USA San Francisco 1978

A Trip Down Market Street, 1906 - With Sound !

Last edited by Admin (1/18/2020 11:29 am)

Tuesday Noon Siren Post St & Leavenworth St San Francisco California

My Mother, my Father and I lived in the 6th floor corner apartment right under that siren from 1970-1972.
The siren noise was deafening and back then it was on the roof.
I used to go up there for the view of San Francisco and used to climb up and down the interior fire escapes for fun.
Before we moved out of the apartment, an arsonist set a fire in the apartment behind us to cover a $100,000 embezzlement & my Mother got a stroke from the excitement.
I had been doing schoolwork in my room when people across the street yelled at me :

" You're on fire ! "

I yelled back :

" What fire ? "

They said :

" YOUR apartment ! "

I got out and the flames spread into our kitchen but the smoke was too thick for me to find my way out so I grabbed a fire hose, turned it on & sprayed it on the door of the burnng apartment keeping my face next to the nozzle so I could breathe until the fire department showed up and led me out of the smoke.

It was a huge 3 bedroom apartment with a kitchen, living room, bathroom & my room was the size of some of my entire later apartments.
$300 a month.
We moved down to the 3rd floor after his death in 1972.
She lived in that building for 17 years.
She worked as a nurse in San Francisco for 50 years.
She later moved to Bush & Octavia Street where she lived for 27 years.
We came to San Francisco when I was 12 & moved back to Pittsburgh in 1967-68, then Las Vegas, then back to San Francisco in 1970.
I once lived in a small room in the basement for about 2 years until I got my first own apartment.
Living in the same apartment & then building with my Mother got too much after my Father died.
Being a child of the 1950's who had the fear of imminent nuclear attack drilled into us at school, on tv, radio & print that siren used to make me cringe.
And we also had one on our building in Washington DC as well at the height of the Cuban Missle Crisis.
My Father had been called back to active duty in the Army  then & called my Mother & told her that if the ball went up for an attack against the Soviet Union, not to try to drive anywhere because Washington, DC would have 15 minutes to live.
It got that close during the crisis.
He was stationed in the Pentagon at the time.

Last edited by Admin (1/18/2020 12:10 pm)

One reason I used to go up on the roof was to see this turning on and off in the distance.
Back then you could see it for miles at night.
The brewery closed in 1975 and now people live there and have offices there.
The is NO footage of the wonderful beer glass filling and emptying that I have been able to find.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ad/78/e3/ad78e3b9daca107594b84a187813bd64.jpg