3 posts tagged “maps”

Favorite local subject right now is Street View on Google Maps.

Link to my favorite weird shot so far.

Runner up: Of all the times to be leaving a strip club...

Wired has a collection of inadvertent urban snapshots you can vote on.

San Francisco's current cable car system consists of one line to Fisherman's Wharf and another line running from Market & California to Van Ness & California. While used by some residents as regular transportation, they're mostly municipal rides for the tourist.

At one time, however, they used to be real transportation and there's no better evidence of that than this wonderful map of what the cable car system was like during the 1890s. Just imagine what it would be like today with a cable car running down Market Street, south on Castro to Noe Valley. It existed at one point!

A bit of trivia that Tom discovered when I mentioned the map to him: The California street line was in private hands until 1952, the last of the private cable car operators to sell.

Here's an interesting map of San Francisco, circa 1895. It shows all the creeks and marshes that existed prior to development, along with the infill that's occurred to spur on additional development. You'll note that much of the Financial District is built on infill, which tends to liquefy during big earthquakes. What fun that will be some day! Note that most of the creeks shown still exist beneath San Francisco, channeled into concrete pipes. At least one laundry in the Mission (or perhaps it was Chinatown?) drew water directly from one of the springs.

Also of note are the rail tracks coming up the coast and then shooting east along the border of Golden Gate Park. That was the first path, avoiding the mountains and other hazards, for the railroad into San Francisco. Now everything on a flanged wheel comes in via the bay route and terminates near the railyards by Caltrain.