

104 year old video of San Francisco - fnazeeri
http://www.altgate.com/blog/2010/04/104-year-old-video-of-san-francisco.html

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waterlesscloud
Same streetcar journey, 2005.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqcz_tllnwM>

I'm really glad someone did the 100 year anniversary version.

2105 will be all nanorobots or something.

~~~
ugh
Looks on the surface remarkably similar. Yeah, no horses, less pedestrians
(though not by all that much), public transport seems the same, about as many
people on bikes and many more cars. But the basic building blocks didn’t
change by much.

Everything is much tighter regulated, though, (pretty much a necessity when
enough cars are involved) and as a consequence everything looks a lot less
chaotic.

~~~
seanmcdonnell
I used to ride my bike to work on Market Street, and to me this video seems
unusually serene. If it was filmed during rush hour, which I don't think this
was, your conclusion about it being less chaotic might be different...or maybe
things just seem much more intense from a bicycle perspective.

~~~
hdx
I used to drive a cab in the city a couple years ago and the bikers situation
on Market street during rush hour was pretty chaotic from that perspective as
well :P

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dasht
Same year, across the Bay in Berkeley.

The street is Euclid Ave. which borders the central U.C. Berkeley campus to
the north.

Do be sure and note (a) the same generally languid approach to street travel;
(b) the role of the fine gentlewoman in breaking up a dispute before it
descends to far into fisticuffs. I _think_ that the guy walking on the tracks
might be black and so I suspect there is also a racial element to these
snapshots of history, but I'm not sure. I'm also not so sure that the
confrontation we see in the video wasn't staged - it looks like it could have
been but it's hard to tell.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK9CekGF3Ho>

~~~
jojopotato
No you're a tuba! (you've got a typo in the url)

~~~
dasht
(thanks. typo fixed. (how the heck did _that_ happen?!??)

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brianmckenzie
Did it strike anyone else that in all likelihood, every single person in the
video is dead now, even the kids? I didn't even know they had video in 1906...

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kitcar
It's not video, it's film that has been converted to video.

Moving Pictures have been around since the late 1800's. The first Sci-Fi film
was made in 1902 actually -

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbGd_240ynk> Le voyage dans la Lune, Méliès,
1902

~~~
brianmckenzie
I realize that it's film, just didn't know that anyone had gotten to that
point with it so early. Thanks for the link, BTW!

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jordanb
The blog says the street seems wider in the 1908 film. I think that's a
combination of a lack of street trees and curbs, and shorter buildings in the
background.

I wonder why the car doesn't stop for passengers. You can see several waiting.
One even waves at the driver. My thought is that either the car was stopping
and the video was edited, or it was a special run for the benefit of the
camera.

A few more observations:

* While there are many fewer pedestrians in the 2005 video, there are more bicycles. And the bicycles actually have adults on them (not sure about the guy in the cape though).

* The streetcar seems to move much faster in 2005, covering considerably more ground in less time.

* While 2005 looks much more orderly, automobiles are still erratically darting out in front of the streetcar. Some things don't change I guess..

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mattmaroon
That can't be San Francisco, the cameraman never once gets assaulted by
overly-aggressive homeless people.

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jaybol
Wow and it is a music video for Air...double bonus! There is an incredibly
cool map store in San Francisco, and as you would expect, the proprietor is
very friendly. It is called Schein and Schein
(<http://www.scheinandschein.com/> the website doesn't do it justice) and they
have some beautiful old maps and photobooks, with a large portion of the
collection devoted to SF and California history.

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novum
None of the buildings in this video -- save the Ferry Building whose tower you
can see directly ahead -- are standing today.

[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/18april/index.p...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/1906/18april/index.php)

~~~
fnazeeri
Apparently the 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of San Fran happened 4 days
after this video was shot!

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johnyzee
Try imagining that you are in a (contemporary) large city in the subcontinent
and you will feel right at home:

\- No sidewalks or discernible rules of the road

\- Cycles, cars, trams and horse buggies all mixing it up

\- People standing around in the middle of the street to pick a ride, or
strolling casually straight across heavy traffic

\- Cars making u-turns right through traffic, or parking everywhere, making
the street half as wide as it would have been

Once I thought about this I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching
Lahore 2010.

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exspiro
nice! 104 year old google streetview. :)

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jaybol
I was hoping for some LARP photobombing :)

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mortenjorck
It's strange to imagine a time when "oh, look, a motorcar!" might be uttered
with the same sense of technological novelty as "oh, look, an iPad!" today.

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ars
To play normally the video needs to be sped up about 40-50%.

~~~
dmoney
I think the world was just slower then.

~~~
ars
:)

Could be, although I don't think gravity was lower. Maybe if the earth was
turning much faster though......

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sabat
The blogger notes that Market Street seemed wider than it does today. I
disagree; it really looks about the same. Keep in mind that the sidewalk is
much larger now than it appears to be in 1906.

