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1965 San Francisco Us101


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I took this 88 second 8mm home movie in 1965 coming into San Francisco from the south on US 101 and then crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and looking back at San Francisco from the north. Roadhound can probably identify the exact places.

 

http://www.vimeo.com/670174

 

There are some interesting things to observe in the movie. How about listing what is evidently different about this 1965 scene of auto travel compared with today, and what do you see that is of particular interest. Yah Yah, I know they were driving “old” cars!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

Dave

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I took this 88 second 8mm home movie in 1965 coming into San Francisco from the south on US 101 and then crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and looking back at San Francisco from the north. Roadhound can probably identify the exact places.

 

http://www.vimeo.com/670174

 

There are some interesting things to observe in the movie. How about listing what is evidently different about this 1965 scene of auto travel compared with today, and what do you see that is of particular interest. Yah Yah, I know they were driving “old” cars!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

Dave

 

Very cool. What surprised me most was how much is the same. The Civic Center exit off of 101 hasn't changed much in the last 40+ years. The only difference I noticed was the center divider. The drive over the Golden Gate Bridge looks the same today too.

 

Any idea what the big storage tank along the waterfront would have been used for? I don't remember ever seeing that before, but then again I was 2 years old when that movie was shot. Quite a bit has changed along the SF waterfront over the years, much of it for the better. The SF Skyline is different now too, the Transamerica Pyramid hadn't been built yet.

 

Thanks for sharing that Keep.

 

Roadhound

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Very cool. What surprised me most was how much is the same. The Civic Center exit off of 101 hasn't changed much in the last 40+ years. The only difference I noticed was the center divider. The drive over the Golden Gate Bridge looks the same today too.

 

Any idea what the big storage tank along the waterfront would have been used for? I don't remember ever seeing that before, but then again I was 2 years old when that movie was shot. Quite a bit has changed along the SF waterfront over the years, much of it for the better. The SF Skyline is different now too, the Transamerica Pyramid hadn't been built yet.

 

Thanks for sharing that Keep.

 

Roadhound

 

Roadhound,

 

Two things struck me almost immediately. Where are the trucks and motor homes? There are three cars towing trailers, and one small truck exiting the north end of the bridge. But where are the rest?

 

Aren't trucks allowed in SF and across the GG Bridge? Or has truck traffic changed that much? Of course this is before motor homes and humongous 5th wheels.

 

Did you spot the VW billboard? How about the Greyhound bus?

 

That tank caught my eye as well. I lived in SF in 1962-63 and don’t remember it.

 

I don’t know whether it is good or bad that it looks so much the same. Take almost any 40+ year period before 1960 and you could not have said that. But the skyline has changed,

 

I have wondered elsewhere here if maybe the changes have been less visible. You wouldn’t see a laptop or an ATM in a road shot. Maybe looking in the air would partly answer the question. But it is pretty evident we are using the same basic land transportation infrastructure we did in the 1960’s.

 

Hey, Mobilene what about the highway signs and fonts. White on Black and a pretty stark font. What say ye, oh master fonter (or is it fontist)? Enlighten us.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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How about listing what is evidently different about this 1965 scene of auto travel compared with today, and what do you see that is of particular interest.

The first thing I noticed is it seemed like there was no yellow stripe along the left side of the pavement. Perhaps this is due to the color quality of the film, or perhaps they didn't do that as a rule back then. That was before my time, so maybe you can enlighten me!

 

Chris

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Hey, Mobilene what about the highway signs and fonts. White on Black and a pretty stark font. What say ye, oh master fonter (or is it fontist)? Enlighten us.

 

I believe the sign is actually green and uses the standard FHWA Series D font. I think it's green because past research I did into California highways showed Big Green Signs (BGSs) going back through the late 50s. Perhaps the film has faded with time. I think the font is FHWA Series D because of the shape of the lowercase a and the lowercase g.

 

GGBsign.JPG

 

The only photo I found online of early 60s CA highway signage is unfortunately in black and white, but it is in very much the same style as the signs in your film. Scroll down to the second photo on the page below.

 

http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/history/1...g_contents.html

 

jim

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The difference that I saw first (minus the old cars) was that the Central Skyway was still around in its full configuration.

 

Trucks were allowed to cross the Golden Gate Bridge until 1989, as my dad remembers crossing it once. Since then, most of his deliveries in the area have been on the east side of the bay.

 

With the lighting, it is hard for me to tell whether the sign is black or the dark green in use during the 1960s. California started erecting green signs in 1958 or 1959, IIRC, but black signs were probably still around in 1965 (there are even some still around today, such as the one in the photograph below, located in Oakland). California also has a tendency for keeping signs in use until they (sometimes literally) fall. One of the first things I noticed in Calif. was the use of greenout, the covering up of the U.S. Highway shields for highways that had not been in the state for (at the time) thirty-five years.

x9506.jpg

 

Had you shown the sections of 101 that run on city streets, the changes would be much more apparent, especially in signage (stop signs lost their rectangular shape in the middle, yield signs became red, etc.).

 

Thanks for another great video!

 

Tracy

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Jim and Chris,

 

Jim, I think you are likely right concerning the sign you show. But look at the first overhead sign encountered. I am close to sure that it is white on black. From memory, I know that California used white on black at some point, so it may influence my interpretation. Until you made the differences apparent, I never paid attention. Now I am kind of hooked on what fonts and signs can tell. Do you suppose this was in a transition period?

