing valet parking in front of Slanted Door on Valencia. I thought, “Valet parking in the Mission? WTF? [OK, I probably said What The F*ck because WTF wasn’t yet born] This will NEVER take off; the Mission will always be too scary for yuppies.” YEAH, remind me to NOT predict demographic trends.