Tynan Peterson: Oops. I goofed. What I circled as Mission Dolores is actually
Mission High School. Mission Dolores is the church I believe you circled between
Mission High School and the New US Mint.
Ida Sanchez Tello: I could write about this quiz for pages and pages describing how I
found certain landmarks, certain buildings that are still standing (but not landmarks, just
regular apartment or office ones) and how I haven't found others.
You won't find the Coit Tower, it's east from the shot.
What drove me a little crazy is that the city grid shifts north of Market street, so
following the street lines in the map was taking me to a different place than following
the north line in the shot.
The Embarcadero was also left from this shot, there's no way that tower on the far
right can be it, it's just too on the east. The photographer was pointing north - north
west and the Embarcadero is totally on the east of the peninsula. You would have seen
the Coit Tower first had it been the case. I still can't identify that tower, seems it might
be the Ghirardelli tower, but the proportions are not right and the tower is not that tall.
A lot of things have changed in SF in 63 years, but the Golden Glow Beer billboard is
still there (advertising something else, of course)
[See more about How Ida Solved the Puzzle in the right margin above.]
Q-Gen: Tynan Peterson lives in Oakland. She tells me she thinks the tower is the San
Francisco College for Women on Lone Mountain. Do you think so? She agrees with
you that it's not the Embarcadero, which is off to the east out of view. Someone else
wrote that the picture was taken from The Mark. Don't know if that's true. I am not
familiar with that building. What do you think?
Ida Sanchez: I think the Lone Mountain College should be more to the left, but
according to the map it should be in the straight line from the photographer to the north
tower of the GGB. Tynan should more than I do in that regard, I'm mostly basing my
findings on Google Maps.
Tynan Peterson: Ooh, this is fun. I'm doing it old school, but I printed out a map of
SF and am drawing trajectories to try and figure out what's what. The church that is
closer (straight up above Sears) I think is St. James Church (23rd and Guerrero).
You're right. Forget what I said about the SF College for Women/ Lone Mountain. (It's
now USF). Lone Mountain is way to the left. Still trying to figure out what the tower is
that I thought was Lone Mountain. It's just to the right of Alta Vista Park.
Ida Sanchez: Checked The Mark, definitely not from there, the pic looks north, yet
the Mark north east of the Old Sears.
Q-Gen: It may have been from a helicopter. I imagine they were used by newspapers
and maybe by private pilots back then.
Carol Gene Farrant: The photo was absolutely taken from the top of the hill in Bernal
Heights...There is a park on the top of the hill. Lone Mountain is to the west outside of
the frame of the picture. It’s no longer a college for women. It is now the Lone
Mountain campus of the University of San Francisco . I think it was once the site of a
cemetery. (See Carol's further comments under "From Whence the Photo was taken"
above).
Janice Sellers: It can't be Lone Mountain. That's at 2350 Turk Street. If it isn't
Coit Tower, the only other thing I think is reasonable is Grace Cathedral.
Tynan Peterson: I think I got it! I think the tower is the 1920s apt building at 2500
Steiner, right next to Alta Plaza. Woo-hoo!
Tynan Peterson: I just took a look at your map and am confused. I don't see anything
to the right of Mission Street/Van Ness in the photo, thus not sure how you can see the
Embarcadero, Grace Cathedral, Coit Tower, Julius's Castle, and the Old Mint.
I sent another photo with the landmarks circled which correspond to the map. Alta
Plaza is the park (at the high point) and the "tower" is the apartment building adjacent to
AP at 2500 Steiner.
So I have:
Mt. Tamalpais
Golden Gate Bridge
USF (Lone Mountain)
St. James Church (Guerrero at 23rd)
Mission High School
Mission Dolores
New U.S. Mint
Alta Plaza
2500 Steiner (apts)
Golden Glow Beer sign (atop apts at 3100 Mission)
Sears building (Mission at Cesar Chavez, formerly Army Street)
Mission High School. Mission Dolores is the church I believe you circled between
Mission High School and the New US Mint.
Ida Sanchez Tello: I could write about this quiz for pages and pages describing how I
found certain landmarks, certain buildings that are still standing (but not landmarks, just
regular apartment or office ones) and how I haven't found others.
You won't find the Coit Tower, it's east from the shot.
