Mission Mission

I wonder what it was like to be a married twentysomething in San Francisco in 1890.

(Photos submitted by reader Tim K. Thanks, Tim.)

UPDATE:

Delia Presby Oliver (nee Shattuck)’s death notice in the April 11 Daily Alta.

Delia and Frank were married in October 1885.

And this may have been Delia’s house at 814 Powell (looks like she and Frank lived with her parents):

More details in the comments, which SFBay.ca has summarized.

I was a little boy. My dad took me, and I had a lot of firsts that day:

• My first experience with a real shit-show
• My first time seeing (and RIDING ON) an articulated bus
• My first time riding in a taxi
• My first time walking lots of miles
• My first time staying out really late

(Now I do all those things all the time!)

Don’t remember much about the festivities except that there were a jillion people on Marina Green and I was right at butt-height, and there were fireworks. Mainly I remember the odyssey that was trying get the hell out of there afterward. Tried a taxi but got out after a block or two because gridlock was so bad we weren’t getting anywhere. So we walked what seemed to me at the time to be about 30 or 40 miles through the Marina and North Beach before we were able to catch a bus that would get us where we needed to go. This was also my first experience with the stress of transit logistics, and I still feel that same exact dread now when I can’t get a cab or my bus doesn’t show up when Muni Alerts says it’s gonna.

I don’t think I’m gonna go to the Marina tonight for the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th Anniversary party.

(I wrote this post for Tumblr originally but then I was like fuck it.)

Remember Lookout! Records, from Berkeley? It’s where Green Day started, they had Operation Ivy, it was probably your favorite label when you were 15? Remember? Spin does, and it recently asked Mr T. Experience frontman Dr. Frank to take a look back and make a list of the top 20 Lookout! Records tracks. It’s pretty good. Here’s a taste:

16. The Groovie Ghoulies “The Highwayman” (from Travels with My Amp, 2000)
The Sacramento-based Groovie Ghoulies were the touring-est band I ever met, and if anyone knew their highways, it was them. Still, I thought the world didn’t need another “life on the road” song before I heard this classic tune from the awesomely titled Travels with My Amp LP. So, yeah, I was wrong, but that’s the last one, seriously — no more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPQ-e3FMxYc

Read on.

[via Pavla]

UPDATE: P.S. Sewer Trout!

From 1954 to 1974 Lakeside Liquors was a little mom and pop shop at 2188 Mission Street. Local photographer Dave Glass/Dizzy Atmosphere grew up with the store as his actual mom and pop’s shop. He recently shared a shot of the exterior and surrounding Mission Street apparently taken in 1984.

[photo by Dave Glass]

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As the street generally looks nowadays. [Google Maps]

Dave’s got a ton of other great Mission photos on his Flickr page.

Found under Fred Sharples’ floorboards.

[via Brock]

UPDATE: Detailed 1954 vs 2012 comparison over at Burrito Justice.

I don’t really have any room for it, so, have at it, everybody! Thanks, Amanda!

UPDATE: They’re gone. Sorry. Thanks for playing!

This old building on 15th and Dolores has been hiked up on stilts for a couple of months now. Wondering why? No, it’s not being relocated to Oakland to be cooler.

The short answer is that someone’s excavating the site for construction of a new building. The long answer involves some crazy-ass history including a Luterhan church founded by Swedes and an arson plot allegedly perpetrated by the Aryan brotherhood.

Intrigued? Read on at Curbed SF.

[photo by dexnandflexn]

SFGate posted some great then-and-now shots of Mission locations that you may know. Check out a 1962 Clarion Alley, lined with quaint bungalows:

And now, it’s the only street in the Mission that’s apparently immune to city graffiti citation!

Here’s everyone’s favorite intersection: 24th and Hampshire (AKA “Deuce-four Ham”).

Sadly, Bucket O’ Suds didn’t survive the British Invasion:

I personally think the closing of Bucket O’Suds marked the end of the golden age in Mission. After that, it was only high-tech artisanal laundry facilities. No soul. I long for the days where I’d pop a nickel in the laundry machine and get a shave from Chet while I waited. Maybe someone should start a kickstarter campaign to restore the Bucket O’Suds space to it’s full architectural glory.

Check out the rest of this amazing series at SFGate.

[photos SFGate Archives, Peter Hartlaub]

They opened their doors for one last time yesterday to auction off equipment and stuff. Look at it. It’s really gone. Truly never again will I enjoy their spam-and-eggs-over-rice plate with a side of cheese fries

(On the other hand, Mission Bowling Club is just a few blocks away from home and Chef Anthony Myint’s menus are waaay the fuck better than spam and eggs over rice.)

[via KWANtemplation]

New York City the other day released a cavalcade of historic photos, and it appears that some 7200 of them were taken by Stanley Kubrick. What’s more, the Museum of the City of New York pulled a batch taken on the subway – and they’re all eerily reminiscent of the work Sexpigeon does so diligently today. (Though Sexpigeon’s are of course bolstered by unforgettable captioning.)

If only Kubrick and Sexpigeon could’ve collaborated on something.

[via kottke.org]