World War II Shipyards by the Bay (CA) (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)Very fine history of the war effort in the San Francisco Bay Area.Very concise highly recommended.

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In the dark, frenzied years of World War II, the San Francisco Bay Area was the geographic center of a $6.3 billion West Coast shipbuilding industry. Stretching from the Golden Gate to Vallejo to Sunnyvale, 14 Bay Area yards launched many of the ships that helped save the free world. Basalt Rock of Napa, Bethlehem Steel of San Francisco and Alameda, Hunters Point and Mare Island Naval Shipyards, Joshua Hendy Iron Works of Sunnyvale, Marinship of Sausalito, Permanente Metals in Richmond, and Western Pipe and Steel in South San Francisco are names that still conjure memories for many locals of one of the most impassioned war efforts in human history. Offering new opportunities for African Americans and women, recruiters searched the nation for workers who relocated here by the thousands. These motivated men and women delivered Liberty cargo ships like the SS Robert E. Peary, built in seven and a half days, a shipbuilding record that stands to this day.

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San Francisco's Noe Valley (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)Very nice reading and a lot of pictures of Noe Valley in the early years. Would recommend this book for anyone wanting to see and read about the early years of San Francisco, CA.

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San Francisco's Presidio (CA) (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)... of a bygone world, but nothing to do with the Presidio of today, which has become a glorious urban park, one of the best places in any city of the world for a stroll on a sunny day. It's a magnificent irony that San Francisco, in recent decades the most consistent anti-war city in America, should have benefitted so much, in terms of open spaces and environmental opportunities, from the long-time occupancy of the headlands on both side of the Golden Gate by the US Army. Add to that the Coast Guard's occupancy of the shoreline inside the Golden Gate, both north and south. When the great wave of base-closings took place, and parties in Washington thought to punish SF for its anti-war fervor, little did they expect that the result would be to give SF the only urban National Seashore and Park, plus the restored marsh of Crissy Field and all those rambling military edifices to house non-profits, theaters, studios, and schools! Blessings eternal on Saint Philip Burton, the greatest Congressman of the 20th C and the visionary who finagled the protection of more open spaces and ecological wonders than anyone else ever.
The Presidio is a thoroughly man-made landscape, the only National Park that's really artificial. When the Army moved in, it was mostly dunes; the forest of pines and eucalyptus that you see now was planted, with an explicit design intention of impressing the populace with the 'scope' of the Federal Government. In the later decades of Army management, the cultivated landscape was allowed to go to seed, to become littered and polluted. The Presidio Trust, however, has found the resources and the volunteers to restore and manage the park, to 'daylight' hidden springs and creeks, to recreate habitat for songbirds and coyotes, above all to create a wonderland of walking trails, now incorporating playing fields, picnic paradises, and even a massive Andy Goldsworthy sculpture.
The key word is MANAGE. Humanity has accomplished its greatest ambition, which is to subdue nature, to put the whole world under cultivation of one kind or another. The Presidio is, for me, a metaphor of humanity's responsibility to manage what we have conquered. The pictures in this book chiefly record the process of conquest that occurred in the 20th Century; they don't reveal the the end results. In the Presidio, there were two potential outcomes, the deterioration and despoilation offered over the long term by the Army, or the stewardship and revitalization that has followed from public ownership. These are the two choices open to humanity world-wide: further despoilation and pollution based on unregulated development and 'free' enterprise, or foresightful environmental stewardship. Just as San Franciscans are grateful to have their Presidio not covered with tract homes and malls, our grandchildren will (I hope) have reason to be grateful for every environmental regulation we have the good sense to impose.

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What was once home to the native tribe known as the Ohlone, and functioning as guardian of the San Francisco Bay under Spanish, Mexican, and American flags, the Presidio has served as outpost as well as cultural barometer of the vast changes this country and the state of California have seen. For almost a century and a half, the U.S. military transformed these grounds into a logistical centerpiece for every American conflict and created a pioneering airfield for early flight experiments. The Presidio served as the headquarters for the Western Defense Command during World War II and until its closure in 1994. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area then embraced a unique opportunity to develop the Presidio into a mixed-use area where it once again became an influential icon as development tackled various social, cultural, and environmental issues to point northern California into a new century while simultaneously tracing this country's past.

