As readers of our member newsletter, Inside Track, saw last month, we found a fabulous photo.
Our members got lots of detail on this photo. We’ll summarize here by saying this appears to be a parade by the Ringling Brothers Circus in September 1900. Note the elephants in the lower left (click on the image for a larger version). Regular cable car service is mixed right in with the pachyderms and circus wagons and crowds line the streets. We’re looking out a window of what would today be the San Francisco Shopping Centre, opposite the foot of Powell Street. The vacant lot would later become the Flood Building, still there today. And for you “Where’s Waldo?” fans, try to find someone – man or woman, boy or girl, in the picture who is not wearing a hat or cap. (If you do, you have sharper eyes than us!)
You get great historic content like this, plus the inside scoop on Muni’s historic streetcar and cable car operations, by becoming a member of Market Street Railway and receiving Inside Track. New members get the last four issues included with their membership!
Feel free to post your thoughts and comments on the photo. We’ll preempt the most obvious one: yes, you could certainly say mid-Market is still a circus today.
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