by Woody LaBounty
In the thousands of San Francisco photos in OpenSFHistory there are naturally many taken by tourists visiting the city. So we have lots of Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf, and cable car turnaround views. Some are more interesting than others, with the best including people. While the bridge or a Powell Street cable car look much the same today, people’s clothes, hairstyles, and accessories of the past instantly increase a photo’s interest, at least for me.
Wading through the hundreds of slides, prints, and negatives, we can get caught up in a particular family, imagining the relationships, the backstories, as Mom, Dad, and the kids go stop to stop in the city. Occasionally, but rarely, the technique or skill of an amateur photographer can grab us. One group of images from 1962, found at a flea market, struck us as particularly artistic, something you might see as a gallery installation at SFMOMA. We don’t know who the photographer is, but he or she records an older woman’s visit to the city in a series of haunting views.
We begin at the Bellevue Hotel with this casual shot. Our subject isn’t in the frame, but we have an expectation she might step out past that doorman momentarily:
Bellevue Hotel, 505 Geary (southwest corner of Geary and Taylor) in 1962. Now known as The Marker. (wnp12.0068.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
Here is our protagonist, a lady of later years, standing in the strangely empty midway of Playland at the Beach. An unaffiliated group huddles behind her and a single pigeon struts in the foreground:
Midway near Cabrillo Street at Playland. View north in 1962. (wnp12.0074.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
She takes in the mighty Pacific Ocean. Is she impressed?:
Looking across Great Highway in front of Playland, 1962. (wnp12.0103.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
View South toward Ocean Beach and Lurline Pier. (wnp12.0076.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
She walks up the hill to the Cliff House:
View South from Cliff House. Playland behind. Advertising signs for Skytram, California Missions, Doll House, Camera Obscura. (wnp12.0079.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
But pauses to view Sutro Heights Park on the hill above, or perhaps a passing sea gull, or really just the Cliff House awning:
View northerly toward entrance of Sutro Baths, Point Lobos Avenue, 1962. (wnp12.0080.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
Perhaps too expensive for a meal? She moves onward:
Cliff House entrance awning, view south, 1962. (wnp12.0081.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
A repast is found at the long-gone Cliff Chalet Café, which once operated overlooking Sutro Baths between the Cliff House and Louis’. As if to imply that the photographer observes, but is not really part of the woman’s vacation, there are two coffee cups on the table, but only one plate of food.
Older woman sitting at table alone at Cliff Chalet, view of Sutro Baths through window, 1962. (wnp12.0083.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
Like most visitors to San Francisco, our hero does make it to a cable car. Her entrance onboard is blocked. She is separated from the young men, but she gamely smiles.
Cable car #506 at Bay and Taylor turntable, 1962. (wnp12.0071.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
Later, she is more successful. She poses triumphantly, alone, with the exception of a woman with a cast on her leg hobbling away on the street at left. Is this a Diane Arbus exhibit we’re at?
Cable Car #508 at Bay and Taylor turntable, 1962. (wnp12.0097.jpg, David Gallagher Collection.)
We don’t know this woman, or whether her companion was a husband, sister, or old friend, but we can see that this lady of the chunky double-chain necklace, white feather hat, and cherry brooch on her coat lapel, was the star of this adventure.
For all of the artistic remove, the eerie framing and lighting, there’s a respectful love in these photographs. Anonymous, salvaged, and jumbled with tens of thousands of other images, the woman and her companion make us feel honored to take a walk with them in San Francisco 1962.