The Cone Heads are Out and About

Construction is underway...

8x10 view camera on dolly pushed across
San Francisco Bay Bridge Bridgewalk, 1980

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennetthall/9602452204/

That's All folks...

Step away from the Bridge

 

CHP Officer, Western Span, Bridgewalk, 1980

8 x 10" view camera, candid shot

Perhaps the world's only 'point and shoot' 8 x 10" photography, employing a pre-set focus with a 75mm super Angulon.  I knew I would have zero time for the traditional dark cloth and focus loop - ultimately as I predicated, I was forced into the CHP car, but not before I had made it all the way to mid-cantilever section on the decline into Oakland.  Persistence. #8x10 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bennetthall/9617013657

Bay Bridge series; Longshoreman at lunch

 

Longshoremen's lunch hour, near the site of the Waterbar, 1937

San Francisco, California

Dedicated to the talent and labor force in our community that created the original span across the Bay and the new one imminently opening

Dorothea Lange, photographer

Date Created/Published: 1937 Feb.

from the Library of Congress

Web Galleries: San Francisco Images - Bridges

Flickr Galleries - San Francisco Bay Bridge and Crossing

The Final Section of the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge, 1936

Driving by the emerging tower of the new $6.3 Billion dollar Eastern Span New Years Eve, this image came to mind - which shows the imminent completion of the original bridge - at the time an engineering marvel.  A fifty-foot section (just East of this view) collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, leading to the eventual construction of the new span.

Bay Bridge, Eastern Span Under Construction, March 22, 1936

Flickr Collection on the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island

The eastern portion of the Bay Bridge was, at 10,176’ long, the longest cantilever construction in the world at that time. This photo shows the last section of the span being fitted into place.

Wikipedia on the Bay Bridge Eastern Span Replacement
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available through World Wide Archive
original from the collection of the Oakland Public Library

Montgomery Street 1876 at the time of the opening of the Palace Hotel

 

 Palace Hotel from Montgomery Street,
Gas Lamps,  c.1876

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Gas Lamps lined Montgomery Street in a City that rival the European Capitals it style and elegance.  Viewing toward Market Street, the marble clad Palace Hotel completed in 1876 was the largest hotel west of the Mississippi.  Another leading hotel, the Lick House, corner of Montgomery and Sutter streets, is visible through the row of ornate street lamps.

James B. M. Crooks installed the first street lamps in San Francisco on Merchant street in October, 1850. They were oil burning and funded by private subscription. By 1852, Crooks had led the development of ninety lamps covering Montgomery, Clay, Washington and Commercial streets, again privately funded.  regretfully , apart from four posts a fire on May 4th in 1853 destroyed the initial work.  In the autumn of 1852, the common council contracted with Mr. Crooks to light the city within the limits of Battery, Kearny, Jackson and California streets. This contract was carried out until the introduction of gas as above related, by a contract made with Mr. James Donahue for the “San Francisco Gas Company.”

Hand-tinted black and white photography by Bennett Hall, collection San Francisco Images

About 30 years later, this is what Montgomery looked like as the new Palace Hotel was set to open in 1909.

Hibernia Bank up for Landmark Status

 Hibernia Bank Building
Jones and Market Streets, c. 1920

This building housed the Hibernia Bank, founded in 1859, and was completed in 1892. Designed in the Beaux-Arts tradition by Albert Pissis, it was considered the most beautiful building in the City with its gilt copper dome over a circular portico entrance and four Corinthian columns.

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It has a gilt copper dome surmounting a circular portico entrance, with four Corinthian columns. The floor of the portico is inlaid witha mosaic representing a mariner's compass card. The facade was originally gleaming white (now weathered grey). The interior has a vaulted dome of glass in the center. The ceilings are beautifully ornamented and tinted yellow and gold.

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 Hibernia Bank Building in Ruins after the Earthquake and fire
Jones and Market Streets, c. 1906

 

Mission Dolores, our oldest remaining structure

Mission Dolores c1880 
from original Albumen photograph by Taber
Dolores and Sixteenth Streets

The sixth mission in California was established here by Padre Junipero Serra in 1776, and named Mission San Francisco de Asis a la Laguna de los Dolores (Saint Francis of Assisi at the Lagoon of Sorrows).

It is the oldest intact building (foreground) in the City, and one of the oldest Mission Churches in California.

The Wikipedia Story:

The Mission was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu (a companion of Father Junipero Serra), both members of the de Anza Expedition, which had been charged with bringing Spanish settlers to Alta (upper) California, and evangelizing the local Natives, the Ohlone.

Presently there seems to be raging debate over who built the first structure of note in San Francisco, with some experts arguing against Andy Galvin, noted historian both for the Mission, as well as the Ohlone Indians who truly were HERE first.

READ the story on SF curbed here:
SFCurbed post on the history of Mission Dolores

PBS: San Francisco Exhibit Reunites Gertrude Stein's Remarkable Art Collection

Stein's development of a remarkable collection - tracing how she turns a modest inheritance, choosing to buy art over clothes, often purchasing the unpopular pieces, several by Matisse that later become among his most acclaimed, another provoking changes in Picasso's work. This collection at MOMA is must see - as is its companion show on Gertrude Stein's life at the nearby Contemporary Jewish Museum. Stein strove to be recognized beyond her status as a collector, an accomplished writer, she lived the uncommon life, partnered and lived with Alice B. Toklas, wrote operas in the 30's, and sat extensively in Paris for Picasso, where after 80-90 sittings another masterpiece was created, now bequeathed to the New Museum of Modern art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwSuTnKRCcg&feature=youtu.be