Grab Bag #027

Tales from one of San Francisco's pre-1906-earthquake dens of iniquity, plus taxi cabs and sheep.

Woody Grab Bag
Tales from one of San Francisco's pre-1906 earthquake dens of iniquity, plus taxi cabs and sheep.

Last Grab Bag of the year, so let us open it to everyone. (Friends of Woody are very generous about sharing their otherwise exclusive access to Woodyness.)

In the 1936 movie San Francisco, Clark Gable’s Paradise Club is supposed to be in the Barbary Coast, the party zone between downtown and Telegraph Hill in today’s Jackson Square. But rather than a grimy basement bar on Pacific Avenue, Blackie Norton’s place looks fairly lush, spacious, and theatrical. Thanks, Hollywood set designers.

Blackie's Paradise Club. Don’t worry, the 1906 earthquake and fire will soon cinder-fy this pit of sin and depravity.

In size, prominence, and notoriety, the fictional Paradise perhaps better resembled a real pre-1906-earthquake den of iniquity which stood boldly on the city’s main thoroughfare at 771 Market Street between 3rd and 4th Streets: the Cremorne Gardens, later renamed the Midway Plaisance.

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The crime hatchery with the "Best Show in the City." (San Francisco Call, April 7, 1892, pg. 8.)

Every day, thousands of respectable San Franciscans wrinkled their noses passing this venue of vice while hundreds of others walked in for a drink and some entertainment. It operated less than a football field away from the Call, Examiner, and Chronicle newspapers and each took turns fulminating about the stain it made on the city’s reputation. Here’s the Call in 1892:

“Jack Hallinan’s Cremorne at 771 Market street is the worst of the dives because it flaunts its iniquity in your very face and stretches out its sin-slimy arms to the gilded youth. You need not look down to see it when passing, nor search to find it out. Its hideous features, veiled only with the robes of sensuality, meet you boldly in the street, and at night a blare of trumpets rings out upon the air from the balcony above to tell you that the painted, gaudy-dressed, short-skirted harpies and their male accomplices have assembled in the upper halls to filch your pockets and steal away your self respect.”

Along with the sin-slimy arms, you also got Chinese dancing girls, boxing and wrestling matches, vaudeville, and musical acts. While it’s unlikely the Cremorne/Midway ever hosted someone with Jeanette MacDonald’s vocal chops, the immortal song and dance man Bert Williams is rumored to have done a gig there. 

It was hard to miss the Cremorne/Midway Plaisance, "Home of Burlesque." It stands at right on busy Market Street in 1901 (OpenSFHistory/wnp24.349a)

If Netflix is looking for a historical murder-of-the-week detective show, this is the place:

“About 2 o’clock this morning Philip De Bosson, a beer drawer at Jack Hallinan’s Cremorne Gardens on Market street, was brought to the Receiving Hospital at the City Prison, suffering from a knife wound in the left side of the abdomen from which the intestines protruded. The wound had been received in an affray which had occurred at the gardens about half-past 1 o’clock. The injured man did not know who stabbed him and could only describe him as a man who wore a white hat.”

Who was the man in the white hat? Turns out, before dying, De Bosson admitted he knew who had stabbed him: John Garrity, described by the police in a circular as “5 feet 8 ½ inches; age 28; hair light brown, cut short; complexion ruddy from exposure; has a pleasing expression; small, light-colored mustache; weight 170 pounds; large scar on forehead; chews tobacco; usually wears a large solitaire diamond stud. Is an associate of prostitutes; frequents racetracks; pretends to be a horseman.”

Is that a great character description for a villain or what? Pleasing expression, scar, diamond pin... Plus, Garrity was called a “stool-pigeon” for the police and to have “the friendship of many men with influence.” Garrity got off and it seemed his girlfriend helped by bribing a police sergeant and being “friendly” with another officer.

Despite all the newspaper contumely, the police and the Cremorne crowd were fairly chummy.

