Podcast Transcription

26 - Oddities of the Avenues

Woody: [00:00:00] [Intro music] It's Outside Lands San Francisco, the podcast for the Western Neighborhoods Project. I'm Woody LaBounty.

David: And I'm David Gallagher.

Woody: David.

David: Yes, Woody.

Woody: We...

David: I love it when you say my name like that.

Woody: [deeper voice] David.

David: Not like this.

Woody: [Higher voice] David? [Regular voice] We like to, we share an interest in common.

David: We do. You bet we do.

Woody: And it's not the San Francisco Giants, although we both like the Giants.

David: Yes.

Woody: Go Giants!

David: Yay!

Woody: Uh, it's not West San Francisco history, although we both, uh, seem to enjoy that.

David: I like it. I like looking at old pictures myself the best.

Woody: Uh, well, this is similar to that. I think we both enjoy walking around the streets of San Francisco, or biking, and looking at odd, interesting [00:01:00] buildings. Structures. Uh.

David: Places.

Woody: Places that don't seem like the run of the mill everyday-type building or place.

David: Why did it get like that?

Woody: Yeah, what's with that crazy shape and what's with that crazy facade and what was this at some point?

David: These are questions we ask ourselves or each other if we happen to be together.

Woody: David, what is that? Um, and we were going to talk a little bit about that today, and I think that the buildings that we're talking about, which are all on the west side, and often kind of over near Ocean Beach, uh, have a shared history. I mean, they usually seem to have something in common which we can get to. But, uh...

David: Yeah, I mean, I'll ride my bike down the Great Highway or down La Playa or whatever. Down there, whatever the name happens to be.

Woody: You can ride your bike wherever you want, David. If you look on Google Maps, it's just like-

David: I have a helmet now, I want you all to know. Yay!

Woody: Uh, if you look at Google Maps, I think Great Highway is San Francisco Bike Route number 80 or something.

David: Let me just say, if you look at Google [00:02:00] Maps, I am really irritated by looking at a place and looking at a street and having the address be 222 San Francisco Bike Route number 3. I'm like, what does that mean?

Woody: What I don't understand-

David: I don't care about that.

Woody: The Google people seem to have taken, you know, okay, it's their maps, and they seem to make decisions. Like, I live in Little Russia, even though there's five sushi places on my block, but uh, they make these decisions about what places should be called, and it seems like the bicyclists have won. Now, we like bicycling, but everything is a bike route instead of Vicente Street or Great Highway.

David: They should just change all the names of the streets to Bike Route Number Blah.

Woody: So, what's our address? We're at Taraval and Bike Route number Blah.

David: We’re at 300 Bike Route number – let me look it up. I don't know.

Woody: No, no. Don't worry about it. But, uh, you were riding your bike at the Great Highway. You were telling me.

David: Right. And you, there are all kinds of strange buildings. I mean, there's a lot of, uh, not strange buildings. [00:03:00] They're very common buildings. But there's a lot of strange buildings that are– Don’t seem to be normal domiciles.

Woody: Right. Especially around the beach, it seems.

David: Yeah. Or on routes to the beach.

Woody: Right. I have an explanation.

David: Lay it on me, brother.

Woody: Now, when you say strange, what is it about the buildings that seems odd to you?

David: Well, it's bigger, or it, uh, you know, normally they're bigger. That's number one.

Woody: Bigger than the surrounding houses.

David: Bigger than the regular, they're not, they don't look like single family houses, and they don't, and they look old, so I mean, I'm not, I'm trying to, uh, I'm not talking about, uh, two flats, or, or, uh, or modern apartment building. Right. I'm talking about a building that is out of scale with the neighborhood, That seems old.

Woody: Right. Or, I mean, I know we talk about this. It's made of an unusual material or facade. Like there's a brick building out at the end of Great Highway that people always ask us about. It's [00:04:00] around Vicente and Great Highway. And it's right in the corner there. And it's totally a brick building. It looks like it's used as an apartment now. But it looks like it's something else at some point, for sure. Um, I'm gonna tell you what all those buildings are.

David: Oh, I can't wait. During this podcast?

Woody: Right now, in the next five seconds, I'm going to tell you a lot of them were either restaurants or roadhouses.

David: Roadhouses and restaurants.

Woody: Yes. Because here's the thing. Now we think of the Outer Sunset and the Outer Richmond even as having a very residential sort of sleepy feel, a lot of these stucco homes.

