Awesome Street View.
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Was this the original Google Street View?
You are there for a cable car ride in San Francisco!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=NINOxRxze9k@unknownuser said:
This film was lost for many years. It was the first 35mm film ever. It was taken by camera mounted on the front of a cable car.
The number of automobiles is staggering for 1906. Absolutely amazing! The clock tower at the end of Market Street at the Embarcadero wharf is still there.
Great historical film! Watch the scampering as Joe Public races away from autos, horses, cable cars and bicycles.
This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered (he even knows who owned them and when the plates were issued!) It was filmed only four days before the Great California Earthquake of April 18th, 1906 and shipped by train to NY for processing.
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sweet!
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Great post. Thanks. You can also see a "today" version if you look at the thumbnails after that. Having been there often, it seems the street worked better without so many cars and without traffic rules--except for the ability of cross-street traffic to get through rapidly as today. I am surprised the bicycle was less prevalent. Much more in use today. That WAS a cable car. Today only buses and trolleys are going down Market. That's the ferry building at the end.
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Fascinating. Obviously filmed when the Jaywalking Convention was in town.
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Where do you get the time to find all these things, Eric...?
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My father is retired and sent me that one. Otherwise, we are slow at work.
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Amazing video, really amazing, thanks for posting. The soundtrack is rubbish though - this is a much better companion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck_Qgg9wiy8&feature=related .
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mesmerizing.
everyone looks so similiar it feels like a loop at points. i had to DL it to speed it up a bit, looks to much like a bad dream at the current speed. 
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thats better. if you play it back at 1.5x the speed, it actually looks normal.
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What a travelling
A Time Travel -
Watching that film reminded me of a book I read a few years ago 2006- on the 100th annqaversary of the event. I had a completly different picture of the city, people and lifestyle. The people in the film, the nutty drivers and pedestrians are not too different today - just fewer horses and faster cars!In 1906 there was complete chaos. The only person who had some plan for disaster control was the fire chief and he was killed early on. There was a power struggle between the mayor the police and a nearby army base commander. The army commander sent crews around with dynamite blowing up buildings to make a fire break and shooting anybody that looked like a looter (or anyone that had grabbed something one of them wanted); nothing worked; water was out etc. I recommend picking up one of the many books about the event - a very interesting and scary read especially in light of recent world wide natural disaster.
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lol look at 5 mins 8 seconds......2 guys pushing the car haha
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@olishea said:
lol look at 5 mins 8 seconds......2 guys pushing the car haha
i think they're just running with the car (?).. there wasn't enough room in the car for everyone so the youngest kids had to just run alongside instead of ride.
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@unknownuser said:
just run alongside instead of ride
haha my how times have changed. it seems, however, that congestion has always been a problem! in fact it looks worse back then.
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@olishea said:
@unknownuser said:
just run alongside instead of ride
haha my how times have changed. it seems, however, that congestion has always been a problem! in fact it looks worse back then.
On the contrary, everyone seems to keep moving rather than "sitting in traffic", just like in some of the India traffic videos online. I thought the kids were hanging on the back of the car, fooling around.
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