USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco and thereabout > Part 4
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FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LANGE
LOOKING DOWN KEARNY STREET TO MARKET.
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VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
The residence district is today reaching out over the hills between the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, while the business section, once crowded down on the made land of the waterfront, is expanding up the resi- dence streets, especially on Geary, Post and Sutter. Post Street is to me one of the most attractive shopping highways, owing to the number of artistic stores which have of late years been established there. The idea, which originated with a picture dealer who commenced in a very modest way, has grown with surprising rapidity. Book stores, bazaars where Oriental brasses and rugs are displayed, collections of artistic photographs, Japanese embroidery and prints, Egyptian embroidery, jewelry, carved and antique furniture are among the displays noted in passing the shop windows. I know of no other American city, not excepting Boston and New York, where one may find the equal in taste and refinement of some of these stores.
To go into a picture house where every detail of furniture, from the carved chairs and simple tables to the lockers with big brass strap hinges, are works of art, studiously harmonious, where wall decoration is con- sidered as well as the pictures selected with so much taste to adorn them-surely this is as inspiring as it is unusual! Then to be led into mysterious back rooms, reserved for sequestrating choice collections of oil paintings, displayed with more generous wall space than any art gallery affords, and other rooms lined with soft Japanese grass-cloth for showing watercol- ors and etchings! Verily it is enough to surprise the tenderfoot who thinks of San Francisco as the metrop- olis of the wild and woolly west, where whiskered men in top boots and flannel shirts carry six-shooters in their belts. Some people have slipped a half-century cog in picturing California from the other side of the continent. Culture and art have taken on a new lease of life here, and like the exuberant vegetation are already bearing the fruit of the Hesperides. Let us
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frankly confess that it is to be found only in spots, like cases in a desert of the commonplace, but every wind that blows is scattering broadcast the seeds.
Where but in San Francisco can one find a book- store like an esthetic library? Here are books in glass cases, books upon finely designed tables, and, scattered about the room, exquisite antiques in brass and bronze, choice vases and bits of pottery, with a few well chosen photographs and cards on the walls. Other rooms adjoin the main apartment-the old book room where many quaint and curious books in rare bindings are treasured, the children's room and the old furniture room with its quaint fireplace. Another bookseller on the same street, a man of years' experience and standing, has gone extensively into the publication of books by San Francisco authors, and the works which bear his imprint will compare with the output of the best Eastern houses in workmanship and stvic.
Mamy cable cars go into the residence district on the heights. We may travel on the California Street cars through the business quarter, even more exclu- sively the haunt of men than Kearny Street is of women, and up the steep ascent past the Hopkins Art School, looking backward down the street to the bay with the Berkeley Hills and Mount Diablo beyond; or we may be hauled up Clay Street through China- (31, holding on to our seats the while as best we may to prevent sliding down upon our neighbor, and ulti- mandy get up into the Western Addition out on Jack- som Street or Pacific Avenue. There are countless blocks of the older residence portion of the city to be passed ca route, built up of painted board houses out of which rows of bay windows bulge vacantly, orna- mented with diverse whimsicalities that are as mean- ingles as they are wearisome. But the cable car jogs on up the hills and down the valleys. An occasional draczna futters its ribbon leaves, or a eucalyptus says its stiff hanging foliage in the fresh sea breeze.
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VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
Then, as we climb, the vista to the north discloses the blue water of the bay with the purple flanking hills of Tamalpais upon the farther shore. Up steep cobble-stone streets ascends the car, with isolated knobs to the north and northeast-Russian and Telegraph Hills, crowned with buildings. Straight ahead, ocean- wards, are more hills up which a series of cars may be seen moving at measured intervals.
Van Ness Avenue is crossed-a broad asphalt street lined with costly homes and large church edifices. Many of the houses are truly palatial in size and style, and an air of wealth pervades the thorough- fare. On clatters the car, rumbling over a crossing and starting up another steep ascent. Here stands an elegant mansion of rough red sandstone, with tile roof, there a quaint brick house with the distinctive features of the Renaissance in domestic architecture. Down the side streets on the lower hills, the city roofs crowd in a gray mass.