David: It’s like a little suburb in the city,

Woody: Right. But in the early days, everybody, uh, wanted to go to the beach for recreation. They wanted to go picnic. I mean, they still do it. People go surfing and all that.

David: Sure. The beach is widely used by all kinds of people.

Woody: Dog walkers.

David: Always on leash though.

Woody: Fishers. That's right. Fishermen. Um, but in the early [00:05:00] days people would get on a street car, uh, to go out to the beach on Sundays, which was a day off, with their families, and spend the whole day out there. And see the seals on Seal Rocks, and walk on the beach, and picnic, and–

David: It was a destination for recreation.

Woody: Right. And in a capitalist country like we live in, don't you see a business opportunity there?

David: I'm rubbing my hands together right now.

Woody: I can tell. And that handlebar mustache you're twirling.

David: That's right.

Woody: But, so a lot of these buildings that were out at the beach were places to get refreshment. Liquid refreshment.

David: Liquid refreshment. And solid refreshment.

Woody: And entertainment. They might have music, uh, dancing, that sort of thing.

David: Tickling the ivories.

Woody: That's right. And, or they, they served sort of, uh, food, you know, replenishment in some way. So the brick building we were talking about, which was built in the [00:06:00] twenties at Vicente and Great Highway, was originally a chicken dinner place called The Chickery.

David: The Chickery.

Woody: Yes. And on our website, we have pictures of it with the crazy sign, I think it was like a quarter, and you get a whole like roasted chicken, maybe half a roasted chicken, something like that. And that area too, I mean, you have, uh, you had a big roadhouse called Tate's at the Beach. Which is now gone, unfortunately. It burned down in 1940.

David: That’s a great big old building.

Woody: That's a, that's a, that deserves its own podcast. Um, but I know you're also talking about that building we recently discovered in the last year. Looks like a giant stucco apartment building.

David: Ugly. Ugly.

Woody: Yeah, it's on the 1500 block of Great Highway slash La Playa around Kirkham and Lawton. And it just looks like a big mammoth stucco monster.

David: Box. The one weird thing that you can look at it and say, wow, those floors [00:07:00] are far apart.

Woody: Right. Kind of odd. And then right next door to it is this strange, long, gabled building that looks like, I don't know, an old stable or something.

David: Oh, it looks like an old stable. What was it, Woody?

Woody: It was an old stable! For the big building next door to it, which was–

David: It just looks strange.

Woody: It does.

David: It doesn't look like a stable to me, but–

Woody: I thought it looked like a stable. Maybe that's because I haven't–

David: Now that you know it is a stable.

Woody: Well, yeah, but I have an educated eye. I look at these things, it looks stable-ish to me. Um, but what was the building next door? That this was the stable for?

David: Uh, it was a great big roadhouse, originally called The Breakers.

Woody: And we have the picture of it. It doesn't look like the big stucco box now. That was all added later.

David: Now it was kind of Victorian with a couple of turrets and–

Woody: A balcony?

David: A balcony.

Woody: On the front.

David: Yeah.

Woody: And it makes sense. People would come and they'd dance and they'd have a meal and apparently it even had an [00:08:00] upstairs that might have had rooms for rental or the night or I don't know. It was pretty large.

David: Poker games.

Woody: Yeah. And the building to the right, to the south of it, that is gabled and is now apartments, was the stables.

David: This is like a carriage garage.

Woody: And then it became an automobile garage in later years. Yeah. So that's another good building. And I don't know if we want to talk about what we found inside that building last year.

David: Well we should talk about that because there are some old details from the 1920s up between the floors. That we had the very fortunate, uh, uh, opportunity to see.

Woody: Yeah, they had, it was the ceiling essentially of a ballroom, and it had all these stucco, uh, reliefs.

David: Light fixtures.

Woody: Yeah light fixtures, chandeliers, wall reliefs, um, collars.

David: All in kind of a marine motif with fish jumping and...

Woody: Turtle snapping. [00:09:00] Yeah. And seeing anemones.

David: We have yet to see a picture of it from the time that it was this and that where these chandeliers and fixtures and motifs are visible so if you find one, let us know.

Woody: The Breakers was the name of the roadhouse.

David: And that's how you can find it on our website. You can find the story and the pictures by going to outsidelands.org and using the little search box and putting in Breakers. You should find it.

