Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Aerial Photo of Market Street Station


Here's one more shot of the warehouses around the Market Street station. This aerial shot was taken in 1906, after the Great San Francisco Earthquake, by G. H. Lawrence. I snagged this copy from the Dome of Foam SP railroad site, but they got it from the Library of Congress. This picture is oriented roughly northeast. Downtown San Jose is to the lower right corner, Santa Clara (and eventually San Francisco) to the left. If you went to the right along the railroad tracks, the tracks would curve south onto Fourth Street then head straight for Los Angeles.

Interesting details:

  • All the buildings have peaked roofs, even the Inderrieden packing house at 236 Ryland that was listed in 1950 as having a parapet on top. Flat roof buildings appear to be a modern convenience still to arrive.
  • The 1915 map shows empty space between 405 N. First (the J.W. Chilton packing house) and 392 N. San Pedro St. I don't know if this is a scale issue, or if buildings were appearing and disappearing so quickly. Chilton's building obviously has a taller east half and shorter west half.
  • The Warren Fruit Packing Co. packing houses is very bright, and looks very likely to be corrugated iron as mentioned on the map.
  • The Farmer's Union warehouse at 395 N. San Pedro Street has the same boxy ventilators that the Souther Pacific Freight Station on the south side of the yard has. I'd be suspicious both were railroad built.
  • The 1901 hand-drawn 3d view at the Dome of Foam is surprisingly accurate in terms of rooflines and ventilators, capturing the odd ventilators of the SP Freight House and the Farmer's Union warehouse. The same ventilators are seen across the street on the building that was the Mark-Lally Plumbing Co. in 1905; was that a former railroad warehouse too?


See anything else interesting?

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