Just off from Jackson Street is a simple little brick church which has been an inspiration to a grow- ing number of lovers of the genuine and beautiful in life. It matters not whether they are Swedenborgians as the minister of the church happens to be, or have other creedal affiliations. The spirit of the place, with all its quiet restfulness, its homelike charm, its naïve grace, has sunk deep in the lives of a small but earnest group of men and women. Within, the stranger is impressed with a certain primitive quality about everything. The heavy madroño trunk rafters left in their natural state, the big open fireplace, the massive square-post, rush-bottom chairs, and the large, grave allegorical landscapes of seedtime and harvest, painted with loving care by William Keith, combine with the simplicity of design and the fitness of every detail, to make a church, which, without any straining after effect, is unique in beauty. The message of its builder has reached his mark, and here and there through city and town, homes have been reared in the
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same simple fashion-plain, straightforward, genuine homes, covered with unpainted shingles, or built of rough brick, with much natural redwood inside, in broad unvarnished panels. The same reserve which has characterized the building of these homes has likewise been exercised in their furnishing. A few antique rugs, a few good pictures or photographs of the masters, and many good books, with plain tables and chairs, constitute the furniture. To find this spirit, which would have been a delight to William Morris, so strongly rooted as to assume almost the aspect of a cult, is, I take it, one of the most remark- able features of a civilization so new as that of mod- ern San Francisco.
For a bird's-eye view of the city, no point of van- tage is more commanding than the summit of Tele- graph Hill. An electric car out Kearny Street goes past the base of the hill, but the height must be gained on foot. Just where Kearny Street leads into Broad- way, in that tatterdemalion Latin quarter where Mex- ican and Italian restaurants crowd about the old jail, and the window of every two-penny shop has a name inherited from Spain or Italy, we leave the car and climb the steep road. Many of the side streets are passable only for pedestrians. Flights of steps or broad chicken-ladders lead to houses perched on rocky heights. It is a famous place for goats, which graze on old newspaper and shavings, looking at you the while with wistful expressions on their bearded countenances.
Panting, we reach the summit and gaze abroad for the first impression. What a view is spread about within the wide sweep of horizon-of life with all its varied activities-commerce, manufactures, homes! It is like sitting down with a whole metropolis wrig- gling under the microscope! The great frame barn- like dilapidated castle interrupts a portion of the view to northward, but otherwise the whole varied pano- rama can be taken in by a turn of the head. To the
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY TIBBETS
A VAN NESS AVENUE RESIDENCE.
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VIGNETTES OF CITY STREETS
east and northeast, lies the expanse of blue water bounded by the far-away green hills of the Contra Costa shore, rising gradually to the highest point in Grizzly Peak of the Berkeley Range. Goat Island, a green mound in the center of the bay, is humped up in front of Berkeley. To the south of it, Oakland lines the bay shore.
Around northwestwardly stands the Bolinas Ridge, with the waters of the Golden Gate at its base. Fort Point protrudes on the south, with Point Bonita beyond it on the north shore, and still farther off, just a glimpse of the glistening blue ocean. So much for the bay view which curves around the marvelous pan- orama of the city! At the wharves is a fringe of ship- ping. Men and horses move about the docks like black pygmies. The rumble of vans ascends from the cobble-stone pavement, and the explosive piffs of a gasoline engine are heard.
But the city, oh the city, how it crowds the hills with a wilderness of gray walls and windows, cleft here and there by the lines of parallel streets which dare to climb the most forbidding heights! How it is spread out there on the slopes, with lofty tower build- ings rising from the plain, and a line of pale hills fading beyond into purple behind a veil of smoke! Near at hand, in front of the Greek church, with its green, copper-capped turret, is a little patch of grass. Beyond it, on Russian Hill, are some artistic homes with a bit of shrubbery on the adjacent hillslope. Clothes are hanging out to dry on flat roofs far below. The clang and din filters up from the plain in sub- dued tones, with the shrill voices of children caught by a veering gust of wind. What a chaos of dull houses, thrilling with life, each enclosing its family history, its triumph or tragedy, but all so immovable and unindividual as I look upon the mass!
