The “Hyde Ride”- which we’ve started describing as “the perfect cable car cocktail” – will feature the two most historic cable cars in coming days. On Friday, July 5, Sacramento-Clay Cable Car “Big 19” will do the honors. It’s 8 feet longer than the single-end Powell cars that serve Hyde every day, and older than any of them as well. originally built to run on Market and Haight streets in 1883.
This summer, Market Street Railway is joining with SFMTA/Muni to provide extra vintage rail service in The City, five days a week. It’s part of a wide-ranging effort by City agencies, business groups, and nonprofits like ours to remind San Franciscans of unique aspects of The City and attract more visitors from both near and far.
The greatest Giant – many say the best professional baseball player ever – Willie Mays turned 93 on May 6. Mays received perhaps the ultimate San Francisco tribute eight years ago when the City dedicated a cable car to him. (No prizes for guessing the number of the cable car.)
San Francisco has awarded just about its highest civic honor to a beloved honorary son, the late Tony Bennett. As morning fog chilled the air on Valentine’s Day, Mayor London Breed was joined high on a hill – Nob Hill – by Bennett’s wife Susan Benedetto, SFMTA/Muni leaders and workers, VIPs, and friends of the cable cars – to dedicate California Street Cable Car 53 to the singer who drew untold millions of visitors to the City and its cable cars with his rendition of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”.
As planned, the special six-month 150th anniversary fare on the California Street cable car line has expired, and the fare has gone back to $8 one-way, the same as the Powell Street cable cars.
The family-friendly Muni Heritage Weekend lets you ride vintage streetcars and buses and special cable cars that rarely operate. The world’s oldest cable car (1883), one of the oldest electric streetcars (1896), the very first streetcar Muni owned (1912), and the wildly popular English open-top “Boat Tram” (1934) will all be carrying passengers between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, September 23-24.
For years, our nonprofit support group has called the cable cars and historic streetcars of San Francisco “Museums in Motion”. Indeed they are – authentic transit vehicles ranging in age from 71 to 140 years, still providing reliable transportation to San Franciscans and visitors alike, thanks to the hard work of SFMTA (Muni), which owns and operates them.
The California Street cable car line has terminated at Market Street since 1891. For the past 50 years, its neighbor has been the Hyatt Regency, the innovative hotel designed by John Portman, now iconic in its own right. When the hotel’s current management generously supported the celebration of 150 Years of Cable Cars, they asked us if we had some old photos of the location.
Wind and wet felled hundreds of trees in the Bay Area this winter, but one species in particular is dangerous to the cable cars. On March 21, most cable car lines were shut down by blown-down Ficus macrocarpa ‘Nitida’ trees and limbs.
It’s Big Game week in the Bay Area. (To those reading this from elsewhere, it’s our biggest college football rivalry: University of California, Berkeley, known to all its fans as simply Cal, vs. Stanford University. ) The first Big Game was in 1892, four years after cable car service started on Powell Street, one year after cable cars started running on Hyde.
