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|  | | San Francisco's Lost Landmarks
People who recall San Francisco's prior days bemoan that it just isn't the same... and they're right. San Francisco will always remain one of the world's great cities, but yesterday's San Francisco, with it's personalized style and charm, had no rival. With long-forgotten stories and evocative photographs, San Francisco's Lost Landmarks showcases the once-familiar sites that have faded into dim memories and hazy legends. Not just a list of places, facts, and dates, this pictorial history shows why San Francisco as been a legendary travel destination and one of the world's premier places to live and work for more than one hundred and fifty years. It not only tells of the lost landmarks, but also serves up the flavor of what it was like to experience these past treasures.
When I meet people who used to live in San Francisco or visited in years gone by, they often give me the tired old line, "I used to love going there but it's no longer the same." That's the point of this book. San Francisco has never been "the same" in its entire history and it's not just because of the 1906 earthquake and fire. The city began in a state of metamorphosis and has never stopped. Fifty years from now, the complaints will be the same.
I've captured some of the fun places and events in the city with the goal of entertaining first, then educating. There's no test at the end | |  | | San Francisco's Playland at the Beach: The Early Years
San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach: The Early Years is the first definitive photographic record of one of America’s most historical amusement parks. Illustrated with 250 rare photographs (including many never-before-seen photos from the collections of Playland luminaries Arthur Looff, John Friedle and George Whitney), the book documents Playland’s history from its earliest construction though its heyday in the 1920s–1940s. This is a complete photograph history of the construction of Playland and its signature attractions, including the Big Dipper, Shoot the Chutes, the Hippodrome Merry-Go-Round, the Red Bug cars, Topsy’s Roost and more — a richly illustrated time-machine fun ride through Playland’s glory days.
San Francisco's Playland at the Beach: The Early Years
James R. Smith
Playland at the Beach and its predecessor, Chutes at the Beach offered a magical place, a place that is revered in the hearts of San Franciscans and all who visited. Playland wasn’t just another amusement park – it had an identity that encompassed socialization, dining, playing, strolling and sight-seeing that was purely San Francisco. The Hippodrome enclosing San Francisco’s famed carousel now located at the Zeum in the Yerba Buena Gardens offered the park’s first ride.
Envisioned in 1913 and named Chutes at | |  | | San Francisco's Playland at the Beach: The Golden Years
San Francisco's Playland at the Beach, The Golden Years is the follow on to The Early Years, offering great photos taken by those who were there and remember. Color photos of Laffing Sal, the Merry-Go-Round and the Fun House bring fond memories back to life.
Comprehensively documented and illustrated, this is the definitive and authoritative look at one of America's landmark amusement parks, Playland at the Beach, a glamorous park that is still revered by San Franciscans more than 40 years after it closed. A dearly loved part of old San Francisco, the park incorporated rides, dining, sight-seeing, socialization, and its pioneering attractions inspired the designers of the amusement parks that followed. A companion piece to ""San Francisco's Playland at the Beach: The Early Years,"" this keepsake covers the years 1945 to 1972, showcasing both the h | |  | | The California Snatch Racket: Kidnappings During the Prohibition and Depres
California in the 1920s and 1930s wasn't always the panacea described in the travel brochures. While organized crime did not run rampant, kidnapping in the Golden State were as common as they were in New York or Illinois. The California Snatch Racket chronicles fifteen of those cases.
Bringing a dark and forgotten era into vivid life, this fascinating history explores a booming criminal enterprise that was spawned in California in the 1920s and 1930s. Exposing a spree of kidnappings referred to as the “snatch racket,” true accounts of the crimes and the unfortunate victims are revealed. Driven by greed, desperation, or sheer stupidity, this detailed discussion explains that the ransom artists preyed indiscriminately on Hollywood socialites, wealthy heiresses, and even the poor—while each new disappearance brought new headlines and sales to the newspaper companies. Illustrat | |  | | The California Snatch Racket: Kidnappings During the Prohibition and Depres
California in the 1920s and 1930s wasn't always the panacea described in the travel brochures. While organized crime did not run rampant, kidnapping in the Golden State were as common as they were in New York or Illinois. The California Snatch Racket chronicles fifteen of those cases.
Bringing a dark and forgotten era into vivid life, this fascinating history explores a booming criminal enterprise that was spawned in California in the 1920s and 1930s. Exposing a spree of kidnappings referred to as the “snatch racket,” true accounts of the crimes and the unfortunate victims are revealed. Driven by greed, desperation, or sheer stupidity, this detailed discussion explains that the ransom artists preyed indiscriminately on Hollywood socialites, wealthy heiresses, and even the poor—while each new disappearance brought new headlines and sales to the newspaper companies. Illustrat |
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