2011-04-19
Commemorating 1906
If San Francisco has a defining event, it’s the 1906 earthquake. The city’s seal depicts a phoenix because of the many fires when it was a gold rush town in the 1850s, but the most recent city-wide conflagration (and the most devastating) was the one that followed the temblor that year.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that even after a century, people remember. Every year, at 5:12 in the morning, they gather at Lotta’s Fountain, at the junction of Market and Geary. I thought I’d join them. Despite fog and the threat of rain, there were about few dozen people when I arrived at quarter to five, and by the time of the motorcade (which carried the youngest of the living survivors, himself 105) there were probably over a hundred people there, a good chunk in period costume (including the MC).
What surprised me was the tone of the event. The earthquake was, if not the worst natural disaster in US history, one of them, but this gathering was surprisingly lighthearted. Yes, there was a minute’s silence, and a wreath hung from the fountain, but there was also upbeat singing, and the sounding of the sirens of the fire and police trucks around the traffic island was taken more as celebration than memorial. Still, perhaps that sums up the spirit of the city- coming through a tragedy, regathering and rebuilding, taking it in its stride.
Nonetheless, more to my liking was a follow-up, at Church and 20th, not far from the corner of Dolores Park (which itself turned into a tent city, a refugee camp before that label existed, in the wake of the disaster). There, one of the few hydrants that kept working still stands, and (combined with the firebreak of the park) it saved the Mission and Noe Valley from the worst. During the 1960s, Doc Bullock started painting that hydrant gold, and now it’s turned into an event.
The J got me there before the tourist jalopy, let alone the dignitaries (no doubt taking good care of their elderly passenger), and I was far more impressed by the tone, with the fire chief, Joanna Hayes-White, passing the microphone and paint to a succession of people, young and old, who had short stories of family caught up in the event, or dedications to other earthquakes around the world, or simply thanking the city for their welcome. I’m very happy to have attended, and I’d recommend anyone who lives in the area to get up early next April 18th and attend.
2011-04-12
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Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space on the 12th April, 1961.
2011-03-31
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vegansaurus!: Redefining Vegetarianism: Oh NO he didn’t! (via kkr !)
He retracted that later, but to be honest, I’m more annoyed about this:
his new restaurant, Nopi (he’s even re-defined London’s Soho; Nopi is an acronym for the Northern Piccadilly quarter where he’s opened)
Er, no. Just no. Soho’s been called that for three hundred years, and you don’t get to come in and rebrand it with a stupid restaurant name. Maybe - possibly - if your little venture is still there in a century we’ll think about it, but before then, can you bugger off back to Portobello Market with all the other posh gits and confine your overpriced cakes to the forsaken corners of West London? (Oh, and that store in Islington, but that place hasn’t been the same since the Great Estate Agent Takeover of the mid nineties, anyway.) Thanks.
2011-02-23
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San Francisco Airport on 21 January 1962, one of the rare occasions the city has snow. via the SF Gate snow photo special:
The aerial photo over San Francisco Airport is amazing to me, but not just because of the snow. I had never seen the airport before the spiral Escher painting of a parking garage was installed.
2011-02-14
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From the British Council’s Vimeo account, comes this vintage gem. Lovely work on the transitions:
History of the English Language acts as an excellent layman’s introduction to the origins of one of the most common languages on the planet, demonstrating how dialect changes over time, and presenting England as being multicultural right down to its roots.
2011-02-10
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The old London Airport at Croydon, from the Met Police ASU, from a story at Global Aviation Resource, viamondoagogo. Photograph © Geoff Hibbert.
2011-02-02
2011-01-11
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London Underground tube map, c1911 (by Mikey Ashworth, via diamond geezer).
One of the most interesting things, to me, is how much of the central network was in place by this point. The only tube lines built inside the Circle are the Victoria and Jubilee lines.
It’s definitely worth clicking through for the uploader’s notes on the style and the inclusion of the Brighton Railway’s Elevated Electric services, and for his set of Underground maps, including MacDonald’s Gills minimal/calligraphic sketch map.
2011-01-07
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under The General Omnibus Company in 1911, and since then the route has been subject only to minor changes to accommodate one-way systems. ”
A letter by an anonymous TfL employee in 2009, quoted in How London buses are numbered. Hurrah for the 24.
(Having said that, Wikipedia claims the route debuted in 1910 and was changed to its current route in 1912, citing the London Magazine.)