“An unusually large crowd witnessed a game of baseball last afternoon at Central Park between the nine from the police force and one from the Cremorne Theater. A keg of beer was wagered on the result of the battle…” (Examiner, March 24, 1887)
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The Midway Plaisance on south side of the 700 block of Market Street. (Eli S. Glover photo-engraving, The illustrated directory; a monthly magazine of American cities, Illustrated Directory Co., Feb. 1895) Courtesy of DavidRumsey.com

More Cremorne fun from the 1880s:

“George Walker was taken to the City Hospital last night by two friends to be treated for a knife wound in the right hand. He said that he was stabbed as he was coming out of Hallinan’s Cremorne, on Market street. He also stated that he was in company with his wife, whom he believed was also stabbed.”

I am not cherry-picking. There would be a report like this just about every week:

“Robert Golden, who was recently arrested on a charge of having attempted to poison his wife, appeared in Judge Hornblower’s court yesterday morning for preliminary examination. May Golden, the wife of the prisoner, was sworn and related the circumstances of the attempt to end her life. She stated that she was employed as a barmaid at the Cremorne Theater…”

Stabbings, stool pigeons with influence, bribes, friendly ballgames with the cops, poisoned barmaids… there was enough color, scandal, and crime at the Cremorne/Midway to consternate every Spencer Tracy in San Francisco.

It took the 1906 earthquake and fire to end the party. But I doubt the Midway’s owners sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic arm-in-arm with a priest when it was all over.

Goodbye Midway Plaisance and most everything else thanks to the earthquake and fires of April 18, 1906. (Stewart & Rogers photo, OpenSFHistory/wnp27.7816)

Read more on the Cremorne/Midway on Bill Counter’s great San Francisco Theatres blog.

OK, just one more: In 1887, a Kansas farmer had a good time at the Cremorne before getting sapped and robbed. His wife was in court when he had to testify:

“Under her stern gaze he could not remember some of the minor particulars of his spree about which he was asked by the attorneys. Among these lapses of memory were: Whether he had been in any place with any women; whether any woman had sat on his lap and put her arms around his neck, and whether he had bought any wine for them.”

What happens at the Cremorne, stays at the Cremorne.


Parked Cars

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Southern Pacific Building annex at Steuart and Mission Streets, October 2, 1956. And a full parking lot. (OpenSFHistory/wnp14.2310)

South of Market had lots going on in the second half of the 20th century: newspaper bars, leather bars, big-hair discotheques, warehouses of ironworkers, antique dealers, and artists; a “Manilatown South” of Filipino communities near South Park and at 6th and Folsom; SROs, pawn shops, and Army-Navy stores where kids like me could buy ammo cases to store our baseball cards.

And a place to park vehicles: commuters under elevated freeways, the RV park on Townsend Street, big lots for buses, delivery trucks, and taxis.

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Taxis in their lot at 8th and Townsend Streets, 1972 (SFMemory.org/sfm005-00157)

My friend David Gallagher continues to add found and donated historical photos of the city to his SF Memory site and one of his mysterious photographers shared my interest in stopped vehicles. (In a previous Grab Bag, I wrote about a lot about parking garages.)

parking lot
Not an old car show. This December 1972 shot is where Moscone Center is today at Tehama and 3rd Streets. (SFMemory.org/sfm005-00087)

Above was my Dad’s go-to parking lot when we were headed to the Emporium on Market and 5th for Christmas shopping and the rooftop rides. I distinctly remember that he considered this “skid row.” The creation of Moscone Center and the Yerba Buena Center arts district opened up the area for business and big-businesses-approved cultural expression south of Market Street.

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3rd and Harrison, 1972. "Private Enterprise Will Develop This Area With Redevelopment Agency Assistance." And so it did. (SFMemory.org/sfm005-00082)

The Mission Bay development, the Giants ballpark, and tower-building all did their part to change the neighborhood, but frankly, you can still find a parking space.

Check out more recent updates on David’s site, SFMemory.org.


Shepherd’s Meadow

Now the city uses terms like “holiday trees” and “seasonal lighting,” but it used to really lean into Christmas—and Christianity. There were baby Jesuses and wise men all over the place. Separation of church and state took a holiday every December.

