Lost Landscapes of San Francisco at 20: Rick Prelinger's Crowd-Narrated Tour Through a Century of Found Film
The Long Now Foundation
For two decades, archivist Rick Prelinger has assembled a yearly compilation of archival San Francisco footage and shown it to a live audience in a theater. The format is unusual: most of the film is silent, and the audience provides the soundtrack. At the opening of this twentieth-anniversary screening, presented December 3, 2025 at the Herbst Theater for Long Now Talks, Prelinger reminded the room of the rules. They should identify places, people and events, comment on what they see, argue with each other, and call him out when he gets something wrong, which he said "is not uncommon." He warned that this year's show was "a little bit different" and that he was taking "a bit of a risk," though he did not say exactly what the risk was. His framing was simple: "This is your show, and this is your city."
What follows reconstructs the evening's arc from Prelinger's commentary, the audience's shouted identifications, and the few passages of original sound. The film runs roughly chronologically, from early-twentieth-century street scenes to 1990s video and contemporary footage. Along the way Prelinger keeps returning to a few themes: labor and political resistance, the communities that won or lost places in the city, infrastructure that has disappeared, and the families whose home movies make up much of the archive.
Opening at the Western Edge: Lands End, Ocean Beach, and Old Leisure
The film opens at the ocean. Prelinger asked how many people had walked the coastal trail from Lands End, then pointed out that the footage showed the railroad the trail was later built on. When he asked "Western historians" to name it, audience members identified it as the Ferries and Cliff House line and said it washed out in 1925. Prelinger added that the route is "now prime selfie territory." Images followed of a saltwater pier and the Ocean Beach Pavilion.
A cable car sequence, filmed with the camera mounted on the car, came from what Prelinger called the best scan in existence, made by Adrien Finelli, who was in the audience. The crowd debated locations: one voice proposed Jefferson Square, another Pacific Avenue. A short clip of dancers came from "a longer and very lovely little film," and Prelinger said he still had no definitive identification of the performers. He asked anyone who knew to tell him. A mashup-style film that "obviously mixes up east and west" prompted an audience question about whether a scene showed a bath or a cave, which Prelinger said he couldn't answer.
The lighter moments included a newsreel on the "Battle of Garbage Hill," an annual brawl between freshmen and sophomores at the University of San Francisco. The ammunition was "elderly tomatoes and other ancient fruit" and "grandfather eggs," and the narration described it in mock-epic terms before announcing that "it finally finishes in a draw."
Prelinger noted that Fleishhacker Pool turned 100 this year, "even though most of it doesn't really exist anymore." When an audience member asked where it was, others answered that it was by the zoo and is now a parking lot. Footage of Stow Lake, which Prelinger said is now called Blue Heron Lake, showed trees and stones that he said are still there, only a bit more overgrown. Someone in the crowd called out Strawberry Hill.
The 1934 Waterfront Strike as Media Event
The first extended political section covered the 1934 waterfront strike. A newsreel soundtrack described rioting spreading along the waterfront, police firing tear gas, "three deaths" and "over a hundred wounded" in a day's fighting, and troops sent by Governor Merriam to patrol the piers while a national longshoremen's board appointed by President Roosevelt tried to settle the dispute. Audience members tried to locate the street scenes and suggested Howard and Steuart or Howard and Beale.
Prelinger then cut to home movies of the National Guard occupying San Francisco, drawn from Scott Stark's collection. He pointed to a detail on screen: microphones set up for the newsreel companies. "This is a media event that's being created here," he said. After images from after the strike, he joked about the strikers' "suspicion of the media for some reason," adding that "some things remain the same."
1935: A Nazi Warship, a Mayor, and Dockworkers Who Refused
Also from Scott Stark's collection came footage of a 1935 visit by a Nazi German naval ship, which carried out maneuvers in the bay. Prelinger said the leftist dock unions and longshore workers refused to unload it, so the sailors had to do it themselves. The audience applauded.
He then spoke about Mayor Angelo Rossi, who "was said to have been a big admirer of Mussolini," though Rossi denied it. According to Prelinger, three banners hung on City Hall during the visit: the U.S. flag, the German imperial naval flag, and the swastika. The film showed Rossi with a flower in his buttonhole. The footage was shot by a German living in San Francisco who "loved the sailors," and Prelinger said he had "spared you like eight minutes" of that material.
Chinese San Francisco Organizes, and a Housing Project Follows
The next section followed Chinese San Franciscans during the Sino-Japanese War. Prelinger explained that this was the first time Chinese residents expressed themselves politically in public on a large scale, after having been intimidated from doing so "for a lot of reasons." The footage showed what he described as a hugely successful benefit parade and, later that year, pickets against ships carrying scrap metal to Japan, where it would be made into weapons.
