Glenn Robert Lym Architect AIA/PhD

This is the story of how a massive erasure of landscape occurred in early San Francisco, motivated by explosive population growth and fueled by an influx of mining and industrial wealth. Without second thought, San Francisco transformed sand dunes, hollows, creeks, marshes and bay waters into the flat lands now known as Market Street, South of Market, the Mission District, South Beach, the Financial District, Union Square and the Tenderloin.

Above, T. E. Heght's early 1860's photograph of South of Market looks out eastward from the top of the Clinton Mound, 60 to 80 feet above what is now Safeways at Dolores and Market streets. The dirt road running diagonally across the lower left corner is Market Street. Valencia Street splits from Market Street and runs horizontally in this photograph towards the south.

The waters of a not yet filled Mission Bay lie in the distance at the top right. Yerba Buena Island, in the middle of San Francisco Bay, is the dark hill seen in the upper left corner. The dune field's two and three story buildings are dwarfed by sand ridges and peaks, some of which rise to over 80 to 120 feet in height.

This was the eastern end of the city wide, Great San Francisco Dune Field. When the Transcontenental Railroad terminated in these lands at the end of the late 1860's, most of this landscape had vanished. In its place was left a level tract of land known as South of Market, connecting and opening up the early center of San Francisco at Yerba Buena Cove to the expansive and undeveloped Mission District.

HERE5 is infromed by historical accounts, photographs, maps, and illustrations. It includes computer generated, CAD movies of the 1853 San Francisco landform based on the United State Coast Survey.

HERE5 - Erased Landscape is 84 minutes long and was written, filmed and edited in 2010 through 2012

The controls for the video below are along the bottom. Clicking the diagonal arrow on the lower right expands the video fullscreen. Press the "escape" to exit fullscreen mode.

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C r e d i t s

Thanks to Greg Braswell of SFDPW; Gray Brechin; John Cloud of NOAA;
Chris Carlsson of ShapingSF; Rebecca Giordano & Erick Lyle of Streetopia; and Adrian Cotter;
Phillip Gerrie of San Francisco Natural History Series -Randal Museum; and Ron Wellman.

R e f e r e n c e s

James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City Scottwall Associates 2002

bernalhistoryproject.org

Wayne Bonnett San Francisco by Land & Sea: A Transportation Album Wingate Press 1997

Gray Brechin Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin University of California Press, Berkeley 1999

burritojustice.com

Dennis Evanosky & Eric J. Kos Lost San Francisco Pavilion Books/Anova Books London 2011

foundSF.org

Greg Gaar and Ryder W. Miller Images of America: San Francisco: A Natural History Arcadia Publications 2006

Gladys Hansen & Emmet Condon Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 Cameron and Company 1989

John Shertzen Hittell A History of the City of San Francisco: and Incidentally of the State of California A. L. bancroft and Co 1878

Charles Lockwood Suddenly San Francisco: The Early Days of an Instant City California Living/San Francisco Examiner/Hearst Corporation 1978

Nancy Olmsted, Chris Carlsson & Bob Isaacson Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay - Second Edition Mission Creek Conservancy, 1986 & 2010

T. D. O’Rourke, A. L. Bonneau, J. W. Pease, P. Shi, and Y. Wang “Liquefaction and Ground Failures in San Francisco” Earthquake Science Volume 22, No. S2, pages S91-S112, April 2006

Doris Sloan California Natural History Guides: Geology of the San Francisco Bay Region University of California Press 2006

James R. Smith San Francisco’s Lost Landmarks Word Dancer Press Sangar California 2005

Frank Soulé, John H Gihon & James Nisbet The Annals of San Francisco D. Appelton & Co, NYC 1860

Stephen Tobriner Bracing For Disaster: Earthquake-Resistant Architecture and Engineering in San Francisco, 1839-1933 Heyday Books/Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, 2006

Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View Rizzoli International Publications 2006

T. L. Youd and S. N. Hoose “Historic Ground Failures in Northern California Triggered by Earthquakes” Geological Survey Professional Paper 993 U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1978

F i l m & V i d e o

Miles Brothers “Trip Down Market Street” the collection of the Prelinger Archives, Creative Commons License, http://archive.org/details/TripDownMarketStreetrBeforeTheFire

California Highway Patrol from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkx-vO9I8r8

Glenn Lym including ArchiCad and Goggle Earth Video

M a p s & D i a g r a m s

Wayne Bonnett San Francisco by Land & Sea: A Transportation Album Wingate Press 1997

William M. Eddy “Official Map of San Francisco” Library of Congress in Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View Rizzoli International Publications 2006

“Diagrams reported by The Spring Valley Water Company" from Gladys Hansen & Emmet Condon Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 Cameron and Company 1989

Glenn Lym

Nancy Morita The Ecology and Natural History of San Francisco:Wild in The City Wild in the City 6 Cypress Road San Anselmo CA 94960 1992

National Park Service, Southeast Archeological Center “1913mapChevialierMap” from http://www.nps.gov/history/seac/marshlin.htm

