Post-War san Francisco - Notorious Nightlife in the Wild West

Post-War San Francisco
Peace and Prosperity: The American Dream (1945 - 1955)
San Francisco came back strong after World War II. Above, a man looking
into a Novelty Shop storefront, 1947. A classic example of public space of the
period. Photo by legendary San Francisco street photographer, Fred Lyons.
1
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
The bartender at Trader Vic’s, a highly
popular Polynesian influenced club hidden away on Cosmo Place. The Tiki-themed
decor and drinks were all the rage for many
years. Owner Vic Bergeron claimed to have
invented the Mai Tai cocktail in 1944 (based
on rum, Curaçao liqueur, and lime juice).
Trader Vics’s was a major contributor to
making San Francisco one of this country’s
most cosmopolitan cities for nightlife
“San Francisco,
now there’s a
grown-up
swingin’ town.” Frank Sinatra
2
Below: The Crystal Palace Public Market, at
8th St. and Market, was an old school openair bulk foods emporium for over 40 years. It
featured a wide array of products — pickle
barrels and hanging sides of meat, as well as
coffee, doughnuts and milkshakes.
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Top: Military men on leave, Market Street.
During World War II San Francisco was a
popular port-of-call for lonely soldiers and
sailors.
Bottom: The Palm Garden Grill, on Market
near 6th Street. Rumor had it that the timber
used to create the “Golden Rule Bar” had
been brought around the horn. This oldschool bar was an institution for 50 years
until the late 1970s.
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Photo: Georgette Stratos
3
Bimbo’s 365 Club was originally a speakeasy on Market St, opening as Prohibition ended in
the early 1930s. It’s longtime location on Columbus Ave. in North Beach is a great Art Deco
room designed by Timothy Pflueger. The club has a sophisticated atmosphere, with wonderful
mid-century decor.
Left: Bimbo’s is the home of “the girl in the fishbowl,” a seductive optical illusion.
Bottom: Dancing showgirls at Bimbo’s 365
Club, c.1940s.
Bimbo’s is now one of the city’s oldest nightclub locations, and it has hosted scores of
great bands. Bimbo’s remains a perfect club
for most music groups, and they’ll be glad to
book any talented act that wishes to come on
board.
Opposite: The Old Poodle Dog restaurant
on Post St. was a San Francisco institution
for decades. In a 1957 incident, bandits held
several customers hostage in a tense standoff.
San Francisco Public Library
4
Photos: Bimbo’s 365 Club
“San Francisco is one of the truly
cosmopolitan places – and for many,
many years, it has always had a warm
welcome for human beings from all
over the world.” -Duke Ellington
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
The Blue Fox, above and left, was a class
joint at 659 Kearny St.
5
1959, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
The Fox Theater on Market St. and 9th was
a grand movie house of the classic style. From
the 1940s to the ‘60s there were many large
movie theaters downtown. The Fox had a live
organist who played between films. Today,
only the Castro theater still has an organist.
Right page, top: The Tonga Room at the
Fairmont Hotel; bottom: Herrington’s was
a classic Tenderloin Irish pub on Jones St.
near Market for several decades before moving a few blocks down Turk St. in the 1980s.
6
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Tonga Room, c.1950s. Photo: This Side for Writing.
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
7
Beat North Beach
Go West and See the Future
(1950s)
“If you believe
you’re a poet, then
you’re saved.”
-Gregory Corso
Geary Tap Room, 1942.
8
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
The 1950s were the bland, conformist Eisenhower Age, but it was also the time of those who
escaped from the boring vision of America.
Top: The Party Pad was an underground club in a warehouse on Davis Street in the old Produce District, near the North Beach scene.
Bottom: Inside the Party Pad, c. 1959.
Photo: C.R. Snyder, FoundSF
9
FoundSF
The Black Cat Cafe at 710 Montgomery
Street was a notorious den of sin during the
1950s and 60s, where known homosexuals
congregated.
The Black Cat became home to a gay drag
revue starring José Sarria (below). Sarria
was born in San Francisco and performed
each Sunday afternoon for fifteen years to
full houses of 250 or more, using his role
as Madame Butterfly to sermonize about
homosexual rights and leading a sing-along of
“God Save the Nelly Queens...” At the time,
openly gay nightlife was highly risky, and
police raids were common.
When it finally closed in 1963, The Black
Cat had broken the barriers that prevented
overtly gay bars from existing freely.
10
Photos: Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California
FoundSF
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Top: Finocchio’s Drag Show, 1958. Before the Castro, North Beach was a gay mecca.
Frank Phipps plays bass trumpet at the renowned jazz club, The Cellar, 576 Green St.
in North Beach, c. 1959. Photo by C. H. Snyder.
11
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Still from “The Beat Hotel” by Alan Govenar. Photo: Harold Chapman, 1960.