Prelinger connected this visibility to a concrete result, while marking the claim as secondhand ("it is said"): it finally got Chinatown its first housing project, Ping Yuen, because politicians realized "that Chinese people were important for the first time." Later in the film he returned to the story with a silent newsreel about Ping Yuen. It showed the mayor and the first tenants, the Wong family; the husband was a waiter and the wife a white-collar worker, though Prelinger said he had forgotten her specific job. He called the project "a direct result, I think, of the visibility in 1937 and 38." Audience members discussed where the building sits, and someone translated the name. Prelinger repeated the translation as "happy housewives" and admired the kitchens.
The 1939 Fair, the Clipper, and the Transbay Terminal
A home movie shot by people riding a boat to the 1939 World's Fair on Treasure Island included brief glimpses of the fair itself. Prelinger singled out "a really, really rare shot": an RCA television demonstration. He said he hadn't known whether this had happened in San Francisco. There was no commercial broadcasting at the time, he explained, but RCA did remote broadcasts from the fairs in San Francisco and New York. When someone mentioned Clipper Cove, he described the flying boats that left from there as "a romantic and extremely expensive way to travel": to China in about eight days, with stops at many islands along the way.
Rail footage followed, including a meeting of Key System and Southern Pacific trains and the interior of the Transbay Terminal, whose construction date the audience worked out as 1939. Prelinger noted that some of this was 8mm film, meaning the original image was only four or five millimeters wide before being enlarged. He presented it as an example of "how good the scans can be." An audience member recommended the Western Railway Museum near Rio Vista.
A Family Prosthetics Business South of Market
Tina Hittenberger, who was in the audience, contributed a film about her family's business, a respected South of Market prosthetics maker whose motto was "limp in, leap out." Prelinger said that although the film shows work with traditional materials, the company did "extremely advanced" research and production. Hittenberger said from the audience that the business closed in 1985.
A Wedding at What Became the Internet Archive
Prelinger admitted to including a very short, unclear fragment, "like the Zapruder film," only a few frames long, for personal reasons. It shows a wedding at Funston and Clement, with a bride walking into the building that is now the Internet Archive. He said the audience would understand why he wanted it in. The Clement Street streetcar was visible nearby, and the crowd applauded when the building came into view.
Chinatown and Downtown in 1940 Kodachrome
Several filmmakers contributed color footage of Chinatown by day and by night in 1940. Prelinger stressed that none of it was colorized. It was shot on Kodachrome, which he said went on the market in 1935, with colors becoming stable around 1938. He pointed out Japanese businesses that operated in Chinatown and closed after 1942, as well as the Chinese Telephone Exchange with its small Bell System lanterns.
The night footage came from Kenneth Nettleton, an accomplished Amateur Cinema League member who made many travelogues and dramas. The downtown scenes set off a burst of audience identifications: Lotta's Fountain (someone noted it turns 150 this year), the "roar of the four" Market Street tracks, the Palace Hotel, Mason Street, Bimbo's 365 Club when it was still on Market, the Emporium, crowds on Powell Street, and a largely undeveloped Twin Peaks. An audience member explained the old streetcar color scheme, with Market Street Railway cars white-fronted and Municipal Railway cars dark, and asked whether he had it right.
The Cemeteries Beneath the City
Prelinger said he "had to put in" a film by John O'Gorman, later known as John Gorman, a photographer for The Examiner who also made independent and commercial films. He shot it with a friend in one of the old cemeteries. For newcomers, Prelinger explained that Lone Mountain and the Laurel Village area used to be cemeteries: "when you go to Trader Joe's or Laurel Village, you know, there's bones under you." He said it took a long time after the cemeteries closed to move the remains and demolish the monuments, and that fragments can still be seen in city parks and at the Wave Organ. An audience member added that kids used to go into the cemeteries to drink.
Home Movies of Everyday Life
A large share of the film came from family collections, and Prelinger treated them as central to the project. A wartime home movie at the zoo was one he admitted he "didn't know what to do with," but he included it because "we love dogs" and because it was nice to see the faces of people eating lunch. The Chatello family's footage, shot around the Crocker-Amazon district, drew cheers. The Gomez family's film showed brothers brushing their teeth. An unidentified family from the Portola District appeared at St. Elizabeth's Church, which the audience identified. Prelinger said he had "looked and looked and looked on Facebook" for this family without success. He noted it was the same family seen earlier with "the grandmother with the turkey leg."
He mentioned several times that families or their descendants would attend the following night's screening, which suggests that tracking down the people in the footage is an ongoing part of the work. The Hemtock siblings, Bob and Patricia, appear in a travelogue their father made just before Bob went into the Air Force. Prelinger called the film "rather wonderful and slightly flaky" and described the two as "the influencers, I guess" of the film. He said he found them, and that they now live in Marin County and would come the next night. The Amoroso family, "a family that knew how to live," lived in the southeastern part of the city, and their footage later showed the Cow Palace, the Mayfair Market, housing against the hillside, and the now-gone Visitation Valley tower. An audience member praised the footage as showing "neighborhoods that aren't photographed enough."