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
I T was on the corner of Market and Kearny Streets in the evening and a great crowd was assembled, filling the streets in all directions for some blocks with a good-natured mass of human- ity, dressed for a holiday and standing about as if waiting for something to happen. Suddenly there was a flash and scintillation of lights, a suppressed wave of admiring exclama- tion running through the crowd, and San Fran- cisco was decked in a shimmering garment of in- candescent lights. At the meeting of the streets was an immense canopy of fairy lamps that dazzled one with its radiance. Up and down the way as far as eye could travel, bands of light were stretched overhead at frequent intervals, sparkling like stars. At the foot of the street rose the ferry tower, its every line brought out in electric beading. The great Spreckels Build- ing was similarly outlined with lamps, and away up town the dome of the City Hall flashed forth glor- iously in outlines of subdued fire.
Such electric illuminations of San Francisco are now of frequent occurrence, for the city is becoming noted as a place for holding conventions, and from all parts of the country come Christian Endeavorers, Mystic Shriners, Knights of Pythias and all sorts of orders and associations who combine a holiday in Cal- ifornia with their business. They are entertained here with that hospitality for which the State is famed-a heritage somewhat diluted, but still characteristic, from the proud señors of the Mexican Republic be- fore the days of '49.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY TIBBETS
THE CITY HALL.
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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
So great has been the influx of visitors during the past year that there is scarce accommodation for all, but the completion of the two new hotels and the two- story addition to the Palace which is now contem- plated, will relieve the present stress. The Palace has been for years one of the landmarks of San Fran- cisco. It is big and bulging, but there is something so distinctive about its interior design that it stands alone among hotels. The great central court is open to the skylight with a balcony bordering it on each floor. In the midst is an immense palm, and the spacious court is paved with white marble flags. Behind a screen of palms and glass at the farther end, dining tables are spread, where one may have a meal instead of going to the restaurant or grillroom. In the office, a cosmopolitan crowd is assembled-wayfarers from everywhere and nowhere-and one may find here end- less types of humanity to delight and interest the student of mankind.
Although the Palace is the largest of the hotels, there are others about town quite as good. The New California, on Bush Street, with its pretty little the- atre in the center, is attractive and modern through- out. The Occidental on Montgomery Street, has for many years been the headquarters of army and navy people, as well as for many others who do not wear uniforms. A block nearer Market on the opposite side of the same street the Lick House reminds us of the eccentric pioneer who did so much good with his money after he died. In the residence district of the city there is an increasing number of refined family hotels which are sought by those who come not as curious birds of passage but as tentative residents.
In the way of creature comforts, San Francisco is noted above all for its restaurants. The abundance of food produced in the immediate vicinity and the excellence of the large city markets, make it possible to provide meals at prices that amaze New Yorkers. An elaborate French dinner with a bottle of wine for
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from fifty to seventy-five cents is provided at a large number of places about town. A considerable French population came to San Francisco during the early days, and many of these people, gastronomic experts by nature, have found their gold mines in frogs' legs and rum omelettes. The old Maison Dorée was for years the aristocratic dining place of the city, but it fell upon evil days and the sheriff took the keys. Of the resorts long familiar not only to San Franciscans fond of good living, but to the Bohemian globe trot- ters of many lands, there are such French restaurants as the Poodle Dog and the Pup, Marchand's and Maison Tortoni. Among the best known of the Ger- man places, where orchestras enliven the clink of steins and schooners, are Zinkand's, a great favorite with after-theatre supper-parties, and Techau Tavern, in an old church with pillars and recessed nooks decorated in green, where one may have rye bread and Frank- furters together with sundry other good things. Nor must one forget the plebian Louvre which is German to the core, in spite of its name.
