Nostalgia & History > Ships and Train Masters San Francisco early 1960's

Growing up in San Francisco in the fifties and sixties the southeast corner of the city was filled with aromas both good and bad, Potrero Hill was surrounded by industries each adding to the smells. We had coffee plants .brewery's. tannery's down at the slaughter houses and then there was Copra. The boiling down of coconut meat into oil to be used in the manufacture of soap products to me was the worse. Here's a ship just in from the South Pacific unloading its cargo. In the background just a few miles from the Third & Townsend Station is Train Master 4804 bringing  a commute train up from San Jose. The City has certainly changed since I took this and unfortunately other smells have replaced those of these long gone industries. Of course we can't forget the smell of raw sewerage coming out of the outlet below the train ad pouring into the bay at Islais Creek.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/21 18:36 by photobob.

---

Geez Bob, can't you post a picture without your damn yacht in the picture? Anyway, very cool composition!

Out 

That's great Bob! I was just down there snooping around and standing on the 3rd St. bridge thinking about shooting Caltrain across the creek. 

Great narrative by the way. You should do more of these they are really interesting.

Smells around that area, from a recent perspective. I think down by the dirty dirt yard, Cargo Way, there was someone roasting coffee beans in the past decade. I remember that smell distinctly and it wasn't too bad. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/21 15:56 by phthithu.

The coffee smell always appeared as I was coming off the west end of the Bay Bridge.  Was it Folgers that had the big billboard?

It's smell doesn't carry too far but the last shipper using rail outside of the dirty dirt yard in San Francisco is Darling and yes they are a bit smelly. Can only imagine what it was like down here when Photobob was a youngster and this place was filled not only with slaughterhouses but cowpens and you could find livestock trains being spotted on Quint Street. 

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

Offering a bit of orientation to that old poster, let me remind him this would be the southEAST corner of The City.....after all, southwest would be Ocean Beach at Daly City.

When my best friend moved to The City, he lived up in that public housing for Hunter's Point shipyard......now that was the wild west.....a bit scary to think of now, but we all survived, at least those that I knew.

Please do keep posting this great historic stuff.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Yea I corrected my original post to south east. You have to remember I graduated from Poly High and we were never taught directions of the compass.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

SF has a rich blue collar past. It’s Off Topic, in the TO sense, but I highly recommend Christopher Moore’s book “Noir”. Laugh out loud funny, and a story line that’s basically nuts (Moore’s specialty), but the post war San Francisco background is vivid and spot-on!
BoilingBob says: “Check it out”

My grandmother's house on Wisconsin St in the picture, just above the bow of the copra boat.

I think the stink of the packing houses in Butchertown cancelled out the stink of the copra

Stephanie Ann



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/21 18:52 by steph62850.

photobob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yea I corrected my original post to south east.
> You have to remember I graduated from Poly High
> and we were never taught directions of the
>compass.

Well, with Poly right in the middle of town, one might be able to understand why no one there knew which way was which.  Some, like those from Lowell might say no one there knows anything, elitists that they are!!

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

LOWELL....................We called it Geek High.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

I would have loved seeing tugboats somehow get those ships under the 3rd St. bridge (without hitting it), and up against that dock, and then getting it out.  That is one tight little harbor for an ocean going ship.  The current dock is gone, but the small harbor is there, along with a public access boating dock.  But that 3rd St. drawbridge rarely, if ever, goes up now.

Photobob, Were you standing on the wharf when u took that shot and was that rice mill running by 1960s? 
Thx in advance. 

I believe I was standing on the wharf,

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

photobob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I believe I was standing on the wharf,

Thanks. That was one heck of a wharf. Incredibly wide I wonder what it was built for originally. Might have to dig into the State Belt biennial reports and see if I can find out. 

coach Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would have loved seeing tugboats somehow get
> those ships under the 3rd St. bridge (without
> hitting it), and up against that dock, and then
> getting it out.  That is one tight little harbor
> for an ocean going ship.  The current dock is
> gone, but the small harbor is there, along with a
> public access boating dock.  But that 3rd St.
> drawbridge rarely, if ever, goes up now.

Coach, I rowed for a season at Marin Rowing and I remember waiting for a tug to push a barge through the NWP's  bridge. It was a memorable sight. And the width of NWP bridge's opening makes the 3rd St. bridge on Islais Creek look very very roomy. 

Not the most accurate tool but I used the Google Earth ruler to measure the opening of the 3rd St. bridge in 1948 and the width of the deck of the ship. I measured the width of the channel from dolphin to dolphin at the narrowest point. 77 feet. 

The deck of the ship at the copra wharf was 60 feet. So that's fairly snug, probably a bit narrower down at the waterline but still. That's why the tug boat operators make the big bucks. 

LarryB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The coffee smell always appeared as I was coming
> off the west end of the Bay Bridge.  Was it
> Folgers that had the big billboard?

Somehow, I remember it as Maxwell House. "Good to the last drop." Both had office buildings in the city, but I'm not sure who's billboard it was, or if Folgers had a roaster there. I know Maxwell House did. Didn't Shilling have a plant that was odiferous on occasion in the same vacinity?

 Folgers Coffee advertising on side of their building at Main and Howard, 1938 (link to photo).

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

Nice shot, Bob!

RC Lundgren

I believe Hills Brothers Coffee which was near Rincon Hill at Embarcadero and Harrison Street was one source of the roasting smell up until 1984.

Posted from Android