Census, Deportation, and the Last Penny from the Mint
A census promotional film urged viewers to "cooperate like a good American." Prelinger used the district maps in it to point out areas that were still not built up, and the audience called out Sunset Boulevard, Washington High School, and "my house."
Prelinger then showed footage that he said was not from San Francisco and whose location he did not know, but that he "felt the need to use." It documented the mass deportation to Mexico of what he described as many hundreds of thousands of people, some of them citizens, carried out "willy-nilly." He added dryly, "That'll never happen again," which drew laughter; an audience member called out "Department of Injustice."
A newsreel with sound followed, reporting that after 100 years the San Francisco Mint was "down to its last cent." According to the newsreel, penny production ended when the copper blanks ran out, silver coinage had been suspended a week earlier, and the stated reason was the cost of shipping pennies east, where they were mostly used. Long-serving employees watched the last batch.
The Embarcadero Freeway and the Caltrans Archive
The Embarcadero Freeway appeared several times. First came a feature-film outtake of it under construction; Prelinger did not know which film it came from, and remarked, "Nobody likes the Embarcadero Freeway." He described the small businesses around the waterfront that served sailors, maritime workers and commuters when the ferries still ran, and said the neighborhood "went way down" after the bridge was completed. An audience member added that it was also a gay district, and Prelinger repeated the point.
He then introduced Caltrans' official documentation of the freeway, from what he called a giant collection now held by Prelinger Archives and being shown for the first time in Lost Landscapes. Later he described its scale: six or seven thousand rolls covering every California highway, filmed every three years from 1970 to 2004. "And boy is it beautiful," he said, adding that they have started scanning it. A segment from around 1973 invited viewers to "watch carefully for some of your favorite eating places," and the audience called out Clown Alley and Doggie Diner. One person suggested making a GeoGuessr game from it; Prelinger joked that it was "kind of be your own AI."
A promotional film about the last ferries gave the official version of the transition. Its narration described taking "the last ferry boat," with the "mighty" freeway cutting across the path and the bridge as "the giant that doomed the picturesque ferries."
Other scenes from this period included footage outside the Transbay Terminal, where audience members placed the terminal drugstore and an arcade "above which was the loft where the mutants lived." Prelinger also showed landscape travelogues by a filmmaker he identified as Henry Fleer, known as Henry Charles, who he said loved the color red and nearly always worked some into his scenes. Prelinger said he once asked him about it and he never admitted to it.
1966: Heckling the American Nazi Party at Civic Center
One of the most pointed sections came from a reel of home movies that recently turned up on eBay. It "begins with a cat and it continues into a Nazi rally." Prelinger explained that it shows George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party, who drove his motor home to San Francisco to speak at Civic Center in late 1966. A group of longshore workers and San Francisco State students "made sure that he could hardly get a word in." Prelinger called the footage impressionistic and said he had cut it down. He pointed out the party member introducing Rockwell, the motor home, and swastikas at City Hall. He described the counterprotest as "the anti-fascist movement of 1966," and noted that Rockwell himself was "not on stage for very long."
BART, Military Police, and Other Institutions
A short section on military police showed MPs appearing wherever a service member might get into trouble, back when the military bases were active. A BART promotional film described the project as "this century's most challenging experiment in mass transit." According to its narration, schoolchildren turned the first shovel of earth on Market Street in July 1967, and crews had to deal with a ten-foot layer of pipes, cables and conduits laid down by 200 different companies over the years.
The Black Panther Party and the San Francisco State Strike
An outtake from a film by the Newsreel collective showed members of the Black Panther Party doing daily political work in the Western Addition. It drew cheers. Prelinger pointed out artwork by Emory Douglas, "He's still creating," and an audience member said someone in Oakland has the famous chair.
Newly discovered, freshly scanned news footage covered the San Francisco State strike. It included an interview with Dr. Carlton Goodlett, who, Prelinger noted, published the Sun-Reporter, the city's Black newspaper. Asked why S. I. Hayakawa's response was not acceptable, Goodlett said he had not yet read it because he had come from Mount Zion Hospital, that the demands had to be considered at a meeting of the BSU, the Third World Liberation Front and the Black community, and that the community did not want to set policy but to support students in presenting their demands. He argued that students had the right to strike if their demands were not met, and that "this is a union town," so the labor movement should support them. He said the City Hall demonstration was aimed at Mayor Alioto, who he said was trying to thwart a Labor Council strike vote, so that the mayor could hear the demands firsthand. The report was signed off by Belva Davis for Eyewitness News. Prelinger noted that she had died a month or two earlier.
