Remembering The Loop, As It Was in 1930
May 5, 2010
Our friends over at Muni Diaries recently steered us toward this vintage film from 1930. It appears to be home movie, and the good stuff starts at around 0:23, when we get a superb view of The Loop -- the once-famous streetcar turnaround at the foot of Market Street -- as seen from the second floor of the Ferry Building. Check out all those Iron Monsters!Also worth noticing: The pedestrian bridge that used to connect the Ferry Building to the rest of Market street, lots and lots of ferries, and a big-gunned Navy battleship at anchor in the Bay.
Noticeably missing: The Bay Bridge and Treasure Island!
Enjoy...
Great video!! Compare it with what this area looks like today. Big change!! Viewers, look for the Biplane, flying over at the very end. Don’t see one of them, too often, these days.
Couldn’t help wondering which battleship was in the harbor scenes—and whether it was one of those lost at Pearl Harbor. Also: The ferry loop action reminded me of how one of the “Thin Man” movies made in the mid-to-late 30’s opens with an “establishing shot” of Market Street (probably around 4th St.) with wall-to-wall streetcars. This may have been before cable cars became the mechanical transport symbol of The City.
Hey! You forgot to point out that the film opens with the overnight steamboat the Harvard or the Yale steaming past Seal Rocks on its way to Los Angeles!
As a bit of a streecar buff, I really like the scenes of the different cars in the loop shot. As a kid I rode most of them.
The battleship is the USS California. It was built on the San Francisco Bay at Mare Island. It was probably there for a visit, as by the time of this movie, the Pacific Fleet was based at either San Pedro or San Diego. The California was torpedoed during the Pearl Harbor attack but like all the other battleships, except the Arizona and Oklahoma, ended up fighting in the war.