San Francisco before the great fire: rare, public domain 1906 video

Video archivist extraordinaire Rick Prelinger sez, "A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET BEFORE THE FIRE is that charismatic archival film made by San Francisco's Miles Bros. several days before the April 18, 1906 quake/fire. Millions of people have seen the Air music video (made from a visually degraded version of the film), but until now nobody's had access to a editable DV file. Here it is (warning: 2.3GB). Please make of it what you will, and consider uploading your work to Internet Archive!"

Miles BrothersTrip Down Market Street Before the Fire, A (DV25 version) (1906/04/15) (Thanks, footage, via Submitterator!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

People running in front of the cable car = the grandfathers of Critical Mass.
Brainspore

It’s changed surprisingly little, all things considered.
thehoundoflove

And here’s the side by side comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YElvjNXmg58
smonkey

Awesome film!

But as was pointed out to me, I will point out to y’all:

The cars repeat. Somebody has arranged to have the same cars drive around and around the camera to make it look like there are more cars.

Sometimes you can just watch them pull over and then pass the camera again a second later.
- obeyken
  
  Obviously they added in those cars in post.
braininavat

Amazing how many people were wise to what was going on and made sure they had their moment, including the paper boys, of course (former paper boy here. All the young dudes carry the news).
tw15

I’m sure this has been on BB before – a version with a commentary from the person who restored the film.
Anonymous

Hey, what video streaming site/player/whatever is that?
I have all video streaming sites blocked from work but this one seems to work.
Please help?
- Chentzilla
  
  The archive.org one. Can be seen in the page’s source.
TimesOfTrouble

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkMa20Vx7ZM

This is a fan video of O’Death’s “Home”, with footage of San Fran after the 1906 earth quake.
Wingo

Whoa – it’s complete and utter lawlessness! So, not much has changed?
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Not “lawless”, but rather, “self-organizing”; kinda like the societies of the Mid-East after throwing off dictatorships: this is not “lawless” at all, despite its appearance to the eyes of those more used to much more restrictive regimes.
Anonymous

The best part of this video is that this is before the invention of the stop sign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign#History or stop lights – it’s funny to see traffic as a shared commons w/out many rules.
Anonymous

Surprisingly, it looks like a common city in India today.
Humina

All of those people are dead now, all of them. Sort of weird.
- Brainspore
  
  There are a handful of earthquake survivors left… like maybe half a dozen. Probably none were in that film, though.
- Anonymous
  
  I was just thinking the same thing. When is the last time you watched a video and thought “every single person in this video is dead.” Crazy.
- Toby Young
  
  Yeah thought exactly the same and yes, they have a certain immortality through this short piece of film.
  
  Amazing to see such a long shot, watched it over and over again.
Anonymous

Anyone got the chops to sync the footage alongside a Google StreetView walkthrough?
alllie

Great film. It was interesting to see how the wagon wheels exactly matched the rails for the street cars and to see bicycles, cars, horse drawn wagons and carriages, electric street cars and horse drawn street cars all driving down the same street. Traffic laws must have been very casually enforced if enforced at all. I was surprised to see so many horses but so few people riding them. I guess a carriage or a wagon is more comfortable than the back of a horse. It was annoying to me as a woman to see the ridiculousness of women having to live their lives dragging around long skirts. They seemed crippling. Though high heels serve the same function today. It’s sad to wonder how many of those people died a few days later or, at least, had their lives disrupted by tragedy.
- Donald Petersen
  
  It was interesting to see how the wagon wheels exactly matched the rails for the street cars
  
  No accident, that. Check out this informative Wikipedia paragraph on how the width of “standard gauge” railways match the pretty standardized 4’8″ of wagon wheel spacing going clear back to the Bronze Age.
Anonymous

I can’t get the sound to work…

…what?
- Brainspore
  
  I can’t get the sound to work…
  
  Luckily I employ a full-time organist in my office for just such an occasion.
lolbrandon

I’m not sure I’d make a good time traveler. I kept wanting to warn these people to get out of the city, just grab your family and the dog and take the ferry to Marin. It’s a really weird experience seeing these people going about their lives and knowing what’s going to happen in just a few days.
Anonymous

EPIC BEARD
slamorte

So cool! It’s insightful to see how the accepted norms of today have not always been norms.

