OT -SF California in 1906

I recieved this in an email, thought I would share it. joe

35mm FILM CLIP OF SAN FRANCISCO TRAFFIC IN 1906

This is the oldest 35mm film that has come to light and was thought for many years to have been lost. It was taken by a camera mounted on the front of a cable car traveling down Market Street in San Francisco toward the clock tower at the Embarcadero wharf. The film was originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. The cumulative evidence of the New York trade papers' announcement of the film screening, of the streets wet from recent heavy (and historically documented) rainfall, of shadows indicating the proximate date, even of the registration of the cars and licenses show that it was filmed only four days before the Great California Earthquake of April 18th, 1906. It was then shipped by train to New York for processing.

The variety of transportation in 1906 is surprising: streetcars, horses, bicycles, cars, horse-drawn buggies and delivery wagons, pedestrians - all milling around and past each other. The undisciplined chaos on the streets is insane. It looks as if everyone had the right of way. No wonder traffic laws had to be created! It's a good thing they weren't going very fast. Notice that some cars had steering wheels on the right and others on the left: when did we standardize steering on the left? The clothes are interesting, too, especially the ladies' elaborate hats and long dresses.

You feel as if you're really there, standing at the front of the car looking down the street: an amazing piece of historic film. Someone has attached an unrelated sound track, which is distracting. You may want to shut off your speakers and enjoy the original silent film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=NINOxRxze9k

Very interesting film. Yes it seems everyone was going their own way lol. Something must have been going on with the car it was filmed from as people seem to pay more attention to that one. Kind of reminds me of some drivers nowdays...lol

Its was a street car, they were trying to get on or out of its way.

Amazing 100 years later and they had better public transport then.

Boy and they think we are crazy drivers now.
Walt
Cable cars

Ken:

Yes they did. In Los Angeles they had both electric busses and trolleys, but they were all removed in the early 1950's . I can remember as a youngster, my mother taking me on the bus along Barham Blvd. to Cahuenga Pass to catch the "Red Car" trolley into Hollywood. Years later as a young teenager, my friends & I would play in the old Red Car trolleys that were stacked up at the Hugo Neu-Proller Salvage Yard on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor. It's amazing what you can "get away with" when your Father is the Insurance Broker for the salvage company.

Doc

Great film, thanks for sharing it. Interesting to see the cars are all right-hand drive????
Sam

I think you can find a number of references to how hard the automotive sector fought to eliminate public transport about that time. Kind of foolish looking back, cars are such a pain in big cities now.

One thing I noticed is the street is very WIDE. Why do you think they would keep the buildings so far apart? In case of fire?
That is a lot of wasted real estate.

Ken:

The last time I was in the Los Angeles area was back in 2003 and the freeways that you used to be able to travel at 65 MPH on, were now 30 MPH PARKING LOTS.