From the Air, Alcatraz, and Neighborhood Activism
Footage by a friend of Bob Hillman, who was in the audience, came from a ride in the Goodyear blimp over the southeast of the city: the railyards, the Hunters Point shipyard and Candlestick Point, and later downtown, where the audience called out the Bank of America building and "just like in Dirty Harry." Prelinger noted that you could smoke on the blimp "because it's helium," said he had cut a lot of the film, and said it would be put online.
The Alcatraz section covered the Native occupation, including "Indian Land" painted on the island and a clip Prelinger said the audience had seen before but "is always worth looking at," of Native activists being ferried to the island by an ally. It was filmed by Oswald Sykes, whom Prelinger called "an amazing, amazing man" and whose daughter Kim may have been present. Prelinger said the boat is now run by the original skipper's son. He said Sykes filmed many important events in the city, including following Earl Caldwell, the Black New York Times reporter who embedded with the Black Panther Party and covered the Angela Davis trial. Prelinger recommended looking up Caldwell's work in the Times archive.
Material shot by the Mission Media Arts Collective included a pro-choice demonstration and American coots. Prelinger said the collective's archive, which his group will put online in partnership with them over time, is "an incredible record of daily life and activism in the Mission, in Chinatown and in other neighborhoods," full of ambient footage. An audience member noted that some of it is already available at SF State. Further clips included footage by Olivia Teter, whom Prelinger thought might have been a student, and a home-movie parade found on a street corner by Ariel Dovas, which Prelinger called "a great treasure."
Art, Comedy, and the Late Twentieth Century
A documentary segment followed an artist named Ruth working with first and second graders at a San Francisco elementary school. The children made murals from baker's clay, a mix of flour, salt and water, and she used them to make molds for casting a fountain. In the film she recalls proposing to work with a fantasy world and being told by the architect that "the real San Francisco is more fantastic than anything we can invent."
A comic Hi8 video from one of the audience's "favorite filmmakers," whose early tapes are being preserved, depicted a reunion at the Cafe San Francisco. It included a phone call, a meddling mother, a woman who now goes by "Susanna" rather than "Jane," and an order for Perrier because "caffeine ups my muscle tone." Someone in the audience noted that it predated the smartphone by four years.
Closing: Owning a Landscape by Filming It
The last sections turned to contemporary filmmakers who document the city themselves. A clip from Jenny Olsen contained the evening's most explicit statement about why anyone films San Francisco's landscapes. In her narration she describes filming them since shortly after she arrived, calling it "a completely impossible and yet partially successful effort to stop time." She says she preserves them "in the amber of celluloid" so she can re-experience "dappled sunlight, the calm of a warm afternoon, and the framing of an alley as it recedes into the distance." The images, she says, are both "a reminder of what once was" and "a prompt to appreciate what now is," and she ends with the idea that as the city possessed her, she possesses it in return.
The film ended with Vincent Woo's work, which Prelinger said is online and "you must see," set to music and loud cheering. Prelinger thanked the audience and the patrons, whose ticket purchases the event description says fund about a quarter of the Prelinger Library's annual budget. He closed with his usual send-off: if he didn't see them at the second screening the next night, he would see them next year. Several threads were left open, as they are each year: unidentified dancers, a Portola family he has not been able to find, families expected the following night, and large collections such as the Caltrans highway films and the Mission Media Arts archive that are only beginning to be scanned and released.
Good evening. This year the show's a little bit different than all the rest. I hope you enjoy it. I'm taking a bit of a risk here. Those of you who've been here before know what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed to make the soundtrack. Most of the film is silent, although there's some great sound portions. Identify places, people, events, comment on what you're seeing. Engage, even disagree with other people in the room, or call me out if I screw up, which is not uncommon. This is your show, and this is your city. Thank you so much for coming.
How many of you have walked the coastal trail from Lands End? This is the railroad that they made the trail for.
Western historians, name the railroad, please.
And Cliff. Ferries and Cliff House. Washed out in 1925. And now it's prime selfie territory.
Olympic saltwater pier.
Ocean Beach Pavilion.
I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of some of these boys.
Can we make it again? Yeah.
This beautiful scan, the best in existence, was made by Adrien Finelli, who's in the audience today.
The camera is on the cable car.
Hear you, Dave. Look at the beard.
Jefferson. Louder. I think this is Jefferson Square, right? I don't know, but I like hearing that. It's Pacific Avenue.
A short clip from a longer and very lovely little film. I don't have definitive identification yet on these dancers. I'd love to. There's been some guesses.
Go ahead. Go ahead. I put that there for you to hiss.
Oh, they dropped.
X Games. Please.
Suck. Very gendered.
Is that Sutro Baths? Oh, you mean is it the cave? That's a great question. I'm not sure. I mean, this film obviously mixes up east and west, but they do land here. And you know, the rest of the film is not quite so rosy.
