Grab Bag #58
A night owl reporter wanders across San Francisco in 1887.
A little different Grab Bag this go-around, but fear not, we will still have the Guess Where game:
Guess Where
Answer at the bottom of the email, for the Friends who have access to get there. 😄 (Is it time you became a Friend and received access to all the Grab Bags and more? Maybe...)
City at Night
“There is no particular reason why a pedestrian should not be a philosopher. The very stones upon which he walks have a history.”
In 1887, a San Francisco Examiner journalist decided to write a piece about staying up all night and walking the streets of the city. Or he stayed up all night walking the streets of the city and realized he had to file something with his bosses at work.
Either way, this Grab Bag will dip into some of the stories that nameless scribe put down about his nocturnal ramble in San Francisco almost 140 years ago.
(The Night Owls image at the top is just a cool act I wish I had seen from the era. The poster is courtesy of the Huntington Library.)
7:30 p.m.
“It would be a curious calculation to ascertain how often the same people walk from Lotta’s Fountain to the Baldwin Hotel. Every large city has its promenade and this is the promenade of San Francisco. There is no class, no degree in life, but that can be met under the electric lights of Market Street. At this time within ten minutes a panorama of human beings passes and repasses. Clerks, shopgirls, bankers, mechanics, peddlers, beggars, gamblers, things of prey and objects of prey.”
[Woody: Market Street lost some its status as promenade after the 1906 earthquake, but came roaring back by World War II.]