1906 film of San Francisco after quake found at flea market

https://apnews.com/20936efa1474415ca7a5a1ede191f52c/1906-film-of-San-Francisco-after-quake-found-at-flea-market

Seriously, how cool is this!

More than a century after San Francisco’s deadly 1906 earthquake, a film reel with nine minutes of footage capturing the city two weeks after the devastation surfaced at a flea market and it will soon be shown to the public, according to a newspaper report.

The long-lost find portrays some of the city’s post-quake decimation, including City Hall with its dome nearly destroyed, the San Francisco Chronicle said Saturday. Much of the city was flattened and thousands were killed in the so-called “great quake” and ensuing fire on April 18, 1906.

The nitrate film reel discovered at San Francisco’s Alemany Flea Market was shot by early filmmakers the Miles Brothers. The footage is a bookend to their most famous work “A Trip Down Market Street,” a 13-minute silent film shot from a cable car days before the earthquake, said film historian David Kiehn.

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I've always wondered how things like this get lost for so long.

How cool? Very cool!

But sadly, I think the destruction shown will be horrific. To say nothing of what human carnage may lie beneath the collapsed buildings two hours after a severe severe earthquake, especially considering San Fran building codes during the turn of the century. Argh.

This is wonderful. Lost film is a cultural tragedy and its always a victory when something is found.

Now lets hope we can read another article like this about the finding of the lost 44 minutes from MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS... or the complete 9 hour cut of GREED .... or CLEOPATRA from 1917 .... or the great Lon Chaney in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT from 1927.

Some 75% or more of film was lost from the first thirty years of the business and its a warning for us today no9t to let it happen again.

Chomsky said:

How cool? Very cool!

But sadly, I think the destruction shown will be horrific. To say nothing of what human carnage may lie beneath the collapsed buildings two hours after a severe severe earthquake, especially considering San Fran building codes during the turn of the century. Argh.

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Actually, the death toll and damage from the fires dwarfs that of the earthquake itself.

Locals still refer to it as the 1906 fire, not the 1906 earthquake.

haymarket said:

Some 75% or more of film was lost from the first thirty years of the business and its a warning for us today no9t to let it happen again.

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That is because most of the film was nitrate based (as was this one), and most either disintegrated or burned up. They generally only had a shelf life of around 20 years. Also there was no real concept at the time of the value of most of those films once they finished their theatrical run. There was no TV yet, and new movies were pumped out almost daily. So who would want to watch a 10 year old film when they could see something new?

And the same was true even in the early days of TV. Lucy & Desi Arnaz made millions and built a broadcast empire because of the foresight to film their shows, and to keep syndication rights for "I Love Lucy". At the time, most shows were aired live, with kinescopes (literally filming a TV showing the live broadcast) for West Coast distribution. And most of these were of poor quality or simply thrown away. That is why most of the early days of TV are gone forever.

And ironically, the original I Love Lucy pilot episode was lost until 1990, when the widow of one of the performers found a copy in his collection after he died.

It was only after it was realized that L&D were making huge amounts of money re-selling 1-2 year old TV broadcasts that there became an interest among the other production companies to do the same. But even so, a great many of TV shows (in addition to movies) are lost.

Most that do pop up are generally in the hands of private collectors. The first Jackie Chan movie ("Big and Little Wong Tin Bar" - 1962) was lost until a copy was found in a private collection in 2016.

Redress said:

https://apnews.com/20936efa1474415ca7a5a1ede191f52c/1906-film-of-San-Francisco-after-quake-found-at-flea-market

Seriously, how cool is this!

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I haven't seen it yet, but it's really nice and very valuable to have it now. I wonder if it's going to show the fire. The survivors always referred to that event as "The Fire"; almost the entirety of the South of Market (district) was razed due to the fire. Much of old San Francisco doesn't exist anymore because the quake and fire. We have a photo of my wife's New York Family taken at Jefferson Square park just a few days before the earthquake: it's eerie...

jet57 said:

I haven't seen it yet, but it's really nice and very valuable to have it now. I wonder if it's going to show the fire. The survivors always referred to that event as "The Fire"; almost the entirety of the South of Market (district) was razed due to the fire. Much of old San Francisco doesn't exist anymore because the quake and fire. We have a photo of my wife's New York Family taken at Jefferson Square park just a few days before the earthquake: it's eerie...

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And if not for the earthquake and fire, much of modern Baghdad by the Bay simply would not exist.

Most people have no idea how much of San Francisco is man made. Much of the Marina District is built in rubble dumped into the bay after 1906. That is why so much of it collapsed in 1989.



Several years ago, I worked on Montgomery Street. And there were many plaques in the area showing that it was the original shoreline of SF. It was strange to look out my window (18th floor) and realize that 150 years ago everything to the West was water.

Portsmouth Square (now deep in Chinatown over a mile inland) was originally the center of the city of Yerba Buena. It literally was built on the shoreline of the SF bay.



To give an idea, this was Portsmouth Square in 1849, right before the Gold Rush got going. Even the furthest ships visible would now be under modern SF streets.

Oozlefinch said:

And if not for the earthquake and fire, much of modern Baghdad by the Bay simply would not exist.

Most people have no idea how much of San Francisco is man made. Much of the Marina District is built in rubble dumped into the bay after 1906. That is why so much of it collapsed in 1989.

Several years ago, I worked on Montgomery Street. And there were many plaques in the area showing that it was the original shoreline of SF. It was strange to look out my window (18th floor) and realize that 150 years ago everything to the West was water.

Portsmouth Square (now deep in Chinatown over a mile inland) was originally the center of the city of Yerba Buena. It literally was built on the shoreline of the SF bay.

To give an idea, this was Portsmouth Square in 1849, right before the Gold Rush got going. Even the furthest ships visible would now be under modern SF streets.

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Yeah there's a ship buried under a building on Montgomery St. The Marina was pretty much untouched except for that one apartment building that had a corner collapse; the gas set it on fire.

That is pretty cool.

Very cool...

It makes you wonder. Isn't the city just as vulnerable now to a big quake as it was back then? Doesn't seem like our current infrastructure is all that more capable against a level 9 quake.

Part of the reason why I've never lived in SF, despite opportunity to do so, was because of the Juan de Fuca fault line. It just creeps me out.

It's also amazing how little footage from that era survived. People had a different view of film and photography, those who could access it. 1906 really isn't that long ago if you think about it!