Elderly tomatoes and other ancient fruit, grandfather eggs, and such. The ammunition for the annual brawl between the frosh and sophomores at University of San Francisco is a scene of bloodshed and slaughter. A frightful toll of carnage and destruction. Brave young men advancing to an unknown fate that might be worse than death itself. It finally finishes in a draw, but it'll never be forgotten. The Battle of Garbage Hills.
Fleishhacker Pool is a hundred years old this year, even though most of it doesn't really exist anymore, and it was a place to go in those days. Where was it, Rick? By the zoo. Still down there. Parking lot is on parking lot. And this is what is now called Blue Heron Lake, formerly Stow Lake. The trees, the stones are still there. It's a little bit overgrown around those rocks. Strawberry Hill.
Rioting spreads on the city's waterfront. Police increase a barrage of tear gas bombs as the great dock strike grows ever more menacing. Fire now. One of the injured is borne away as three deaths are reported and over a hundred wounded in the day's fighting.
Howard and Steuart, I think, or Howard and Beale maybe. The strikers retreat as the gas bombs temporarily clear the streets and troops sent by Governor Merriam arrive to patrol the piers. With a National Longshoremen's Board appointed by President Roosevelt endeavoring to settle the dispute, the governor declares the state is determined to maintain order.
And these are home movies of the National Guard occupying San Francisco from Scott Stark's collection. As it has a light.
See the microphone set up for the newsreel companies. This is a media event that's being created here. What a surprise. Yeah. Really?
And this is after the strike.
A little bit of suspicion of the media for some reason.
And some things remain the same. That kind of. Go right. Keep going.
So again from Scott Stark's collection, in 1935 the Nazi German ship visited San Francisco, did some maneuvers out there. The leftist dock unions and the longshore workers refused to unload it. The sailors had to do it themselves. Mayor Rossi, though he denied it, he was said to have been a big admirer of Mussolini, and in fact on City Hall three banners hung: the US flag, the imperial German flag for the navy, and the Nazi swastika. This is Mayor Rossi with a flower in his buttonhole. This was filmed by a German living in San Francisco who loved the sailors, and I've spared you like eight minutes of bracing young sailors, but yeah.
Are we born in chef? But hang on.
So during the China–Japan war, Chinese people for the first time expressed themselves politically for a lot of reasons. They had been intimidated about doing that, but they came out in public and demonstrated that they were well organized. This was a hugely successful benefit parade. And this is later in the year. They were picketing ships that were bringing scrap metal to Japan to be turned into weapons. And it is said that that visibility finally got Chinatown its first housing project, the Ping Yuen, because the politicians realized that Chinese people were important for the first time.
Cleaner than electric cars.
Where's the footage from? This is a home movie from people that, you know, rode one of the boats to the World's Fair. This is the World's Fair. Just a few shots, the Coca-Cola man. And a really, really, really rare shot that's coming up. I didn't know if it had happened in San Francisco, but it's a demonstration of television by RCA. There was no broadcasting technically then. There was broadcasting but no commercials, and they did remotes from the fair here and in New York.
And somebody mentioned Clipper Cove. This was a romantic and extremely expensive way to travel. China in how many days was it? Eight days. Stopping at many islands along the way.
Torpedo house on the left. How many people can fly?
Lower deck. Trucks and trains. Key System and Southern Pacific meeting. Not much traffic. And rail fan's eye view.
Yes, Megan mentions this is from 8 millimeter film. So, you're seeing an image about four to five millimeters wide being blown up. This is how good the scans can be. Rio Vista. Thank you. Jay is recommending visits to the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista.
And the inside of the Transbay Terminal, built what, '41? I think people in it. '39.
And from Tina Hittenberger, who's in the audience, a film made about her family's business, a venerable and highly respected business making prosthetics of all kinds. What was the motto? Limp in, leap out. Thank you, Tina.
Yes, we're in South of Market. And this is a company that, while you're seeing work with traditional materials, they did some extremely advanced research and production really until when did they go out of business? 1985. '85.
And now this, you know, this isn't so clear, but this is a wedding. And when the bride walks in, we're at Funston and Clement. She's actually going to walk into what is now the Internet Archive. You will understand that I really wanted to put this in even though it's like the Zapruder film. It's just a few frames. The Clement Street streetcar there. And here we are. Internet Archive.
And from a few filmmakers, beautiful footage of Chinatown by day and by night in 1940. A dauntu. There were a number of Japanese businesses in Chinatown which closed, you know, after 1942. The Chinese Telephone Exchange in the middle. You see the Li Po in the background.
Yeah, no colorization in this film. These were shot in Kodachrome, which went on the market in 1935, and kind of the colors got stable in 1938-ish. Again the telephone exchange. You can see the little Bell System lanterns there. And then some night footage.