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San Francisco's Treasure Island (CA) (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)The Golden Gate Exposition was only two years in the history of Treasure Island while the Navy was there 36 years. This book is 60% on the Expo and less than 30% on the years the Navy was there. In my opinion, I would have liked to have had the book be more in proportion to the actual years of the Expo and the Navy.

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Reclaimed from a sandy shoal in the San Francisco Bay, Treasure Island is a man-made creation built in 1936 during the same era that saw the construction of such California icons as the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. Situated next to rocky Yerba Buena Island, it was initially planned to serve as the location of the new San Francisco airport, but its first official duty was to host the 1939 World's Fair. The island's amazing and varied history includes the Golden Gate International Exposition, a U.S. naval station, a Pan-American seaplane base, mock nuclear tests, tragic fires, and many more dramatic events since it rose from the bay. In addition, a number of historic structures remain on Treasure Island, largely frozen in time since they were constructed in 1936.

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San Francisco: A Natural History (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)Reading this book was like pulling a well-loved but worn teddy out of the chest. I recalled hiking the city's hills, creeks and dunes in the fifties, flying kites up on Bernal Heights and sliding down Twin Peaks on cardboard. ...and thought about what's been lost. If that was the sum, it would be an interesting read.
Gaar and Miller took it beyond a catalog of losses to present successes and achievable steps for preservation and restoration. The city has taken a beating, being filled, leveled, dredged, paved and infested with non-native species--thanks to our own manifest destiny. San Francisco: A Natural History makes a strong case for embracing what was ours while sharing our city's natural landscape, past and present, in word and image.

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The real San Francisco lies below the streets, sidewalks, and buildings, hidden from view. This famous city is known for its beautiful setting of water, trees, hills, and beaches, but relatively few people know of its true natural state. Before it was built up and paved over, the earth here was a diverse ecosystem of creeks, marshes, sand dunes, estuaries, and densely forested hills. Over this landscape roamed elk, rabbit, bears, bobcat, and mountain lion, and the now-crowded bayfront teemed with mollusks, otters, dolphins, and whales, while huge flocks of birds blocked out the sun overhead. Today, only about two percent of the city's natural areas remain as they were.

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San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)I first heard about this book from my brother. After looking it up on Amazon I promptly purchased two of these books - one for myself and one for my sister.
We all were delighted to find, on page 65, our parents' wedding photo - Louis and Mary Meyer. On page 61 there is another photo that indicates it is of my parents. However, both my sister and I disagree about this. We believe the lady on the right is Viola Lawless, but, after examination by a magnifying glass, we are pretty sure the other lady and the gentleman are not Louis and Mary Meyer.
Aside from that, we all enjoyed the book tremendously. My brother said it was like having his life flash before his eyes. Mike and Viola Lawless were great friends of my parents and, of course, we remember the Lawless children. It was fun seeing their pictures in the book.
We remember Nolte's Saddle Shop and the slaughterhouses of Butchertown. In fact, one of my uncles worked at Moffat's for many years. I, in particular, enjoyed seeing the picture of Guy Mitchell as my uncle knew him and I was a fan of his when I was young. I also loved the rural side of SF. It's probably hard for people to believe that, not all that many years ago, there were cowboys and horses in the area.
I decided to check for other books in this series to send to friends and was disappointed to find there was no book on North Beach where one of them was born and raised. Perhaps there will be one soon.
But, all in all, I (we) loved the book and have enjoyed discussing it with lots of "do you remember...?" in the process.
Mary Meyer Moss

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It's hard to imagine cows walking up Third Street or sheep on Innes Avenue, yet a large portion of the area known today as Bayview Hunters Point was once extremely rural. Called Butchertown by locals, the neighborhood was a source of much of San Francisco's food. Over the years, it evolved into an interesting combination of residences, businesses, and industries. The area was home to slaughterhouses, tanneries, tallow works, a saddle shop, the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, numerous boat yards including the legendary Allemand Brothers Boat Repair, and the U.S. Naval operations at Hunters Point Shipyard. Alongside these entities lived thousands of residents with unique stories and lifestyles.