T. D. O’Rourke, A. L. Bonneau, J. W. Pease, P. Shi, and Y. Wang “Liquefaction and Ground Failures in San Francisco” Earthquake Science Volume 22, No. S2, pages S91-S112, April 2006

Melvin Prueitt, Los Alamos National Laboratory & M. Clark Blake, Jr U.S. Geological Survey "Diagram pgs 154-5" National Geographic Volume 168 No 2 August 1985

Stephen Tobriner Bracing For Disaster: Earthquake-Resistant Architecture and Engineering in San Francisco, 1839-1933 Heyday Books/Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, 2006

US Coast Survey “The City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity” 1852

US Coast Survey “The City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity with Wetlands” 1853

US Coast Survey “The City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity” 1857

US Coast Survey “The City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity” 1859

US Coast Survey “The City of San Francisco and Its Vicinity” 1869

Jean-Jacques Vioget “Plan of Yerba Buena California” from The Bancroft Library UCB in Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View Rizzoli International Publications 2006

H. O. Wood “Map of San Francisco Showing Distribution of Apparent Intensity of the Earthquake Shook” Carnegie Institution Washington, D.C. in David Burkhart Earthquake Days: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire in 3D Faultline Books 2005

P h o t o g r a p h s & I l l u s t r a t i o n s
 

James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig in James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City

americanhurrah.com

William Bainbridge & George W. Casilear delineators in Library of Congress in Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View

Bancroft Library UC Berkeley in digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu; and in Charles Lockwood Suddenly San Francisco: The Early Days of an Instant City

Martin Behrman Negative Collection, Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives

Martin Behrman, California Historical Society in www.foundsf.org/

Bernal History Project Images of America:San Francisco's Bernal Heights

Marilyn Blaisdell Collection in Greg Gaar and Ryder W. Miller Images of America: San Francisco: A Natural History

Gray Brechin

Bettman/Corbis in Dennis Evanosky & Eric J. Kos San Francisco Then and Now Thunder Bay Press 2009

1851 Photo Montage photographed by Chris Carlsson from the walls of Molloy’s Tavern, South San Francisco, (California Historical Society)

C. B. Gifford delineator from SF History Center, SF Public Library in Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View

California Historical Society in James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City; and in William Bronson The Earth Shook, The Sky Burned; and in Charles Lockwood Suddenly San Francisco: The Early Days of an Instant City; and in Nancy Olmsted, Chris Carlsson & Bob Isaacson Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay - Second Edition

California State Library 1906 Earthquake & Fire Digital Collection; and in Wayne Bonnett San Francisco by Land & Sea: A Transportation Album

Charles B Gifford delineator in David Rumsey Collection in Sally B. Woodbridge San Francisco in Maps and View

foundsf.org

Gray & Gifford illustrators in David Rumsey Map Collection in Nancy Olmsted, Chris Carlsson & Bob Isaacson Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay - Second Edition

Hansen Collection, San Francisco Museum

Pete Holloran, Greg Gaar Collection in foundsf.org

Thomas Houseworth & Co in Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, New York Public Library

Mrs. Phillip Landis Collection in James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City Scottwall Associates 2002

Frederick Larsen in San Francisco Chronicle October 19 1989

Geo.R.Lawrence Co. Chicago in msb1959.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/1906-earthquake-san-francisco-market-street-after/

Lawrence & Houseworth Albums in Society of California Pioneers and in University of California content.cdlib.org/

Library of Congress in Charles Lockwood Suddenly San Francisco: The Early Days of an Instant City; and in Dennis Evanosky & Eric J. Kos Lost San Francisco and in James R. Smith San Francisco’s Lost Landmarks

Nancy McNear Collection in James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City

psmaps.com

ronhenggeler.com

San Francisco Call on cablecarguy.blogspot.com

San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library Purchased Scans; and in James Beach Alexander & James Lee Heig San Francisco: Building the Dream City; and in Dennis Evanosky & Eric J. Kos San Francisco Then and Now; and in Nancy Olmsted, Chris Carlsson & Bob Isaacson Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay - Second Edition; and in in Wayne Bonnett San Francisco by Land & Sea: A Transportation Album

San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority Photo Archive

San Francisco News-Call Bulletin in San Francisco Public Library

sanfranciscomemories.com/woodwardsgardens

sfgenology.com

sfmuseum.org

sf.streetsblog.org

SFPUC Photography Department in Wayne Bonnett San Francisco by Land & Sea: A Transportation Album

Society of California Pioneers in Dennis Evanosky & Eric J. Kos San Francisco Then and Now

Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Library in David Burkhart Earthquake Days: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire in 3D

thepalacehotel.org

tunneltalk.com

Capt W. F. Swasey delineator in David Burkhart Earthquake Days: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire in 3D

United States Geological Survey

Carleton Watkins & Martin Behrman, California Historical Society in www.foundsf.org

Carleton Watkins, California State Library in Greg Gaar and Ryder W. Miller Images of America: San Francisco: A Natural History

Charles Weed in Greg Gaar and Ryder W. Miller Images of America: San Francisco: A Natural History

commons.wikimeida.org

wikipedia.org

M u s i c

by Glenn Lym