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Real sheep, fake holy family in Union Square in 1953. (San Francisco Public Library/AAA-7180)

Above is a nativity scene in city-owned Union Square on December 24, 1953. The real sheep were the real attraction. The woolly grazers came from a flock which used to be managed in Golden Gate Park’s Lindley Meadow:

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Sheep in Lindley Meadow and some cosplay biblical shepherds at left in 1955. (San Francisco Public Library/AAA-6878)

Lindley Meadow hosted its own Christmas set piece managed by local Lutheran congregations from the 1930s to the 1970s. Volunteers played biblically dressed shepherds to pose with the park flock across a series of evenings each December.

A night-time drive-by of “Shepherd’s Meadow” was a tradition for many locals:

“[V]isiting the shepherds was part of our family's Christmas Eve ritual for many, many years. We (eventually five girls in all) would be dressed in our new flannel Christmas pajamas and warm coats and Dad would drive us over to the park (while Mom stayed home to organize the house for Christmas!). I remember that originally it was just the shepherds, sheep and the star. By the time I was in high school there was the complete Nativity scene with music, etc. It is one of my fondest Christmas memories and was always a special time with Dad.” —Martha Long

The simple tableau grew into a full Christmas play with a Star of Bethlehem traveling through the trees on the ridge bordering the Polo Fields.

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Living Nativity Scene and 75-cent bridge tolls: both long gone. (San Francisco Examiner, December 17, 1972)

Judy Hitzeman remembered her time as a wise man in the late 1960s:

“Members of our church youth group, made up of a bunch of 13- and 14-year-olds, played all the parts. The Baby Jesus was a doll. I played a Wise Man. One of our teachers played a shepherd and was also our chaperone so we wouldn't get into trouble! There was also a professional shepherd who came with the sheep. Well, something spooked the sheep and they all stampeded. We three kings were laughing so hard, watching our teacher chase those sheep, that we almost forgot what we were supposed to do. I don't know how it looked from the road; it may have looked perfectly fine because we were a long way away.”

The tradition petered out in the mid 1970s after the real stars of the show—the sheep—were removed from the park.


Goodbye F2

Fawn Fitter, left, delivering one her Dorothy Parker-esque bon mots on Christmas Eve, 2019.

More friends are taking their leave before 2023 ends. A mentor and inspiration of mine, Gee Gee Platt, passed away on Wednesday. Late Friday night, our friend Fawn Fitter decided it was time to go out on her terms rather than let ALS disease take more from her.

Fawn came to our house each Christmas Eve for shepherd’s pie, a tradition which will continue this week. We’ll hold a few seats empty to honor guests who have departed this year: Fawn, Arnold Woods, and my mother-in-law Donna...

May the last couple of weeks of 2023 be peaceful ones for you. Here’s hoping the nadir of tomorrow’s long, dark, solstice is truly the start of brighter days.


Woody Needs a Drink Fund

Kids and their phones, am I right? Richard R. (F.O.W.) gets a text in middle of our beverage date at Cafe Enchante on Geary and 26th Avenue.

Thanks to Bill B., Dennis M., and Stacy M. (all F.O.W.s!) for chipping in to the Woody bank of sociability. How great is it to live in a city with so many bars and cafes? We don’t have to settle for a Starbucks in a strip mall here, something I need to remember to appreciate. Let’s meet someplace fun.


Sources

“Crime Hatcheries,” San Francisco Call, April 4, 1892, pg. 8; “It Must Be Closed,” San Francisco Call, April 7, 1892, pg. 8; “Serious Affray,” San Francisco Examiner, July 30, 1885, pg. 1; “Another Tragedy,” San Francisco Examiner, July 31, 1885, pg. 2; “Garrity Captured,” San Francisco Examiner, May 17, 1886, pg. 1; “A Cheerful Battle,” San Francisco Examiner, March 24, 1887, pg. 2; “Cut on the Hand,” San Francisco Examiner, August 30, 1885, pg. 8; “Doc’ Bowers’ Emulator,” San Francisco Examiner, January 14, 1887, pg. 1; “A Kansas Sufferer,” San Francisco Examiner, May 21, 1887, pg. 8.

Shepherd's Meadow at Christmas, Western Neighborhoods Project message board at outsidelands.org