For instance, streets are not just for cars as they are today. Pedestrians are in the streets everywhere. A street is a public space shared by cars, horses, pedestrians, cable-cars, and street cars. Of course very few of those are traveling at more than a quick jog; still, people seem comfortable if a bit wary to stand in the middle of the street and jump on a passing street car.

The cable cars don’t seem to come to a complete stop. People board and dismount while it is moving. The assumption here seems to be if you fall and lose a leg it’s your own damn fault. It’s obviously a big dangerous piece of equipment and you are responsible for your own health. Contrast that today where if a kid falls off a sidewalk the parents would sue about a dozen different individuals and agencies for creating a dangerous environment.

Most of all though I was struck by the bustle and health of Market Street. Today it seems to me to be a cold and dreary place. Yesterday it was filled with life and commerce. What’s changed? The sun. Today’s high-rises make much a Market a freezing, dark wind tunnel. It doesn’t seem alive anymore.
- Brainspore
  
  Lest we get too nostalgic, it’s worth noting that rate of urban traffic-related deaths for both pedestrians and motorists is a fraction of what it was in 1906.
tw15

It has been on BB before
Prelinger’s Lost Landscapes of San Francisco archival film night, Dec 4
Cory Doctorow at 12:55 AM Friday, Nov 6, 2009
http://boingboing.net/2009/11/06/prelingers-lost-land.html
http://spotsunknown.com/rick-prelingers-lost-landscapes-of-san-francisco-4/
Anonymous

What’s interesting about the footage is how much more free people were then. Well, aside from gender & minority civil rights, folks kinda did as they pleased.
Ugly Canuck

Aah, for those interested in these old shadows, here’s al ink to a youtube listing of the films of Mitchell & Kenyon:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_videos&search_query=Mitchell+and+Kenyon&search_sort=relevance&search_category=0&page=

…who were active with their film cameras in England during the same era, 1900-1910, as the great SF Earthquake.

Film shot around the same time , but from the other side of the world.
echolocate chocolate

Huh, I never realised that they had cable cars (pulled by a cable under the street) running down Market. I assumed they were just electric trolleys, like the ones running today. At several points in the film you see overhead lines crossing the track, and near the ferry building at the end you see both kinds of line running parallel.

It’s not just the skyscrapers that sucked the life out of Market. It’s easy to forget that before the last big earthquake there was a two-level freeway running along the Embarcadero–hardly conducive to pedestrian-friendly streets. The city is slowly shifting back away from cars but it’ll take a while to recover.
Ugly Canuck

It would appear that this is the SF that existed before the existence of traffic signals, lights, or any signage directed at the drivers, whether advertising or Official in nature.
Toby Young

Early attempts by Google at street mapping?
grimc

Hoax. Way too many open parking spaces for it to be San Francisco.
Ned613

Sublime. By the way, anyone have an idea what kind of vehicle the camera was traveling in? In one scene a car cuts across traffic close to the camera so I am inclined to say cable car.
wildbell

It’s compelling and riveting and amazing for sure, but there’s been debate as to whether this footage indeed predates the 1906 earthquake with some arguing that given the number of automobiles and some of their styles it was more likely made in the teens after the city was rebuilt. It just seems amazingly coincidental and very urban legend-y how the undeveloped stock just happened to have been filmed days before the disaster and survived only by having been transported out of the city before it all fell down.
- dodi
  
  Coincidence? No, it was obviously the work of The Company. Dr. Zeus Incorporated saw to the preservation of many artifacts and “lost” treasures in that quake.
  
  Seriously though, was I the only one looking for Victor or Budu among the pedestrians?
Stefan Jones

I watched the postage-stamp-sized version on the Prelinger site years ago.

This restored version is just as eerie; a dream-vision of a lost world inadvertently transmitted to the future.
jfrancis

Something tells me we may be seeing something along the lines of Boilerplate in those scenes soon

http://www.bigredhair.com/boilerplate/
johnnyaction

This may have been posted before but I don’t think it was to this *exact* file which is a large format editable file suitable for remix.
jfrancis

Google streetview will be this at some point. And you’ll be able to choose the year from the past you want to see.

