One of my map-obsessed friends recently pointed me in the direction of David Rumsey's collection of aerial photography of San Francisco taken in 1938.  As Rumsey's blog points out, most of the photography is of such quality that you can actually see stripping on basketball courts and rails embedded in the streets.  In some instances, the resolution and quality of the imagery is better than what we're subjected to with modern Google Maps.  What the photography shows is pretty incredible:

Not only is it Seals Stadium (which sat at the corner of 16th and Bryant until the late-50s; currently home to Safeway), where the Giants played their first two seasons prior to moving to Candlestick, but there's actually a game in play.  If you zoom in real close, you can see the players on the field:

Crossing the Mission is the tracks of the long-since abandoned Southern Pacific Railway (which provides a fine name for the new brewery on the site of the old tracks).

There it is crossing 24th at Capp St (the ghost of those tracks can still be seen at the ZipCar parking lot on the northeast corner of the intersection).  And, of course, BART was still decades away, so all four corners of 24th and Mission have reasonably tall buildings.

And here's the old rail bridge crossing Dolores (seen from the ground here and here).

Speaking of Dolores, Dolores Park pretty much looked the same as it does today, albeit with a bigger playground and a second bathroom building at the corner of 19th and Dolores.  Also, there's only a few people hanging out.

But, for the best stuff, you have to leave the Mission and head out to the outskirts of the city.  As seen here, the Sunset was still predominately sand dunes awaiting boring stucco housing.

And then there's Playland at the Beach, the old amusement park that sat between Ocean Beach and the Richmond.  Should you zoom in far enough, you can feast your eyes on the old coaster:

It's good to know Toxic Beach was also a trash-filled shithole some 70 years ago.

Finally, should you care to really nerd out, David Rumsey took the time to overlay the 1938 maps over Google Earth so you can match up the maps up to their current aerial view.

With that, have fun squandering the rest of your vacation on this stuff.

Riding big wheels and office chairs down San Francisco's hills is fun and all, but this looks to be about as close to sledding as it gets in SF.  Perhaps it's time to bring 2001's SF Chair Races?

The intro to the short doc is solid, but the real action kicks off 3:30 in:

[via Lurk Skate SF]

I had noticed the door to the defunct Palace Family Steak House wide open a few weeks back, with three guys inside cleaning out two years worth of dust and grime.  Whle I wasn't able to swing in to figure out what was going on at the time, Todd from Bernalwood was able to poke his head around and snap these pics:

Though from the outside it looks pretty much the same as it has since it closed in 2009, there’s lots happening behind the sheets of brown paper that cover the windows of the venerable Palace Steak House at the corner of Mission and Cesar Chavez. Four decades worth of accumulated kitch and grunge have been removed, and based on these exclusive photographs captured by the Bernalwood Spybot, it seems the interior of the Palace Steak House has been thoroughly remodeled to look retro-shabby-chic.

Unfortunately, no one has been able to contact the owners to figure out what exactly is going on (Is it still a steak house? Will it keep the same menu? Will there be hella vegan options?), but the exterior signage suggests they are keeping the “Palace Family Steak House” name and could be open as soon as next week.

Read on to see additional pics and give the restaurant's theme song (that's right) a listen.

The Fog Bender eulogized the Dolores Park Playground so perfectly that I feel compelled to do the unorthodox thing here and quote him, in full, so you don't lose anything:

they tore down the playground at Dolores park and i’m bummed about it.

this was the place i went to countless birthday parties in my youth.

the place i would take countless dates to drink and chat on the wooden structure under the stars.

the place i would count hundreds of football sized rats running from the bushes to the big wooden boat that sat beached in the sand.

this was the place i would run off to after getting too fucked up to hang out at the bar.

i would swing on the swing set by myself and sometimes meet other people doing the same thing.

one time i was swinging really high and at the highest point in my back swing the swing decided to break and i flew backwards all the way across the sand and landed on my stomach on the concrete part of the playground.  that will never happen again because they’re putting in a new playground made of plastic and rubber.  no more waking up with sand in my pockets.  no more scraped knees.  it’s kinda sad.

Let's just hope they don't do the same to Tallboy Terrace.

[The Fog Bender | Photo by Alison Zick]