San Francisco : A Cultural and Literary Companion

by Sinclair, Mick

• ISBN13: 9781566564892
• ISBN10: 1566564891
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Inc

Summary

In-depth cultural, historical and literary guide to this beautiful city renowned for its artists, eccentrics, visionaries, and activism.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Sedge Thomson
Preface	x
Introduction Navigating San Francisco
Historical Geography	1	(1)
The Modern City	2	(2)
Up and Down in San Francisco	4	(1)
Maritime Navigation	4	(1)
PART ONE The Instant City
A Great and Magnificent Port	5	(5)
Gold: Half the Size of a Pea	10	(1)
The World Rushes in	11	(5)
Winners, Losers--and Emperor Norton	16	(7)
PART TWO Shaping San Francisco
Rubbish and Bones	23	(2)
The O'Farrell Plan	25	(1)
Elegant and Handsomely--furnished Homes	26	(3)
The Nobs of Nob Hill	29	(3)
Pacific Heights	32	(2)
Taming the Hills: Andrew Hallidie's Cable Cars	34	(1)
Away From the Hills	35	(1)
San Francisco in Ruins	36	(1)
April 18, 1906	37	(5)
All Tomorrow's Parties	42	(1)
Citadels of Commerce	43	(2)
Willis Polk: Architect, Visionary, Drunkard	45	(2)
Manhattanization and Urban Renewal	47	(1)
The Ultimate High Rise	48	(1)
Yerba Buena Center	49	(5)
PART THREE Crime and Culture, Punishment and Pleasure
Fires, Ducks, Hounds, and Hangings	54	(4)
A Low Set of Politicians	58	(3)
Pandemonium Let Loose	61	(3)
Tom Maguire: Napoleon of the Stage	64	(2)
The Mesmerizing Adah Menken	66	(1)
Spider-Dancing Lola Montez	67	(2)
Lotta Crabtree's Beautiful Ankle	69	(3)
Isadora Duncan: The California Faun	72	(1)
The Barbary Coast	73	(3)
Pretty Waiter Girls	76	(2)
A Voyage to Shanghai	78	(1)
Three Hundred Pounds of Passion: 50 cents	79	(5)
The Breasts of Carol Doda	84	(2)
A Golden Era: Literary Life in the West	86	(2)
A Literary Fog	88	(1)
Bohemia in Russian Hill	89	(3)
A Story of San Francisco: Norris and Hammett	92	(2)
Atherton, Sterling, and Demarest	94	(2)
Shootings, Stabbings, and Feuds: Newspapers and Their Owners	96	(3)
William Randolph Hearst's Examiner	99	(2)
Herb Caen: Nostalgia Ain't What it Used to Be	101	(4)
PART FOUR Landmarks, Ruins and Memories
Alcatraz Island, 1775, 1934, 1969	105	(5)
The Sutro Baths, 1896	110	(4)
The Ferry Building, 1898	114	(3)
City Hall, 1899, 1915, 1999	117	(2)
The St. Francis Hotel, 1904/The Palace Hotel, 1875	119	(4)
The Palace of Fine Arts, 1915	123	(3)
Coit Tower, 1933	126	(4)
Golden Gate Bridge, 1937	130	(4)
Treasure Island, 1939	134	(2)
The Transamerica Pyramid, 1972/The Montgomery Block, 1853	136	(6)
PART FIVE United Nations
A Mission	142	(4)
The Mission District	146	(4)
Chinatown	150	(6)
A New Chinatown	156	(1)
Paper Sons, Paper Daughters	157	(1)
Celebrated Chinatown	158	(2)
Japantown	160	(2)
``A Jap's a Jap''	162	(2)
Unhappy Returns	164	(1)
The Western Addition and the Fillmore District	165	(1)
Leidesdorff and Mary Ellen Pleasant	165	(3)
The Rise of the Fillmore	168	(1)
Black Panthers and St. John Coltrane	169	(3)
The Richmond	172	(2)
North Beach	174	(6)
PART SIX Turning America on its Head
A Howl in North Beach, 1955	180	(5)
Six Poets at the Six Gallery	185	(3)
Naked Before the World	188	(1)
Beat Goes Beatnik	189	(2)
Across the Bay: Berkeley and the 1960s	191	(1)
The Free Speech Movement	192	(3)
Power to the People Park	195	(2)
A Private Revolution: Haight-Ashbury, 1964-7	197	(1)
Altered States	198	(1)
Can You Pass the Acid Test?	199	(3)
Electric Music for the Mind and Body	202	(3)
Summer in the City	205	(2)
It's Free Because It's Yours	207	(2)
The San Francisco Sound	209	(2)
The Death of Hippie	211	(3)
The Castro: the Rise of Gay San Francisco	214	(3)
Harvey Milk and the Castro Clone	217	(4)
A Fury Unleashed	221	(1)
AIDS: A New Battle	222	(3)
Queer Capital of the World	225	(2)
A Cybernetic Ecology: SoMa, 1985-2001	227	(1)
South of the Slot	227	(2)
Multimedia Gulch	229	(2)
Silicon Suburbia	231	(2)
The Rise and Fall of the Cyberhood	233	(3)
Archive of the Future	236	(3)
Further Reading	239	(8)
Index	247