I work in SF. I have seen this video elsewhere and it always amazes me in that I see pretty much the same view and buildings now.

What I love about this is the guys, horses, cars, and what seems to be everything else wandering about Market St at the same time. All we're missing is the "homeless"!!

It's a great piece of film.

One more piece of info: actually this is NOT 1905. Several people here in SF have analyzed the film using car license plates at high resolution. It appears that this film was recorded just a matter of days before the April 1905 quake which would kill at least 4000 people.

60 Minutes actually ran a story on this film last evening.

Historic 1906 Film Captures S.F.'s Market Street

There is documentary evidence that the film was shot by the Miles Brothers the week before the earthquake.

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

It’s a total pedestrian/car/horse drawn carriage free-for-all. Just wonder how many people per year were killed, injured or maimed in cities back then.

Just wonder how many people per year were killed, injured or maimed in cities back then.

Probably a lot. Pierre Curie, the husband of Marie of radium fame, was struck and killed by a horse-drawn carriage in Paris in this same year, 1906. If you want to see road chaos, check out the video below from Manchester, England in 1901.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1335549_video_manchester_street_scene_from_1901_wows_the_youtube_generation

This blog is now a time machine. Only a matter of time before we see footage of the future.

What I loved was the carefree stride of the men, a reminder of a once common but now vanishing species. And where were the women?

They were home, cleaning, making the daily bread. Cooking up a storm and canning everything they grew with their hands in the garden. Washing was done by hand, wrung out and hung to dry. Dresses were long, streets were dirty, muddy after a rain, and horse shit everywhere. Women were proper. They dressed well as the men did and after spending the day at hearth and home, no self-respecting woman would drag the long skirt that she probably sewed herself through that muck and mire.

I lived in the city from 1966 to 1974 and the last time I visited was in the early 90's but I must say that Market St. as I knew it and the Market St. in the film aren't all that much different in terms of crowding, jammed up traffic and the controlled chaos. There isn't any horse manure these days but there is human excrement found on sidewalks.

And the men don't wear their dresses nearly as long, either.

Something for everyone in this slice of history. I imagine the car enthusiasts were shouting out loud, and I guess the costumers and hat-makers were wishing for close ups. Those who rebuild horse-drawn wagons surely watched in rapt awe, and as for me, I was trying to identify the two flags I saw flying.

I did see one woman, wearing a rather large and feathered hat, getting onto a street car, toward the end of the film.

My grandfather was a superintendent for a SF street car company during the 1930s---I wish I knew which one. He'd been a U.S. Army cavalry blacksmith, so I guess he had good metal-working skills regarding the upkeep of the street cars. They must have taken quite a beating.

I also noticed the long, jaunty strides of the men.

The other thing that struck me about this early film and others (including the aforementioned one in Britain) is that they lack the herky-jerky motion we usually associate with silents, even those done more than a decade later. The frame rate must be higher than what became industry standard for economical reasons.

Very therapeutic... To think that all those people are gone, but we still see their image... Amazing!