“The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers and artists who
came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of “Beat” culture included rejection of received standards,
innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition.” (Wikipedia)
Many beat writers lived in North Beach during the ‘50s. They included Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Rexroth, William Carlos Williams, Philip Lamantia, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Richard Brautigan, Gregory Corso, Diane
12
Di Prima, Charles Bukowski and many others.
Photo: Fred W. McDarrah
13
From left, Larry Rivers, Jack Kerouac, David Amram, and Allen Ginsberg during the filming of “Pull My Daisy,” 1959. Photo: John Cohen.
Left: Influential stand-up comedian Lenny
Bruce being booked, notorious obscenity trial
where Bruce was charged with using overtly
sexual language. He was acquited.
Bottom, Left: The Vesuvio saloon, located in
North Beach just across from the infamous City
Lights Bookstore, was a home base for beat
writers during the 1950s and ‘60s.
This world-renowned San Francisco saloon was
first established in 1948 and remains an historical monument to jazz, poetry, art and the good
life of the Beat Generation. Vesuvio attracts
a diverse clientele: artists, chess players, cab
drivers, seamen and business people, European visitors, off-duty exotic dancers and bon
Photo: Wikipedia, public domain.
vivants from all walks of life. Bottom, Right: North Beach bongo jam session, 1950s.
Photo: John Horn.
Photo: Jerry Stoll.
“Jack Kerouac opened a million
coffee bars and sold a million Levis
to both sexes. “ -William Burroughs
14
Photo: Harry Redl.
Allen Ginsberg pointing toward the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, the sinister inspiration for his
1956 poem, “Howl” The building represented “Moloch,” the city as machine and system of
control. The publication of the poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books resulted
in a long trial in 1957 against the poem’s alleged obscenity, which ended with the book being
ruled not obscene and City Lights was exonerated.
15
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
Above: McGoons club was a North Beach institution for many years, in various locations during the Jazz hey-day 1950s and 60s. Turk Murphy’s Jazz band were the house musicians.
Opposite page: Jimbo’s Bop City and The Black Hawk Club were among the coolest clubs in
the Tenderloin and Fillmore neighborhoods. The Black Hawk was at the corner of Turk and
Hyde St. for many years. Scores of great Jazz musicians played at both clubs during the ‘50s
and ‘60s.
16
Concert Posters.
17
Photo: FoundSF.
San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
San Francisco Public Library
18
Market St. 1961. Photo: Lance Nix.
Northeast corner of Turk Street at Leavenworth Street,1962. San Francisco Assessor’s Office Negative Collection, San Francisco Public Library.
The Tenderloin was the classic hardcore downtown San Francisco neighborhood throughout
the 20th century. It encompasses about 50 square blocks, below Geary St., and includes the
Theater District, “Little Saigon” by the City of San Francisco.
The Tenderloin took its name from an older neighborhood in New York with similar characteristics. There are several explanations of how that neighborhood was named. Some said it
was a reference to the neighborhood as the “soft underbelly” (analogous to the cut of meat) of
the city, with allusions to vice and corruption, especially graft.
The Tenderloin has been a downtown residential community since shortly after the California
Gold Rush in 1849. However, the name “Tenderloin” does not appear on any maps of San
Francisco prior to the 1930s; before then, it was labeled as “Downtown”, although it may have
been informally referred to as “the Tenderloin” as early as the 1910s. The area had an active
nightlife in the late 19th century with many theaters, restaurants and hotels. Notorious madam Tessie Wall opened her first brothel on O’Farrell Street in 1898. Almost all of the buildings
in the neighborhood were destroyed by the 1906 Earthquake and the backfires that were set
by firefighters to contain the devastation. The area was immediately rebuilt with some hotels
opening by 1907 and apartment buildings shortly thereafter, including the historic Cadillac
Hotel.[4] By the 1920s, the neighborhood was notorious for its gambling, billiard halls, boxing gyms, “speakeasies”, theaters, restaurants and other nightlife depicted in the hard boiled
detective fiction of Dashiell Hammett, who lived at 891 Post Street, the apartment he gave to
Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. (Wikipedia)
19
Love Street
My Generation Turns On
(1960s)
The Summer of Love (1967) brought converts to the hippie counterculture revolution. It was
a very groovy scene, and a lovely trip was had by all.
Photo: Wikipedia
20
Photo: TK
Photo: TK
Photo: TK
The Cockettes and the Angels of Light. In the early 1970s, they were part hippie community,
part wild theater troupe. Hibiscus, Goldy Glitter, Dusty Dawn.
21
Photo: The Washington Post
Photo: Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard / AP
22
The early ‘60s were the golden years on
Broadway, when topless dancing caught on
in clubs like Big Als, the Condor and the
Garden of Eden.
