Outside Lands, Then and Now

August 16th, 2011 by Woody



Photographer Don Ross did something we think is pretty cool. For years we’ve made use of a photo album/report that real estate man A.S. Baldwin created in 1910 as part of an appraisal of the land holdings of Adolph Sutro’s estate. A few copies of the book, with photos of Sutro Baths, Richmond District sand dunes, and a country road that turned into Sunnyside’s Monterey Boulevard, are held by local libraries. We’ve taken some crude photos of Baldwin’s shots for various projects and our Web site.

Mr. Ross has made high-quality copies and returned to the vantage points of the century-old views to photograph the modern landscape. Who can resist a good Then/Now? The photos are on display at the Rayko Photo Center, 428 Third Street, San Francisco, until September 15. (Hours and Location)Mr. Ross also created a book on this project that’s for sale.

Posted in Other Organizations, Sutro Baths | 3 Comments »

A Chance to Attend the Outside Lands Music Festival

July 26th, 2011 by Woody



The WNP is returning to Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival this year. Last year, we received six passes for each day of the Outside Lands festival. While the details are still being worked out for this year, the WNP is looking to its membership for help in staffing our booth at Outside Lands. We hope to have 3-4 WNP members help staff our booth each day of the three-day festival.

The daily passes would entitle holders to full access to all the music and arts at Outside Lands for the day the pass is good for and all we ask is that members spend 2-3 hours helping to staff our booth at the festival. This would consist of greeting visitors to the booth, providing them with our pamphlets and newsletters, and talking to them about we do.

If you are interested in being a part of our team at Outside Lands, please send an e-mail to arnold@outsidelands.org. If there is more interest than we have passes for the festival, we will give priority to those who have donated to our fund for new history displays. We look forward to returning to the Outside Lands Music & Arts festival this year to share some of western San Francisco’s history with festival attendees. We hope to bring some of you with us to the event.

Posted in WNP Events | 1 Comment »

Arts (but not opera) in the Bayview

June 14th, 2011 by Woody



The Bayview Opera House out in the Third Street corridor was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 1, 2011. Now the organization that has worked so hard to renovate and invigorate one of San Francisco’s more interesting buildings is in competition for $25,000 to support arts programs on site.

The “South San Francisco Opera House” opened at Newcomb and Mendell streets in December 1888 and, rather than opera, usually hosted traveling theater companies into the 20th Century. For many decades it was used as a warehouse and meeting hall but the stage and proscenium were remarkably well-preserved through some dark days.

Now used for community programs, the Bayview Opera House has been selected as one of 100 finalists in the “This Place Matters” competition of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The historic building with the most votes before June 30 will win the grand prize of $25,000. If Bayview— the only finalist from San Francisco—wins, all proceeds will be used to support the facility’s Dare to Dream ARTS youth enrichment program this summer and fall.

Visit the “This Place Matters” Web page to vote before June 30, 2011. Each email address gets one vote – so if you have more than one real email, you can vote multiple times.

http://www.bvoh.org/thisplacematters

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Posted in Architecture, Other Organizations | No Comments »

Octagon House Celebrates 150 Years

May 23rd, 2011 by Woody

One of San Francisco’s rare eight-sided buildings turns 150 this year. Octagon houses were fashionable in the middle of the 19th century and promoted as being more healthful to the constitution because of the increased interior light and air circulation. They did make for some odd-shaped upstairs bedrooms, however.

The Octagon House on the corner of Gough and Union streets is owned and maintained by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, the organization that saved and restored the house in the 1950s. Inside is a museum featuring early American and Federal furniture, signatures of the country’s founding fathers, and a library.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary, the Colonial Dames are holding extended open house hours: Noon to 6:00 p.m. from July 9, 2011 to July 17, 2011, excluding July 14. If you’d like to see it before then, regular hours are the second Sunday and the second and fourth Thursdays of the month from Noon to 3:00 p.m.

Drop in and enjoy an unusual and historical San Francisco house.

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Posted in Architecture, Events - Other, Museums | 2 Comments »

A Pre-Quake View of San Francisco

May 2nd, 2011 by Woody

Thanks to librarian Lisa Dunseth at the San Francisco History Center for tipping us off that local famed map collector David Rumsey is scanning the library’s 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. The work is still in progress (our western neighborhoods aren’t represented yet), but it’s mesmerizing to examine the buildings of the city before the 1906 earthquake and fire. Better yet, the scans are in color so the coding that identifies brick and wood-frame is all there. More details from the site’s notes:

A series of six detailed insurance map volumes reflecting the specific building uses and construction types for the City of San Francisco in September 1905. This was just six months before the devastating April 1906 Earthquake and Fire. These volumes were in fact damaged by the fire but remain largely intact with some content loss in some of the volumes. The atlases are the property of the San Francisco Public Library. Original 1899 survey is overlaid with pasted-in building updates for ten different dates, the last being September 1905. Maps in full color with detailed legend including firehouses, stables, elevators, chimneys, steam boilers, firewalls, doorways, etc.

Take a look at the maps here, and while there, browse around the other great maps Mr. Rumsey has put up.

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Posted in Architecture, Libraries, Other Organizations | No Comments »

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