These are home movies made by an accomplished amateur cinema league member who made a lot of travelogues, Kenneth Nettleton, in 1940. He also made a lot of dramas. Lotta's Fountain, 150 this year, right? Roar of the four. Soon to be commemorated, I hope. The Market Street cars with the white front and the municipal cars are dark. Or did I get that wrong? Palace Hotel in the background. Building. System. Mason Street.
The now autofred building coming up on the right. Bimbo's 365 Club. Yeah. Right, when it was on Market. And some kind of untouched Twin Peaks in the background. Emporium. There's more people on Powell Street. I had to put this in.
John O'Gorman, who later went by the name John Gorman, photographer for The Examiner, also independent filmmaker and a filmmaker for commercial films as well, made this with his friend in the old cemetery. You know, those of you who are new to the city may not know that the Lone Mountain and Laurel Village area used to be cemeteries. So when you go to Trader Joe's or Laurel Village, you know, there's bones under you. And it took a long time after the cemeteries closed to actually, you know, enable the movement of the remains and the demolition of—you can see some pieces of all this, you know, in city parks and at the Wave Organ. This looks beautiful. It's really well done. And kids used to go in there to drink and stuff. The zoo.
And you know, this is a wartime home movie. I didn't know what to do with it, but we love dogs. And also, it's nice to see some of these faces and people eating lunch. And this is a historic—this place was ultimately closed down by the city in the '70s and '80s. It went through several generations. I don't know the full story. Yeah.
And from the Chatello family—are they here this evening or is that going to be tomorrow? Okay. Family at this point, I think, near the Crocker-Amazon district.
They're warm to every out-of-the-way corner in the United States. Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and all dependencies. These tireless workers will trek to ask their 10 basic questions. It's a tough job, but a vital one. So, when the census taker gets to you, cooperate like a good American.
Caroline Islands is part of the city, District One. And if you look hard, you'll see that some areas were still not built up. There's Sunset Boulevard. Washington High School, right in the back. Wash High. My house. Java Beach. Shot. It was a studio crew.
And this is the Ping Yuen project, a direct result, I think, of the visibility in 1937 and '38. It's a silent newsreel story. Mayor Robinson. These were the first tenants, the Wong family. He was a waiter and she—I forget her job. She was a white-collar worker.
What does Ping Yuen mean? No. What street is that? It faces on Broadway and the street behind it. Yeah, I guess so. Look at these nice kitchens. It means happy housewives.
And this is not San Francisco, but I felt the need to use it. I actually don't know where it is, but this was so-called operation when they deported many hundreds of thousands of people, some of whom were citizens, to Mexico willy-nilly. That'll never happen again. Department of Injustice.
After 100 years of operation, the San Francisco Mint is down to its last cent. With the exhaustion of copper blanks, the last batch of pennies rolls out of the machines. Minting of silver coins had been suspended a week earlier. Cost of transporting the pennies east, where they are mostly used, was given as the reason for ending penny coinage. As the last lot whirls through the counter, old-time employees, many with more than 20 years' experience, look on sadly, remembering the traditions which have surrounded the mint. The very last cent from an institution which began in the gold rush days.
In this feature outtake, I don't know from what movie, but it's the Embarcadero Freeway under construction. Nobody likes the Embarcadero Freeway.
All these small businesses right around the waterfront to cater to sailors, maritime workers, and commuters when the ferries were still in operation. The neighborhood went way down after the bridge was completed. Also a gay district. Thank you. A gay district. Y.
And this is the Gomez family. Is Claudia Gomez here tonight? No, tomorrow. But these are the brothers brushing their teeth.
And this is an unidentified family from the Portola district. Like, this is all one family. Yeah. I shouldn't have said that, but it's many. This is the daughter right there. St. Elizabeth's Church. St. Elizabeth's Church. Great. I'd love to find this family. I've looked and looked and looked on Facebook. Remember the grandmother with the turkey leg? That's the same family.
Sisters of the Presentation. Here's a UC-trained architect looking at the freeway.
And here, for you regulars, hang on to your—fasten your seat belts. Forward to it. Careful. Pop the car.
And now this is Caltrans's official documentation of the Embarcadero Freeway from a giant collection that's now at Prelinger Archives and seen for the first time as part of Lost Landscapes. Every highway. Scanned by Jennifer Miko, I believe, who's in the audience. We pause for a last look at the fair, now just a symbol. It is our final privilege to take the last ferry boat to the park, for they too are now a part of a past, another memory. From the deck, a panorama unfolds, for the San Francisco of our age is one of beauty. A mighty audible freeway cuts across our path as if to bar us from our return to yesterday. The bridge under which we sailed is the giant that doomed the picturesque ferries. At the Oakland Mole, we join other travelers and once more find our magic rails and a new friend, the mighty Diesel Hall train. Undisputed monarch of rail travel, ready to speed us over the many miles to yesterday.