San Francisco and Berkeley were the scenes
of many anti-war protests during the 1960s.
Left: Ken Keysey and the bus the Merry
Pranksters drove across the country to
celebrate Freedom and still-legal LSD.
Photographer unknown
Photographer unknown
23
Photo: FoundSF
Above: The Stud on Folsom St., 1978. A rough and tumble, “open city” freak show. Street
drugs were everywhere: pot, speed, acid, coke. The Stud was a serious leather bar, but it was a
great place to hear Bowie or the Buzzcocks on the sound system.
Below: The Toolbox bar, on 4th near Folsom St., early 1970s. Mural by Chuck Arnett.
24
Photo: FoundSF
South of Market was formerly an area of light
industrial trade shops. Leather bars began
to crop up along Folsom St. in the 1960s and
‘70s.
Left: The Twin Peaks bar at Market St. and
Castro is a welcoming gateway to the gay-way.
Below: The Homestead bar.
25
Photographer unknown.
“San Francisco has always been a
haven for misfits and weirdos.
I’m both of these, which is
why I came here.” Michael Franti
26
Bohemian Grove owl sculpture by Haig Patigian.
“Where elso but in San Francisco
would characters such as Sister
Boom-Boom, a transvestite who
dresses in a miniskirted nun’s habit,
and a punk rocker names Jello Biafra
run for seats on the Board of
Supervisors?” -JoAnne Davidson, journalist
Mysterious rituals of the powerful are performed at the annual retreat of the members of the
San Francisco-based men’s art club known as the Bohemian Club, at a private 2,700-acre
campground known as Bohemian Grove, north of San Francisco.
In mid-July each year, Bohemian Grove hosts a two-week, three-weekend encampment of
some of the most powerful men in the world. The Bohemian Club’s all-male membership and
guest list many prominent business leaders, government officials (including U.S. presidents),
senior media executives, and people of power, as well as a few artists, particularly musicians.
Since the founding of the club, the Bohemian Grove’s mascot has been an owl, symbolizing
knowledge. A 40-foot hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports stands at the
head of the lake in the Grove; this Owl Shrine was designed by sculptor and two-time club
president Haig Patigian, and built in the
1920s. Since 1929, the Owl Shrine has served
as the backdrop of the yearly Cremation of
Care ceremony. (Wikipedia)
Left: Plaque outside the Bohemian Club’s San
Francisco clubhouse. Photograph by Karen
Kuehn.
27
“San Francisco is simply a very
romantic place ... Who couldn’t
become ravenous in such a place?”
-Julia Child
The Punk era brought some strong new
art movements. Throughout the ‘70s and
80s street art exploded with grafitti, murals, guerrila posters and billboards. Right:
Woman in underwear, artist unknown.
28
SF Mime Troupe
“Sex & drugs
& rock & roll”
Club Foot poster by JC Garrett. Club Foot
was an artist-run venue in the Dogpatch
neighborhood that hosted a range of punk
and avant-gard bands.
- Ian Dury
29
Punk
There’s a Riot Going On
(1977 - 1981)
The Deaf Club, 530 Valencia Street, 1978.
Photo: Chris Horn
Photo: FoundSF c.1978
The Sex Pistols final live performance was at Winterland in 1976. At Steiner and Post St.,
Winterland was originally an ice skating rink, and was later converted into a concert venue.
It became a common performance site for many of the most famous rock music artists.
30
The Punk era was a short-lived but highly influential music movement. Above: Search and
Destroy tattoo worn by Black Flag’s Henry Rollins. Photographer unknown.
31
Survival Research Laboratories
Survival Research Laboratories is a group of artists who create various kinetic machines and
host large-scale public shows which feature machine performance.
Formed in 1978, SRL has operated as an organization of creative technicians and technical
creatives dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and
the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. Since
1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations in the United States and Europe.
Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special-effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire.
The machines tend to have brutal, primal qualities, and often include flame throwers, giant
bolts of electricity, and other forms of mayhem and distruction.
Burning Man
The phenomenon known as Burning Man began in San Francisco in the mid 1980s by several friends who celebrated the summer solstice each year with a ritual bonfire on the beach.
They came to call themselves the Cacophony Society, because of their anti-consumerist views
and they aimed to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions by staging “culturejamming” events.
The fires grew each year, and evolved into an annual festival that now attracts thousands to
the
32 remote Black Rock desert in Nevada.
33
The Phoenix is the symbol of San Francisco because it represents rising from the ashes.
Street art located at Myrtle and Polk St. Artist: Mad Society Kings, MSK, Reyes. Photographer unknown.
“All the animals come out at night.
Whores, skunk pussies, buggers,
queens, fairies, dopers, junkies.
Sick, venal. Some day a real rain
will come and wash all the
scum off the streets...”
“Taxi Driver” Robert De Niro
34
35
36