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Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown Review

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(More customer reviews)Arnold Genthe was a German doctor of philosophy who arrived in San Francisco in 1895. He was fascinated by the Chinese and used his skill as an amatuer photographer to take over 200 photos of Chinatown's "Tangrenbu" section. These are valuable photographs as they depict Chinatown as it existed before the 1906 earthquake. Tangrenbu was the home of thousands of Chinese who were forced to live in this area due to de facto segregation and deep seated prejudice by San Franciscans. The Chinese were clannish and left few written records of their lives. The 1906 disaster destroyed whatever documents which may have existed so Genthe's pictures assume an importance beyond the mere fact of depicting persons and scenes.
Chinese had been living in San Francisco as early as 1838, a full ten years before gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. Between 1838 and 1849, Chinese were men of means, generally merchants, and few in number. As San Francisco boomed with gold seekers, the city experienced a continuing shortage of workers who were needed to lay roadways, reclaim swampy land, make boots and shoes, and to perform hundreds of other tasks. Native Americans wouldn't cooperate and Mexican-Americans were investing their time in gold mining.
The solution was Chinese laborers as they had been used profitably on British colonial plantations in South America and the West Indies. Chinese merchants were employed as middlemen in the process of supplying the laborers. In a span of 30 years, hundreds of thousands of Chinese were lured onto British, American, and other western ships for the long trip across the Pacific Ocean. Conditions on these ships were often worse than on those of the African slave trade. The mortality rate ranged as high as 40%.
During the 1850s and 1860s, 80% of the Chinese in California were spread throughout the mining areas. They were principally used in large company owned mines and had little hope of holding personal mining claims. They were disliked by most independent miners because of their race and their association with the large mining interests. The Chinese miners were also subject to the Foreign Miner's Tax. As primary contributors, they accounted for 50% of California's entire state revenues from 1850 to 1870.
After the decline of mining, the building of railroads became the focus of merchant interests. Irish immigrants were hired by the Central Pacific (CP) to start construction near Sacramento but many refused the debilitating work of carving a few feet of granite daily from the Sierra Nevada mountain range. In 1865, the CP hired 50 Chinese laborers on a trial basis and told them to carve a road through the mountains.
Pleased with the results, 10,000 Chinese were hired within 3 years and drove roadbeds through and over the mountain ranges. In the severe winter of 1866, Chinese crews worked and lived underneath the snow. Avalanches were frequent and buried many Chinese workers. Two of them were found dead, buried under 50 feet of snow with shovels in their hands. An 1870 news article reported the shipment of 10 tons of bones, representing 1200 Chinese railroad workers being sent to China for burial. Chinese were into other areas of work including sewing, shoe shops, etc. By 1870, they formed one-fourth of the state's employed but only one-twelth of its population.
Discriminatory laws were passed against the Chinese including exclusion acts, Chinese children were denied access to public schools and their parents were not allowed the rights granted to U. S. citizens. Tangrenbu or "Little China" ceased to exist after the 1906 earthquake. This proved fortuitous as all immigration records were destroyed making it impossible to determine which Chinese were in the United States illegally. For these newly created citizens, America now became a home instead of a prison.
This book contains 130 of the 200 Tangrenbu photographs in existence. Many of them have never been shown and a viewing makes it clear Genthe was enchanted with the innocence of children. He tended to take photos of special occasions in Chinatown, thus the ornate costuming in many of the prints. While Genthe did retouch some photos and erase objects from others, this does not detract from his body of work despite some fault finding by John Wei Tchen.
Genthe's photos are rich with the visual details of a bustling street life and of the affection shown by the Chinese for their families. This book provides a glimpse into a time and place long past and focuses a reader's attention on the plight of a unique people. After destruction of Old Chinatown, the Chinese embraced the 20th century. Occidental ways, dress, and customs transformed Little China from a forbidden section into a San Francisco tourist attraction.
This book lacks an index and one is sorely needed. Wei Tchen's extensive text adds enjoyment to the photgraphs as he illuminates each picture with revealing and fascinating comments. He has supplied chapter notes and these are very informative. The bibliography is limited and focuses on Genthe's volume of work and 19th century photography.
This books does an excellent job of stressing the importance of the Chinese people to the present day eminence of California and to the western states of America.