Where? Then outtakes from a UC Berkeley film about their summer vacation place up in the mountains. That was the Lair, the Bear's Lair. Lair of the Bear.
I think this is the group that they were appealing to in those days. Arrow Messenger. If any of you used to ride for the messengers. Get. That clip ran about another two minutes. I spared you. You're slippy.
Now we know where this is. This is outside the Transbay Terminal, where the streetcars and the 38 Geary came. First and Mission, now Salesforce. Terminal Drugs, and on that block somewhere should be the Fun Terminal arcade, above which was the loft where the Mutants lived. No respect.
And fish market in Chinatown. Unidentified family. And another San Francisco family. Serious business. Native plants.
Henry Fleer, known as Henry Charles, you know, traveled around the US and Europe shooting rather beautiful landscape travelogues. I think some of you know that he loved the color red, and so there's always a little bit of red in most of his scenes. Sometimes you have to really look for it, but it's almost always there. Something, you know, I asked him and he never admitted to it.
And this is a roll of home movies recently turned up on eBay. It begins with a cat and it continues into a Nazi rally. So, this was shot by a young man, George Lincoln Rockwell. But this man with a blue suit, the head of the American Nazi Party, rode his motor home to San Francisco to speak. And a group of longshore workers and SF State students made sure that he could hardly get a word in.
And so, this is late 1966 in Civic Center. It's very sort of impressionistic. I've cut it down a bit, but this is the anti-fascist movement of 1966. This is the party member that's introducing him. There's his motor home in the background. Swastikas at City Hall. And this is Rockwell himself. Not on stage for very long. Virginia.
In, you know, when the military bases were active—and how about that—in San Francisco, the MPs showed up everywhere that a service member might get into trouble.
In construction management teams to supervise all the many kinds of work that go into building what has been called this century's most challenging experiment in mass transit.
On the July day in 1967 when school children turned the first shovel of earth on San Francisco's Market Street, there was no visual clue to the magnitude of the project. Not only earth had to be moved, but the confusions of the past had to be contended with. Among them, a 10-ft layer of pipes, cables, wires, conduits, a tangle of utilities laid down under the street by 200 different companies through the years.
So, are the Hemtocks here tonight?
Tomorrow. So maybe tomorrow. On this film, this film was made by their father, and Bob and Patricia. Here's Patricia. And Bob was just in the beginning in that title. There's Bob. This was made just before he went into the Air Force. And they are kind of, you know, I don't know, the influencers, I guess, in this film. And it's a, you know, rather wonderful and slightly flaky little travelogue of San Francisco. We'll look at a minute or two of it. But I found them and they will be here tomorrow night.
What's that?
Where did they live now?
They live in Marin County.
They're brother and sister. Excuse me. I like that shot.
So, this is 48 years ago.
Don't try that. And this is Patricia.
And this is an outtake from a film made by the Newsreel Collective showing members of the Black Panther Party doing daily political work in the Western Addition.
Yes. And somebody in Oakland has that chair.
Of course these are Emory Douglas's work. He's still creating.
Some of you may remember the liner liquor lobby.
And this is from the Amoroso family. I think we'll see them tomorrow. A family that knew how to live.
Arms will be back. We'll be back. We'll be back. We'll be back. We'll be back.
Newly discovered footage that one of us, I don't remember who, just scanned.
Dr. Goodlett, just one question. Why was the response of Dr. Hayakawa not acceptable? Why is the strike continuing?
First thing, I haven't read them. I was in transit from Mount Zion Hospital here, and I don't think that they've seen the demands. They've heard him over the radio, and we have to wait until there can be a meeting of the BSU, the Third World Liberation Front, and let them go over the demands, and the black community. We don't want to get involved in setting policy. We are here for one purpose: to support these students in the exercise of their rights to present their demands. If the demands are not met, there's any labor controversy for them to go on strike. And this is a union town. Therefore, we would assume that the union movement would support the right of students to strike.
What is the purpose of the City Hall demonstration? Well, I would feel that since Alioto has involved himself so energetically in this matter, and since he is now attempting to thwart a Labor Council vote on a strike, that they should go there and give him an opportunity to hear their demands and to share in their frustration, at least to be aware of them from a firsthand knowledge and point of view.
Dr. Goodlett also published the Sun-Reporter, the black newspaper here in town.
For community. Besides, as I said, we invite you all to come on campus Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday.
Almost as quickly as this crowd had assembled, it dispersed. But yet, a few dozen people stood around staring up at City Hall and the line of policemen guarding the door, as though waiting for the next chapter in this story to unfold. Belva Davis for Eyewitness News, San Francisco City.
We just lost Belva Davis month or two ago.
The Amoroso family lived near here. And so there's the Cow Palace. Mayfair Market, housing up against the mountain. Visitation Valley Tower is now gone.