Woody: Yeah, and what we saw today, I mean, it's like entombed between two floors of an apartment building. It's not visible to the public, but if you go in there, what we saw, and it had been kind of sprayed with fire retardant, so it was all kind of gray, but it had been colored originally. Um, it's just the remnants of it. It's just kind of, kind of stuck there between floors, but pretty amazing. So that's an odd building, definitely, at the beach that was a roadhouse. I mean, other people ask me, and a lot of these did turn into apartment buildings, especially around World War II. There was a giant, uh, [00:10:00] crunch for housing with everybody coming out to work in the war effort. And a lot of these buildings ended up getting, uh, turned into apartment buildings. Flats for people to live in. And that, that, the Breakers is a good example of that.

David: I have one, I have one that, that I want to ask about and that's on the Great Highway there. And I'm, I'm trying to find a picture of it on our website, but it, it was, it was a church for a long time. And. It's still kind of, it's not, uh, it doesn't look like it's been highly modified. It's kind of got a low roof and, and I think it was built for the fire chief. At the time before the earthquake.

Woody: Yeah, Dennis Sullivan.

David: Dennis Sullivan who died in the 1906 earthquake.

Woody: Yeah, he was staying at the fire chief's residence – I think it was the fire chief's residence, downtown on Bush Street, I think, and a chimney fell on him.

David: That's not good.

Woody: That isn't good. But yeah, I'd heard that too that that [00:11:00] house which is on – is it Ortega? Ortega, just off Ortega. Yeah, so it's the building between Ortega and Pacheco, closer to Pacheco. And it looks like this, I don't know, Newport Beach cottage or something, right?

David: It's definitely a beach cottage-y place, and it's freestanding, which is not, which is different, and there's room on both sides. There's space on both sides of it.

Woody: Yeah, for many years it was like a Korean church, I remember, and it's been sold a couple of times. I think it might end up being a preschool, I heard.

David: Oh, that's nice.

Woody: But I do think it was owned by Dennis Sullivan's family. A lot of people would have little beach cottages or houses out at the beach, and they lived downtown. And this house, I remember, I think was going to be sold, or there was some development plan, and it actually was listed. on the National Register of Historic Places as an endangered building. You know every year they say, here are ten endangered buildings that we need to save. I think this was [00:12:00] one of them one year. So it got national attention because they were worried about it being torn down.

David: Well now I think it's safe for now.

Woody: Well it's been at least ten years it's safe. You know another, you know it's funny, we talk about odd looking buildings and then there's buildings that don't look odd but have an odd interior. So. We could do a whole podcast on Carville, but there's a house out at the beach that's made of old street cars.

David: That's right.

Woody: And, uh, from the front it looks just like a shingled box. So, but on the back you can actually see the two cable cars and the horse car that make up the top floor.

David: I have a question and we're gonna get off of Ocean Beach for a second.

Woody: Good.

David: We're gonna go north of the park.

Woody: I'm sick of that briny smell.

David: North of the park.

Woody: Golden Gate Park.

David: On Fulton Street, I think it's 3600 Fulton.

Woody: No, it's 36th Avenue.

David: 36th Avenue and Fulton.

Woody: It's like 5000 Fulton.

David: 5000.

Woody: Yeah, you're wondering what that building is because it's a big old apartment building.

David: It's a great big apartment building and it's old.

Woody: That was [00:13:00] also a roadhouse.

David: What?

Woody: Yeah, so people going out to the beach on Fulton could stop at it on the way to the beach or on the way back and have a drink. And it was called Cairns, C-A-I-R-N-S. Cairns. And it was a roadhouse right there. It kinda looks like one almost. I mean it has like definitely apartment feeling on the top–

David: It's been modified, I think there was a door right on the corner. Like for the saloon or something.

Woody: Yeah. And then it changed also into later years. I think in the thirties, it was a sanitarium.

David: Really?

Woody: Ironically. So all those people who are recovering–

David: I read a little bit about it sometime between when it was the Cairns, when it was built and like just before the earthquake, I believe. And around 1912 it was sold and it was opened as the, uh, what's the name of that big hotel in Berkeley? The Claremont. It had the same [00:14:00] name. It was called the Claremont. Which, I think, led to some confusion.

Woody: You can't get that confused if you went to the real Claremont in Berkeley to this place. Uh, but this thing suffered a fire, I remember, a few years ago. I thought it was going to get torn down, but it's been an apartment building for decades. But it was a sanitarium and before that a roadhouse.

David: And a hotel.

Woody: And a hotel. Interesting looking building. For sure.

David: And one that's totally out of character.

Woody: [exaggerated accent] Any other odd lookin’ buildings you need, uh, explainin’?

