In response to Sepia Saturday's meme of old photos of Glasgow, I thought I'd expand my remit of walking in Lanzarote to that of walking in Spanish founded cities - in this case, San Francisco - because I have a set of photos I took which must count as veteran, if not vintage. In November 1974, I was a young RAF engineer officer, and got a wonderful chance to go on a 7 week detachment of Vulcan bombers to Australia and Singapore. It was even more wonderful than I expected, because the separation decided me that Little Nell was the girl for me, a decision I have never regretted in 39 years. Anyway, back to the meme. En route in our turboprop Bristol Britannia, we landed at McClellan USAF base near Sacramento, California. As we had about 18 hours until our onward flight to Hickham Field, the USAF base near Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, a group of us hired a minibus and went on a day trip to San Francisco.
We had about 5 hours in the city, and went on a rapid sightseeing walk, managing to get in most of the famous sights in the process. Looking back through my old slides
(taken on my trusty Boots Beirette camera (£8!)
(photo http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Beier_Beirette_series )
I can see we drove across the Oakland Bay Bridge into town.
And up Market Street, passing the cable car turntable at the Powell Street intersection. ( I apologize for the blur, but it was point and shoot out of the bus window). This photo was the one that lead me to use the trip based on Alan's crowd theme. The building on the right, which is now GAP, is the Flood Building (http://www.floodbuilding.com) a well-known landmark which, at the time housed the largest Woolworths in the USA - do you remember the logo?
And here it is today
Having parked, we started to explore on foot and cable car. Below, is a view from Nob Hill down I think, Leavenworth Street,
towards Fisherman's Wharf,
which hasn't changed much in 40 years (Google Earth view).
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From there, we walked to Telegraph Hill,
and climbed the tower. Facing the camera is my soon to be best man, Dave Osborne.
And here I am looking out towards Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge
probably one of the most spectacular city views I've ever seen.
Most people will recognise the pointed building below, from countless TV shows,
as the Transamerica Pyramid (http://www.thepyramidcenter.com/)
Having done a fair amount of walking, we stopped for coffee at the famous Enrico's on Broadway Street in the Tenderloin - one of the locations in Bullitt - now closed.
Across the road was the Penthouse cinema showing what was then,
a pair of revolutionary films - we didn't have time to catch them (But we did in Honolulu!)
Here is the Cinema, now a wine bar!
and here is Enrico's today
And here, finally, is your hero, dressed to suit a 1970's America!
To see what other Sepians have made of today's prompt, go to this week's Sepia Saturday.