What drove me a little crazy is that the city grid shifts north of Market street, so
following the street lines in the map was taking me to a different place than following
the north line in the shot.
The Embarcadero was also left from this shot, there's no way that tower on the far
right can be it, it's just too on the east. The photographer was pointing north - north
west and the Embarcadero is totally on the east of the peninsula. You would have seen
the Coit Tower first had it been the case. I still can't identify that tower, seems it might
be the Ghirardelli tower, but the proportions are not right and the tower is not that tall.
A lot of things have changed in SF in 63 years, but the Golden Glow Beer billboard is
still there (advertising something else, of course)
[See more about How Ida Solved the Puzzle in the right margin above.]
Q-Gen: Tynan Peterson lives in Oakland. She tells me she thinks the tower is the San
Francisco College for Women on Lone Mountain. Do you think so? She agrees with
you that it's not the Embarcadero, which is off to the east out of view. Someone else
wrote that the picture was taken from The Mark. Don't know if that's true. I am not
familiar with that building. What do you think?
Ida Sanchez: I think the Lone Mountain College should be more to the left, but
according to the map it should be in the straight line from the photographer to the north
tower of the GGB. Tynan should more than I do in that regard, I'm mostly basing my
findings on Google Maps.
Tynan Peterson: Ooh, this is fun. I'm doing it old school, but I printed out a map of
SF and am drawing trajectories to try and figure out what's what. The church that is
closer (straight up above Sears) I think is St. James Church (23rd and Guerrero).
You're right. Forget what I said about the SF College for Women/ Lone Mountain. (It's
now USF). Lone Mountain is way to the left. Still trying to figure out what the tower is
that I thought was Lone Mountain. It's just to the right of Alta Vista Park.
Ida Sanchez: Checked The Mark, definitely not from there, the pic looks north, yet
the Mark north east of the Old Sears.
Q-Gen: It may have been from a helicopter. I imagine they were used by newspapers
and maybe by private pilots back then.
Carol Gene Farrant: The photo was absolutely taken from the top of the hill in Bernal
Heights...There is a park on the top of the hill. Lone Mountain is to the west outside of
the frame of the picture. It’s no longer a college for women. It is now the Lone
Mountain campus of the University of San Francisco . I think it was once the site of a
cemetery. (See Carol's further comments under "From Whence the Photo was taken"
above).
Janice Sellers: It can't be Lone Mountain. That's at 2350 Turk Street. If it isn't
Coit Tower, the only other thing I think is reasonable is Grace Cathedral.
Tynan Peterson: I think I got it! I think the tower is the 1920s apt building at 2500
Steiner, right next to Alta Plaza. Woo-hoo!
Tynan Peterson: I just took a look at your map and am confused. I don't see anything
to the right of Mission Street/Van Ness in the photo, thus not sure how you can see the
Embarcadero, Grace Cathedral, Coit Tower, Julius's Castle, and the Old Mint.
I sent another photo with the landmarks circled which correspond to the map. Alta
Plaza is the park (at the high point) and the "tower" is the apartment building adjacent to
AP at 2500 Steiner.