 

Chris, I don’t know when California started using fog lines or meridian lines...but it would be interesting to know. I have wondered whether it would be possible to date images by such things as how road markings were used. It is probably a state by state thing, but I have noticed differences even in my movies.

 

A little comment on producing these clips....They go through at least 3 conversions (film to digital, digital editing input to output format, Vemio’s conversion to Flash), so it is amazing that they are discernable at all. Maybe I will use Flash as the editing output format and perhaps reduce one conversion. Any advice?

 

Both of you have me now searching my movies for tell tale fonts, signs, and lines. The next movie is for Roadmaven and his Corvair love...it also has some short shots on old US99. Now I have to go back and look at the signs and lines. Hey, that is the phrase...Sign and Line Analysis! The next movie shows some nice action shots of my friends’ 1963 (or ’62?) Corvair and VW Bug on a trip to Lassen National Park.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

Dave

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The difference that I saw first (minus the old cars) was that the Central Skyway was still around in its full configuration.

 

Trucks were allowed to cross the Golden Gate Bridge until 1989, as my dad remembers crossing it once. Since then, most of his deliveries in the area have been on the east side of the bay.

 

With the lighting, it is hard for me to tell whether the sign is black or the dark green in use during the 1960s. California started erecting green signs in 1958 or 1959, IIRC, but black signs were probably still around in 1965 (there are even some still around today, such as the one in the photograph below, located in Oakland). California also has a tendency for keeping signs in use until they (sometimes literally) fall. One of the first things I noticed in Calif. was the use of greenout, the covering up of the U.S. Highway shields for highways that had not been in the state for (at the time) thirty-five years.

x9506.jpg

 

Had you shown the sections of 101 that run on city streets, the changes would be much more apparent, especially in signage (stop signs lost their rectangular shape in the middle, yield signs became red, etc.).

 

Thanks for another great video!

 

Tracy

 

Tracy,

 

Wow, you must be headed for graduate school! Nice job, and way beyond the prof's knowledge! A+

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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I've been to California twice in my life (once to San Diego and once to a sheep ranch near Redding) so I'm not fully up on my CA road history. Frankly, Dave, I've learned a lot from you. So I couldn't say for sure about white-on-black signs. I do know that the Great Renumbering in the early 60s made it necessary to strike a bunch of shields from signs as Tracy mentioned, and that it was in this timeframe give or take that the BGSs were introduced. I don't know what color sign CA used before that, or at least didn't until you insisted that one sign was black and Tracy shared that photo of the black sign. It's all fascinating and new to me!

 

Oh heavens, don't tell me you're getting sucked into road sign typography! One thing I do know about CA is that the outline-only shields on the BGSs, like the 101 shield in my screen grab above, were slowly replaced with black-on-white shields. If you see any of the outline shields in a photo or still on the road, it helps you date the photo or sign.

 

These are clues not unlike, for car spotters, the fact that side-marker reflectors appeared on cars in 1968 thanks to federal mandate. The easiest way to tell a '67 Mustang from a '68, or a '67 Camaro from a '68, is by the absence or presence of these markers.

 

I will be very eager to see the Vair/VW footage. When I was in Redding, my family and I drove up to Lassen and looked around. The thing I remember most is the sulfur smell. That was 12 years ago! I'll be interested to see if your footage stirs any memories, even though your footage is earlier than my trip.

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I've been to California twice in my life (once to San Diego and once to a sheep ranch near Redding) so I'm not fully up on my CA road history. Frankly, Dave, I've learned a lot from you. So I couldn't say for sure about white-on-black signs. I do know that the Great Renumbering in the early 60s made it necessary to strike a bunch of shields from signs as Tracy mentioned, and that it was in this timeframe give or take that the BGSs were introduced. I don't know what color sign CA used before that, or at least didn't until you insisted that one sign was black and Tracy shared that photo of the black sign. It's all fascinating and new to me!

 

Oh heavens, don't tell me you're getting sucked into road sign typography! One thing I do know about CA is that the outline-only shields on the BGSs, like the 101 shield in my screen grab above, were slowly replaced with black-on-white shields. If you see any of the outline shields in a photo or still on the road, it helps you date the photo or sign.

 

These are clues not unlike, for car spotters, the fact that side-marker reflectors appeared on cars in 1968 thanks to federal mandate. The easiest way to tell a '67 Mustang from a '68, or a '67 Camaro from a '68, is by the absence or presence of these markers.

 

I will be very eager to see the Vair/VW footage. When I was in Redding, my family and I drove up to Lassen and looked around. The thing I remember most is the sulfur smell. That was 12 years ago! I'll be interested to see if your footage stirs any memories, even though your footage is earlier than my trip.

 

Jim,

 

I have learned much more from you. I marvel at your road smarts.

 

I cut out everything dealing with hot springs and sights at Lassen, in the interest of length and road focus. I have roadmaven's Corvair clip ready, but I am out of space at Vimeo for this week, so I have to either reformat or work around.

 

Maybe I'll add a second optional short clip of "signature" Lassen images....a hot spring, the trail up the mountain, a hike into a cinder cone, and the Mountain reflected in Manzaneta Lake. I think I can do those in less than a minute. We'll see.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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