The Mexican restaurants of the Latin quarter at the base of Telegraph Hill, serve all sorts of hot con- coctions-peppery stews, chicken tamales, frijoles, and the flat corn cakes so dear to the Mexican stomach, tor- tillas, with Chili con carne and red peppers to warm up the meal. Italian restaurants stand side by side with the Mexican on Broadway, with their "Buon gusto" on the window pane to attract unwary flies within their webs. I have alluded elsewhere to the Chinese restaurants, but a Japanese tea house is more of a curiosity, even in cosmopolitan San Francisco. Up on Ellis Street is such a place, complete in all its appointments, set in a charming little Japanese gar- den. Here the Japanese are served precisely as in the land of the chrysanthemum and the cherry blos- som. There is even a Turkish restaurant in San Francisco where, surrounded by hangings and rugs of oriental richness, one may whiff the incense and sip
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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
the coffee of the Ottoman Empire. Of coffee houses, chop houses, and creameries, good, bad and indiffer- ent, there is no end. Swain's is the oldest and best known of the bakery restaurants, while the ladies caught out shopping generally drop into the Woman's Exchange, where all is dainty and appetizing to a degree.
Since the palmy days of the Argonauts when gold pieces were thrown upon the stage in lieu of bouquets to signify the miners' appreciation of the popular dan- seuse or soubrette, San Francisco has been noted for its theatrical enthusiasm, and for the independence of its judgment concerning plays and players. Of late years the city has shared in the general American deterioration of the stage, but anything really good awakens the old response. The long lines of people standing for hours in the rain to gain admission to the galleries for a Wagner opera or an Irving play are sufficient index. Two new theatres are to be erected in the immediate future which will add greatly to the dramatic possibilities of the city. Cheap opera, both light and grand, for which we are indebted to the German residents, is a constant feature of the the- atrical world in San Francisco.
Although the city has been for years a center for artists, sending forth many painters of distinction and better still keeping a few at home, it has no art gallery save the collection in the Mark Hopkins School of Art. Here are some admirable works, but the building is peculiarly ill adapted for displaying them. Paintings by many of the famous European masters are owned in San Francisco, and at occasional loan exhibitions are publicly displayed.
Of local painters William Keith stands alone in his art as a master of landscape. Such poetry of field and grove, of mountain and forest, of moving clouds and breaking sunshine, has made his work loved more deeply than widely by all who know California and appreciate the great earth mother. Some day the
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East will awaken to the fact that the greatest of Amer- ican landscape painters has been working away on the Pacific shore all these years, and then he will be "dis- covered." The work of Thomas Hill in portraying the larger scenes of California, especially of the high Sierra Nevada Mountains, has given him a national reputation. In portraiture, the tender feeling, the warm coloring and free handling of mother and child pictures has won a circle of enthusiastic admirers for Mary Curtis Richardson. The moonlight scenes of Charles Rollo Peters, the protraits of Orrin Peck, the Indians of Amédée Joullin, the landscapes of Brewer, Cadenasso, Jorgensen, Latimer and McComas and the decorations of Mathews and Bruce Porter are among the most widely known, although the list might be greatly extended without exhausting the number of really admirable painters. One of the signs of vitality is the large number of young men and women who are doing excellent work and constantly raising their own standard as well as that of those about them. In sculpture, Douglas Tilden and Robert Aitken, both young men, have done work of a high order of ex- cellence.
The Bohemian Club has been a rendezvous for the artists and men of letters in San Francisco. Under the patronage of the owl, this club has brought together many congenial spirits who have sung songs, painted pictures, written poems and plays, composed music and told stories in honor of Bohemia. Their midsummer jinks in their own redwood grove in Sonoma County, where the majestic columns of the forest form the wings of the theatre and the mountain a back-ground, where the solemn grandure of a moonlight night is made wierd and strange with red fire and colored calciums, bringing out all the tracery of the wildwood in unfa- miliar lights and colors-all this with the music of a full orchestra and a spectacular pageant rendered in brilliant costumes, makes a scene of impressive beauty.