Google should incorporate these views into the SF map now, even if they aren’t panoramic.
Anonymous

Surprised at the number of cars, actually. What really struck me was that everyone looks really fit and thin. Really striking if you think about it. The big wagons carrying freight, low to the ground, was interesting also. Street cars where the biggest things on the street.
- JeffreyMartin
  
  People still look fit and thin in 2011, over here in the Czech Republic ;-)
Hank

One way to date the film is to check the makes of the cars. The Ford Model T was introduced in 1908. If this was actually shot in the teens, then you’d expect that one or more of the cars going by would be a Model T, what with it being such a popular make of automobile. To my untrained eye, none of the cars I noted looked like a Model T, so I’m going to have to go with pre-1908 for the shooting date.
Anonymous

I ran this footage at the beginning of my lecture on Urban Life in America, 1870-1910, for my US History college class this semester. My students were enthralled by it.
Robert

It’s too bad they didn’t record the sound. Watching this without the ever-present ragtime piano that seemed to suffuse the outdoors back then makes this feel less real!
Scott

Isn’t this old news (no pun intended)? I saw this same video at the San Francisco Cable Car Museum over two years ago.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  What part of “Millions of people have seen the Air music video (made from a visually degraded version of the film), but until now nobody’s had access to a editable DV file…” are you unclear on?
Armitage75

whoa…no fat people!
jnordb

Wow. It would be interesting for someone to film a trip down that same route now and post it for comparison.
bdandy

I did the film to video HD transfer of this newly struck print. It is indeed much cleaner and a little longer than previous versions. Note the wispy bearded guy at the end and the full 180′ turnaround of the cable car at the ferry building. I was told that they dated this film about 4 months before the 1906 earthquake by tracking the car license plates seen on the street. There are indeed repeat cars too, and I especially like the kid that peeks out from the back of a carriage @ 8:20.
alrom

I read somewhere that in the early 20th century there were specialized cinemas that ‘simulated’ tram trips. The spectators would sit in tram frames and the movie would be projected in front of them.

Here’s a similar video of Barcelona in 1908, made for this kind of shows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdsHKOlTeMk
Antinous / Moderator

Yakety Sax?
- Anonymous
  
  I was thinking “It’s Fun To Be Free” from the late ‘World of Motion’ at Epcot
Anonymous

Nice to see a film like this played back at it’s original frame rate.
Anonymous

This is the internet. Rare and public domain should not modify the same noun.
Anonymous

Streets were a lot more fun before they had, like, rules and stuff.
- Ugly Canuck
  
  Then you may find this of interest as you plan your next fun trip abroad:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM
  
  Some things may not be as “gone” as you might think.
cybernezumi

The SF non-profit Market Street Railway also sells a restored & nicely narrated DVD of the film, available on their website: http://www.streetcar.org/store/trip-dvd.html
Anonymous

I don’t think that I see anything moving at more than 5 MPH.

A recent visitor to India said that a lot of traffic control there is based on a mutual understanding of the rule ‘yield to the largest vehicle’. Includes pedestrian, bicycles up to trucks.

My great grandfather fell from the side or back of an early street car in Baltimore and was killed. Details unknown.

Chas Tennis
Anonymous

The MAN at 3:21!
Anonymous

replicated in 2005 by Melinda Stone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqcz_tllnwM
holtt

Can anyone with San Francisco experience tell us what stretch of Market this is on? I”m actually there right now at a conference, and wonder if this is where I”m walking every day on the way to the Moscone.
- ikoino
  
  The last mile of Market Street heading east towards the Ferry Building on Embarcadero. To get as close to the original experience, try catching this Castro F Trolley: http://www.webcastro.com/oldcar.htm
  - Anonymous
    
    ikoino: I’m pretty sure that the SFMTA hasn’t installed a GPS tracker on car 578, but according to the Market Street Railway folks (not the original company, but the non-profit the driving force behind all of the vintage streetcars along Market today) that car is rarely used. If you are willing to fast forward about eight years, you stand a much better chance of catching car #162 which was from the same era.
    
    See also the Market Street Railway’s page about it:
    
    http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/578/
Ipo

That’s what I noticed: All skinny people, all british cars, nobody has to stop for any reason.