Go a... neighborhoods that aren't photographed enough.
And then the rail yard.
Yep. The Hunters Point shipyard, Candlestick Point.
And this was shot by Bob Hillman, who's in the audience. A friend who is a friend of his who was given the courtesy of a ride in the Goodyear blimp. And that's just a tiny, tiny slice of an interesting film. You know, you can smoke in the Goodyear blimp 'cause it's helium. Embarcadero Freeway, Bank of America.
Just like in Dirty Harry.
Okay.
And now we're down again. I know I cut out a lot of that, but it's a great film. We'll put it online. Still takes people to anchor a blimp.
And this is Alcatraz during the period of the Native occupation. You'll see "Indian land" has been painted. And then a clip which we've seen before but is always worth looking at, which is the Native activists being taken to the island by an ally. And this was filmed by Oswald Sykes, an amazing, amazing man who filmed... I don't know if Kim, his daughter, is with us tonight. Yeah.
This boat is now run by the son of the skipper, and Mr. Sykes shot a lot of important events in town, including following around Earl Caldwell, who was the black reporter for the Times who embedded himself with the Black Panther Party, and also in the Angela Davis trial. Very interesting writer whose work is worth looking up in TimesMachine. But
Exhibit just open this
Great.
Not taking any sides here.
It's perfect. Keep it.
Pro-choice demonstration.
American coots, shot by the Mission Media Arts Collective.
As was this.
The archive, which we'll be putting online as a partnership with them over time, is an incredible record of daily life and activism in the Mission, in Chinatown, and in other neighborhoods, and it's filled with just kind of ambient footage of this kind. Some of it is already up at SF State.
Glad you're digitizing that.
Yes.
And this is filmed by Olivia Teter. She may have been a student, and I don't know, but I think she might have worked here. She'll be here tomorrow.
And here's a little more from Caltrans. Watch carefully for some of your favorite eating places. So, there's six or 7,000 rolls of this. It's every California highway, every three years from 1970 to 2004. And boy is it beautiful. We've started to scan it. Clown Alley.
Make a GeoGuessr game.
Yeah.
Well, it's kind of be your own AI. Doggie Diner.
And this is about 1973.
And a tiny bit of this very beautiful parade in a home movie that was found on a street corner by Ariel Dovas. It's a great treasure.
Smudge pot in the orange grove of love. Here.
At a San Francisco elementary school, Ruth works directly with first and second graders creating murals made from baker's clay, a mixture of flour, salt, and water. From these materials, she made the molds for casting the fountain.
And the tires.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take this and we'll show it.
Thank you.
I mean the tree.
And when I proposed that project, I said that I would like to work with a fantasy world. And the architect said, "Well, the real San Francisco is more fantastic than anything we can invent."
You want to meet me? What? Well, you know, I don't know. I'm real busy, and you're only in town for a business convention. What? Okay. Okay. Meet me at the Cafe San Francisco at noon. Cafe San Francisco. High noon. Got it.
And of course,
Book, look under cafe or
Scanned, I believe, by Mega Needles.
Okay. Bye. See you then.
I don't know how she got my number. I'll bet it was my mother. She's always doing that to me. I couldn't believe I finally got in touch with Susan Jane. What would she be like after all these years?
Last year she dumped a cousin on me. I could just kill her. Still shy and nervous. I hope this one doesn't stay too long.
Or maybe a brand new woman. This is a change.
Let me get a good look at you.
My, you have changed. It's been years, Susan Jane. Marcy Sujanna now.
What? My name is Susanna. You call me Jane.
Oh, well. Oh, listen. I need some more coffee. Anybody want anything from the bar? I'll have a Diet Pepsi.
I'll make that two.
Oh, no. Get me a Perrier. Caffeine ups my muscle tone.
One of our favorite filmmakers.
This is a Hi8 video. HP's been preserving his early tapes.
Man. Electricity.
Megan points out that this is four years before the smartphone was invented.
Wanted me.
Way. Safeway.
And a lovely clip from Jenny Olsen, who I think is here tonight. See this film.
I've been filming the landscapes of San Francisco since just a few years after I arrived here. In capturing these images on film, I'm engaged in a completely impossible and yet partially successful effort to stop time. I now own the landscapes that I love. I preserve them in the amber of celluloid so that I might reexperience these visions of dappled sunlight, the calm of a warm afternoon, and the framing of an alley as it recedes into the distance. These images serve as a reminder of what once was and as a prompt to appreciate what now is. In some kind of poetic cinematic justice, as the city possessed me, I possess it in return.
Thank you, Jenny. And this is Vincent Woo's great film. Vincent is here this evening.
This is online and you must see it.
SF Prime.
Unifor.
We got
Thank you. Thank you all. And thank you, our patrons.
Thank you for coming tonight. And if I don't see you tomorrow, I'll see you next year.
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