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130 rare photos offer fascinating visual record of Chinatown before the great 1906 earthquake. Informative text traces history of Chinese in California.

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San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition (CA) (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)Today international expositions like the 1964 New York world's fair, the 1939 Treasure Island fair, of even the PPIE
of 1915 are no longer popular. The fairs used to be places
where people could visit to see the latest in technology, visit
people from foreign lands, and see and do all sorts of wondeful things. With the advent of mass media and communication, and people staying home to entertain themselves, fairs fell from fashion.
Its been bandied about for years that San Francisco might put on another world's fair, but it will probably never happen.
So its wonderful to look back at what most people think was the most beautful fair in San Francisco history.
Started to commemorate the completion of the Panama Canal, it was also to show San Francisco had built itself back up from the destruction of the 1906 earthquake and
fire. The fairgrounds were built with lavish temporary buildings extending from the Presidio, along the waterfron, up to Van Ness avenue, taking up 635 acres. Opening in
February, 1915 the fair was an amazing show. The first transcontinental call was made with Alexander Graham Bell.
President Roosevelt visited, and did the Liberty Bell, brought
out from Pholadelphia. John Phillip Sousa and his band played, and he even wrote a piece for the fair. Camille Saint-Saens was also present, concerts being given in the Festival Hall.
The Tower of Jewels loomed over the fair, at night with colored lights playing off thousands of cut crystal "gems"
inside the tower. The Zone, was the amusement park area
of the fair. Sadly not quite a full year later the fair ended, and was torn down, making way for new housing.
This book, like many in the Arcadia series has many excellnt period photos and graphics, and also has a useful historic overview, so the reader can grasp the context of the story.
I have a number of these books in my office at work. My co-workers love to look at books like this one in their spare
time, to remind themselves that San Francisco has an interesting and wonderful past, rich with images and stories. This can be quite a welcome relief in these days
of blaring media, political correctness and a very short
collective memory.

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The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal, the rebirth of San Francisco after the disastrous 1906 earthquake, and the world community in general. It was a festive time and one that transformed the swampy San Francisco waterfront into elaborate grounds for sculptures, playgrounds, fountains, and national pavilions. Some say it was the most successful world's fair ever held, bringing together disparate cultures as no other event before or since. Lasting 10 months and covering 635 acres over what is now the city's Marina District, the fair remains in evidence today at the famed Palace of Fine Arts, the only extant structure and a popular and much-photographed local landmark.

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San Francisco's Ocean Beach (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)I would have liked to see more photos of Playland and the
nearby buildings. That said, it is a good book. The old
Cliff House is much more attractive than the remodeled one
there now. More photos of the Baths would also have been nice.

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San Francisco's Mission District (Images of America) Review

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(More customer reviews)I grew up in the Mission and thoroughly enjoyed seeing photos from the home of my youth. It made me want to run down for a Whizburger & strawberry shake. ... and Nickel Pool - Lord that water was COLD! The photo of La Palma Market on 24th reminded me that my mother used to send me there to buy hand-made corn tortillas; so good. The Miracle Mile - I haven't heard Mission Street called that in ages. The memories come flooding back. Ms. Hooper did an outstanding job portraying the heart & soul of the neighborhood.
This pictorial treasure belongs on the shelf of every person who loves San Francisco.

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On June 29, 1776, Fr. Francisco Palou dedicated the first site of Mission San Francisco de Asis on the shores of Dolores Lagoon. At the time, it was a just a patch in the village of Chutchuii, the home of the Ohlone people, and Palou could never have foreseen the vibrant city that would eventually spring up around the humble settlement. The final mission building, popularly known as Mission Dolores and San Francisco's oldest complete structure, was dedicated on August 2, 1791, at what became Sixteenth and Dolores Streets. After the gold rush, the district around the mission began its dramatic evolution to the diverse area we know today, a bustling mix of immigrants from other states, Europe, and South and Central America.

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