So I have:
Mt. Tamalpais
Golden Gate Bridge
USF (Lone Mountain)
St. James Church (Guerrero at 23rd)
Mission High School
Mission Dolores
New U.S. Mint
Alta Plaza
2500 Steiner (apts)
Golden Glow Beer sign (atop apts at 3100 Mission)
Sears building (Mission at Cesar Chavez, formerly Army Street)
| XXX |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| Coit Tower xxx |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| Congratulations to Tynan Peterson, Sharon M Levy, and Ida Sanchez for great teamwork in solving this puzzle! "G'job" also to Carol Gene Farrant for traveling to Bernal Heights for on-site investigation. |
| XXX |
| The Team's Analysis |
| ********** |
| Sunrise at Twin Peaks (looking towards Bernal Hill & Bernalwood) |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
| If you enjoy our quizzes, don't forget to order our books! Click here. |
!-- Start Quantcast tag -->
| Quiz No. 421 Results |
| Answers to Quiz #421 - November 24, 2013 |
| ********** |
|
| ********** |
| Map created by Tynan Peterson |
| ********** |
|
| ********** |
| If you have a picture you'd like us to feature a picture in a future quiz, please email it to us at CFitzp@aol.com. If we use it, you will receive a free analysis of your picture. You will also receive a free Forensic Genealogy CD or a 10% discount towards the purchase of the Forensic Genealogy book. |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Congratulations to Our Winners Sharon M. Levy Janice Sellers Mike Dalton Nelsen Spickard Tynan Peterson Ida Sanchez Edna Cardinal Terry Hollerstain Arthur Hartwell Carol Gene Farrant Cynthia Costigan Gus Marsh Debbie Johnson Sherry Marshall Donna Jolley Rebecca Bare Marcelle Comeau Nancy Nalle-Mackenzie Margaret Paxton Bob Wilson Jim Kiser Dianne Abbott Judy Pfaff Grace Hertz and Mary Turner Team Fletcher |
| ********** |
| ********** |
| How Ida Solved the Puzzle |
| I think I stared at the picture for about 10 minutes without recognizing anything in it, thinking I would never figure out which city it was. All of a sudden, after all that time, I noticed the Golden Gate Bridge. That still didn't make my life easier. Other than the bridge itself, I was not able to recognize anything else, none of the San Francisco I know was visible. The first hint at the timing and spot of the city came with the Golden Glow Beer billboard. After googling exactly that, I fonund a picture with a Billboard just like this one but in a different building. That dated about 1956. So I googled "San Francisco in the 1950s" and went to the images. For some reason, one black and white shot of the Golden Gate Bridge called my attention and I opened a blog with its history that contained our weekly quiz. That gave me more of an idea of the location and landmarks. It also claims that it was taken on April 27, 1950. Labeling Mission Street, I went to Google Maps and searched for a spot in which the street turns diagonally left, found the corner with Cesar Chavez (formerly known as Army) and the Old Sears Building that appears in the lower left of the pic. That also gave me a tentative location for the photographer and a perspective of what could be seen from that spot. All of a sudden, I was virtually walking the streets of SF all over again. Ida Sanchez |
| Sanborn Fire Insurance Map dates the Sears Building to 1929 ec2-50-17-237-182.compute-1.amazonaws.com/PIM/Sanborn.htm l?sanborn=V6P612.PNG |
| Timeline San Francisco timelines.ws/cities/SF_B_1893_1929.HTML 1928 Jul 28, Sears, Roebuck & Co. purchased a Mission Street property for $500,000. (San Francisco Chronicle, 7/25/03, p. E10) |
| Sears, Roebuck & Co's store at Army and Valencia Sts San Francisco Public Library webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedi a/sfphotos/AAC-7430.jpg |
| From Whence the Photo was Taken The photo was absolutely taken from the top of the hill in Bernal Heights . There is a park on the top of the hill. A friend and I took a ride and a hike today. It turns out that my friend doesn’t like hiking as much as I’ve been led to believe. My wobbly legs were not able to make it to the top. I made it to about 37 deg 44’35.59”N and 122 deg 24’42.27”W (according to Google Earth). There was just about the same scene spread out before me. I figure the photographer must have made it to the top of the hill, just a tiny bit more to the west. That tall building in the background is still there. I couldn’t see what may or may not be the Sears building in the foreground. It would have been behind the trees and blocked from my view, if it still exists. We then set out to find the tall, skinny building. After circling block after block over and over again, we gave up and headed homeward. On the way home, my friend screamed, “There it is!” We had been looking at it before from the side. It’s not tall and skinny from the side. It’s tall and wide. We believe it to be 2500 Steiner at Jackson . It’s a residential co-op. Property taxes for a unit on the 8th floor in 2013 were in excess of $24,000. All in all, it was a fun day. Carol Gene Farrant |
| ********** |
| Prominent Photo Landmarks |
| ********** |
| ********** |
| Gold Glow Beer Golden West Brewing Co. 1933-1950 |
| Steiner Building |
| The Steiner Building was the hardest to identify. It is the tower in the background right of the quiz photo. It was initially identified as the Coit Tower and for a while I believed it could be part of the Embarcadero. But cooler heads prevailed. See discussion below. |
Sharon M. Levy: Question: The tower in the back right of the photo. I though that it
might be Coit Tower. The dates work but the shadows on the top triangle of the
building don't look like Coit Tower which is circular.