Of San Francisco's numerous clubs, the Pacific
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Union is perhaps the most aristocratic, its membership including many of the wealthiest and most influential men of the city. The Country Club, which owns a great hunting park in Marin County, is composed of mem- bers of the Pacific Union and there is also a Burlingame Country Club, made up of the elect who play golf and polo. In the Cosmos Club are many army and navy men, while the University Club, as its name implies, is composed of professors and alumni, and entertains at its comfortable home on Sutter Street many visiting scholars of distinction. The Olympic Club is chiefly devoted to athletics, having a building finely equipped with salt water swimming tank, gym- nasium, handball court, and all appliances for culti- vating the physical man.
Among the other men's clubs may be mentioned the two select Jewish clubs, the San Francisco Verein and Concordia. The Union League, with headquarters at the Palace Hotel, is a Republican club exercising much influence over local and state politics. The Press Club is composed of leading newspaper men of the city who meet in good fellowship and toss off the grind and partisanship of the office for an occas- ional hour at their rooms on Ellis Street. The Unitarian Club has no building or rooms of its own but meets monthly around the festive board and listens to discussions by speakers of eminence and power, of questions of local, national, or universal interest. These meetings have much weight in presenting to an influential body of men, from many points of view, matters of vital importance.
The women have their full share of clubs, most of which are devoted to literary, art, charitable or municipal work. The Laurel Hall Club is one of the oldest of these organizations, and still continues its social and literary gatherings without diminution of interest. Many prominent women of San Francisco are members of the Century Club, which has a house of its own on Sutter Street. It devotes its meetings
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SAN FRANCISCO AND THEREABOUT
mainly to music and lectures, varied by an occasional evening reception. The California Club is a large organization of women who undertake practical work in the city and state. They have already accomplished much good, notably in their agitation for preserving the giant Sequoias. The California Outdoor Art League, recently organized, has commenced a vigor- ous campaign in the city for the cause of flowers, trees and parks, and promises to exert a strong influence in beautifying the city. The Spinners and Sketch Clubs are composed of young women interested in literature and art. The Sorosis is a social and literary club.
The ladies of the Emanuel Sisterhood devote themselves to helping those less fortunate than them- selves, and their aid is of the most genuine kind. They go among the poor to teach sewing, millinery and cooking, and other useful arts. The Columbia Park Boys' Club, largely supported by them, has done a noble work among a group of youngsters south of Market Street. In a charming home, fitted up simply but with real artistic feeling, the boys have nightly meetings. There is a small reading room with good pictures on the wall and books and magazines on shelves and tables. Classes in manual training, in drawing and clay modeling are conducted by volunteer workers. There is a gymnasium, a military depart- ment, a baseball club and other athletic features as well as a chorus of young boys who sing classical songs in a spirited manner.
A college settlement has been established in San Francisco for a number of years, and now, through the generosity of Mrs. Phæbe A. Hearst, has neigh- borhood meetings in its own comfortable and artistic quarters. Another modest little neighborhood home is delightfully maintained by Miss Octavine Briggs, who, in the capacity of trained nurse, has brought health, good cheer, and refining influences to many people young and old. Over in the Latin Quarter at the foot of Russian Hill, the Rev. Fiske and his wife maintain
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HIGHWAYS, AND BYWAYS
an institutional church known as .the People's Place -a center for good practical work in that region of saloons and poverty.
The churches of San Francisco present few striking features to distinguish them from the houses of worship in other American cities of the same size. The older church buildings are for the most part com- monplace in architecture, but some of the more recent ones are massive stone structures of fine design. Among the city ministers, none perhaps has exercised so powerful an influence over the destiny of the com- munity as Thomas Starr King, whose eloquent preach- ing did much to save California to the Union during the stormy days before the war. His successor, Horatio Stebbins, was a pillar of strength and a profound moral force in the community. The quiet example of Joseph Worcester has been a quickening influence for all good and beautiful things.
Probably the most striking feature of San Fran- cisco's places of worship is their cosmopolitan char- acter. The Greek Catholic is represented here as well as the Roman, and the towers of the synagogue rise with the spires of the Protestant Christians. The negro Baptist, Salvation Army and all are here. The Jap- anese Confucian and the Chinaman with his joss, worship in their own peculiar fashion. Christian Science, the newest, and Theosophy a modern echo of the oldest of religions, each has its following.
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