The construction to prepare for the laying of sewer pipes on Vicente Street, near 39th Avenue, was documented by SF Department of Public Works’ (DPW) staff photographer Horace Chaffee on July 23, 1909. Chaffee covered numerous infrastructure projects spearheaded by DPW from the 1910s through the 1930s and captured the modernizing of San Francisco in the process. Photo courtesy of a private collector/Western Neighborhoods Project.
A woman wearing Victorian-era clothing walks in front of the “Carzonia Apartments” at Fourth Avenue and Cornwall Street in the Inner Richmond, circa 1908. Mimicking Carville in the Outer Sunset, Dr. Charles V. Cross placed 10 surplus McAllister-line cable cars on a narrow strip of his land between California and Cornwall streets to address housing needs after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
A crowd of onlookers gathers atop a Sunset District sand dune to watch the launch of McGill Glider No. 813N, by the Pacific Glider School at 33rd Avenue and Kirkham Street, on May 24, 1930.
This photo shows the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and Geary Boulevard, the future site of the Pacific Telephone Company building.
Just east of the Children’s Playground carousel in Golden Gate Park stands a red-and-white painted barn built in 1943 as part of a small petting zoo with a barnyard theme. The zoo once had a goat, chickens, ducks, guinea pigs, sheep and, as seen above in 1948, a “Rabbitville” with a fire station, hotel and school.
The creation of the Great Highway in the 19th century gave horse riders and buggy drivers a broad road to enjoy at Ocean Beach. This circa 1905 view shows a couple rolling by the U.S. Life Saving Service (predecessor of the Coast Guard) complex and North Windmill of Golden Gate Park.
To tap a subterranean aquifer and provide water for Golden Gate Park, a pump works was first built in the late 1880s in what is today the Botanical Garden.
The Inner Sunset District campus of the University of California, San Francisco had its origins as The Affiliated Colleges, bringing together medical, dental and pharmacological schools on one site in 1898.
Playland at the Beach, located between Balboa and Fulton streets at Ocean Beach, featured a fun house, rides, carnival games and the famous “It’s It” cookie ice cream sandwiches.
OVER 90,000 HISTORIC PROPERTY PHOTOS NOW ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC THROUGH SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY In 2018 the San Francisco Assessor’s Office launched an initiative to preserve and make publicly available over […]
Monarch the Grizzly lived in a Golden Gate Park bear pit which was situated on the knoll between today’s California Academy of Sciences and the AIDS Memorial Grove.
Fleishhacker Pool, a six-million-gallon outdoor swimming pool at Ocean Beach south of Sloat Boulevard, opened to the public in 1925.
The burial ground was one of four large cemeteries in the area and was removed in the early 1930s to be replaced by Rossi Playground and housing.
Photo courtesy of a private collector/Western Neighborhoods Project.
This photograph, circa 1907, shows Sweeney’s observatory on the top of Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park after it was destroyed by the massive earthquake that hit the City in April, 1906. The observatory was constructed as a part of the 1894 Mid-winter Exposition that was held in the park. Strawberry Hill, located in the middle of Stow Lake, is the tallest point in the park.
Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 