Q-Gen.: I am not sure the Coit Tower is the tall building in the far background to the
right. If it were the tower, I think from the point of view of the camera, it would be on
the left of the mint, not the right. The mint is the rectangular building with the columns
to the background right.
might be Coit Tower. The dates work but the shadows on the top triangle of the
building don't look like Coit Tower which is circular.
Q-Gen.: I am not sure the Coit Tower is the tall building in the far background to the
right. If it were the tower, I think from the point of view of the camera, it would be on
the left of the mint, not the right. The mint is the rectangular building with the columns
to the background right.
Janice M. Sellers: I'm pretty sure it is Coit Tower. I've
attached a Google Map showing the route from the Mint to
Coit Tower, and it seems reasonable for the photo. But if
you don't think it's Coit Tower, what do you think it is? I
can't think of anything else in that direction.
Q-Gen: Maybe you are right. Here is the map I made:
tiny.cc/8qpr7w This map makes it seem like the Coit
Tower should be to the left of the Mint in the picture, and not to the right. It looks like
the tower is directly in the direction down Mission St from the Mint, and not to the
northwest.
Arthur Hartwell: Oakland Tribune Tower
Q-Gen: If you are telling me that the tower in the background right is the Tribune
Tower, I don't think that is right. I think that's the Embarcadero. Some readers
identified it as the Coit Tower, but that can't be right either. If you look to the left of
the Tower and closer in, you will see the old US Mint - the rectangular building with the
columns. The Coit Tower should be to the left of the Mint and further back, but I can't
find it.
Tynan Peterson: The POV of the photo is facing northwest. I don't think you can see
Grace Cathedral nor the Embarcadero. Very unusual view of SF. I like it.
Q-Gen: Have some questions for you. Check out what I marked up.
the tower is directly in the direction down Mission St from the Mint, and not to the
northwest.
Arthur Hartwell: Oakland Tribune Tower
Q-Gen: If you are telling me that the tower in the background right is the Tribune
Tower, I don't think that is right. I think that's the Embarcadero. Some readers
identified it as the Coit Tower, but that can't be right either. If you look to the left of
the Tower and closer in, you will see the old US Mint - the rectangular building with the
columns. The Coit Tower should be to the left of the Mint and further back, but I can't
find it.
Tynan Peterson: The POV of the photo is facing northwest. I don't think you can see
Grace Cathedral nor the Embarcadero. Very unusual view of SF. I like it.
Q-Gen: Have some questions for you. Check out what I marked up.
| Tynan's Map Version 1 |
Janice Sellers: I wasn't able to look at your [Google] map
without permission, but I can tell you that Coit Tower is not
down MIssion Street. It's about a mile away. [See map, right]
Q-Gen: I agree it's not the Coit Tower. I thought it might be
the Embarcadero, but Tynan Peterson thinks it's the San
Francisco College for Women at Lone Mountain.
| XXX |
| Carol Gene Farrant: We can date this picture as having been taken some time between 1937 and 1954. In the hills to the right of the Golden Gate Bridge is a light colored rectangle. That’s the Waldo Tunnel. The first bore opened in 1937. Now there are two, the second of which opened in 1954. The arch over the opening to the tunnel is painted like a rainbow. I’m sure I saw the Golden Glow beer sign, but I didn’ t think much about it. It was the Mint that kept |
| XXX |
| XXX |
| jumping out at me. Julius Castle is on Telegraph Hill which is topped by Coit Tower. They are both to the right outside of the frame of the picture. There were three things about this picture that had me stumped. One was that tower behind the Mint. Today what I know as the Embarcadeo is a street and an area far to the right outside of the frame of the picture. I’m wondering if that building is still there. The one you’ve identified as the Sears Building was also a problem. I know where Sears used to be on Mission Street . That’s not what it looks like now. Perhaps there was an earlier building. In the photo it looks like there is writing on the left side of the tower, but I can’t make it out. What really drove me nuts was where was the photographer standing when the picture was taken. I suspect you have the general area correct, but there is no hill there from which you could get that view. Just to the south and a tad east of Mission and Cesar Chavez is Bernal Heights which is a hill. It was probably open land when the picture was taken, if that is where it was taken from. Now it is covered with houses. See Carol's comments above "From Whence the Photo was Taken". |
| ********** |