David: [exaggerated accent] Odd lookin’ buildins.

Woody: [exaggerated accent] Any odd lookin’ buildins.

David: Why are we talking like this?

Woody: In some undefinable accent? We do this all the time, David. You know that. We're just sharing a little bit of ourselves with the podcast audience.

David: Some things should remain private.

Woody: We did a whole podcast on the Beach Chalet, but that's not odd, odd design. And we kind of know what that is. It's a restaurant. Um, I do think that there are some, there's a building and I don't know the history of it. [00:15:00] I shouldn't bring it up, but it just kind of fascinates me on La Playa, or maybe it's the Great Highway. Just south of the Union 76 gas station on Lincoln, there's this giant apartment building that is very swanky looking, or at least looks like it used to be. Um, and I talked to Frances Larkin about it, and she said that as a kid she was like a paperboy, or a paper girl I guess, and she had gone in there and had to do some deliveries, and she went in and she was just blown away as a kid by this sort of elegant sumptuousness. Of the inside of it.

David: I'm not sure where that is. It's like a twenties-era apartment building or something.

Woody: Yeah. But it's funny because the entrance is, it has this sort of courtyard garden to the south side of it, and you have to kind of, you know, walk into this courtyard to get to the main entrance, which is all, really kind of on the rear of the lot. It's kind of an unusual layout, and apparently it had a penthouse that was just, [00:16:00] really done up. That's what Frances remembers and we're talking about memories back from the thirties. So I don't know if it's all been taken out, I'm kind of curious myself. And The Chickery, we talked about The Chickery down there, the brick building. There's also another building like on the other end of the block that has some Spanish sort of appliqued material and a balcony on the front. That was also a restaurant. Um, I don't know the names of it though. I know the owners. So, that's what it was. The beach drew people out there. And they built big, sort of, recreational–

David: So these are kind of... All these funny buildings you see out there are remnants of a different sort of entertainment that was once out there.

Woody: Right. Restaurants and bars and roadhouses that have been transitioned into housing. Unsympathetically, in some cases.

David: That's sad. Yeah. But it's still fun to go down and try and figure out what these places are.

Woody: Yeah, if you have a building you have a question about, you, podcast [00:17:00] audience, uh, let us know.

David: All five of you.

Woody: No! There's over... There... Did we...

David: I think if I said... I think if I underestimate the audience, it inspires those people to indignantly write to us.

Woody: There are dozens. In fact, I saw on iTunes, we have a review. Somebody reviewed us.

David: What?

Woody: Yes. And said that we were, uh... educational and, uh, funny or something on the iTunes store.

David: Really.

Woody: Yes. So we have, we have dozens, literally dozens of people who listen to this. And if you, one of these dozens of people, have a building that you have a question about, because we do get questions like that all the time. Do you, either you think it's an earthquake shack or a Carville house or a roadhouse or... you don't know, we might know, so why don't you drop us an email. Go to outsidelands.org, there's a contact link there. Um, and while you're there, why don't you become a member of the Western Neighborhoods Project?

David: Yeah, do that. Click the link that says Become A Member.

Woody: At the very top of our [00:18:00] page. Our front page outsidelands.org.

David: Oh, and we have one other special event coming up.

Woody: Maybe it's sold out already.

David: It could be sold out.

Woody: Yeah, so we don't know but yeah, July 11th at the Vogue Theater. We're going to show Secret San Francisco At the Vogue Theater. Adventures in history. See, look, we have a review right there. What does it say?

David: A review by Drainomonkey.

Woody: Yay, Drainomonkey!

David: Yay! Gave us five stars. “Learn a bit about your neighborhood”– or other neighborhoods that you may not be, uh, associated with – “and be entertained by these guys at the same time.” That's nice. Thank you Drainomonkey.

Woody: Thank you Drainomonkey. Anyway, if it's not sold out, Secret San Francisco: Adventures in History, Old Home Movies, Film Clips, Newsreels.

David: And witty repartee.

Woody: At the Vogue Theater, which is on Sacramento Street at Presidio Avenue, 7p.m. July 11th.

David: And you can buy a ticket on our website on the front [00:19:00] page. There's a link.

Woody: If it’s not sold out.

David: If it's not sold out.

Woody: But until next time, I'm Woody Labounty.

David: And I'm David Gallagher.

Woody: It's time for lunch. See you later.

Woody: [Outro Music] Learn more about the Western Neighborhoods Project and more about San Francisco history at outsidelands.org.