A Burst From the Past→

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Cold cuts at eye level
Major appliance manufacturer General Electric launched a number of industry firsts in the mid-'50s while advertising its products' modern appeal. The GE Wonder Kitchen featured a built-in range, dishwasher, disposal, and washer and dryer under a single countertop. The sleek wall-mount, side-by-side refrigerator/freezer, right, has the look of kitchen cabinetry.

Bursts of color
As bright shades debuted in 1950s kitchens, cooks could now choose appliances in hues of yellow, pink, blue or turquoise to help modernize their family gathering spot.

Working for you
This colorful kitchen is worth your minute of study. There are no wasted steps in serving meals or in cleaning up: A drop-leaf cart carries food from range and refrigerator to table in one trip. The folding doors of the dish cabinet open easily to place contents within easy reach. Featured in the House Beautiful April 1957 issue.

Mint green accent
This 1950s magazine illustration features a mint green oven that matches the slanted rafters, a polished brass pendant light, and elegant wood cabinetry. Note the white-brick wall – a predecessor to the metro tile – and the trendy gold-colored hardware, which can be seen in many modern homes today.

Domestic bliss
This magazine illustration features powder-blue units and contrasting copper-colored appliances. Note the archetypal sunburst clock, the under-cabinet dining nook, and of course the beaming housewife. An early ancestor of the industrial trend, the image reveals the roots of the exposed brick wall.

Pink is everywhere
It’s the 1950s. The war is over, and the United States is enjoying a wave of unprecedented prosperity. Millions of GIs returned, eager for the comforts of home that they had been missing, and everyone settled down to a kind of nationwide nesting. Record numbers of homes were being built in the newly developed suburbs, and the center of all those homes was the kitchen.

 

The Murphy Bed. A Love Story!

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William Lawrence Murphy was the son of a 49’er gold rush prospector. He was born in 1876 near Stockton, California in the small gold rush town of Columbia. Prior to moving to San Francisco in his early 20s, Murphy had various jobs that included a being a horse-breaker, a small-town sheriff, and a stagecoach driver.

When he moved to San Francisco, he rented a small walk-up studio apartment at 625 Bush Street. Fans of Humphrey Bogart’s classic film, The Maltese Falcon, will remember its location as the spot where Sam Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, was shot. William began tinkering with hideaway beds when he found his one-room apartment too small to entertain friends or a particular young woman.

William was falling for a young opera singer named Gladys M. Kaighin. Courting customs at that time would not permit a lady to enter a gentleman's bedroom. So according to family legend, William Murphy had a blacksmith help him mount a mechanism that would make it possible to flip his bed into a closet. Once the closet door was closed, his bed disappeared, turning his once cramped quarters into a proper parlor. He had a strict moral code and he didn’t want to spoil any chance of winning Gladys’ heart. It worked! In 1901 William married Gladys and had one son.

Today the original Murphy Bed company is still run by the Murphy family. Clark W. Murphy is 3rd generation and has been the CEO since 1983.

A CBS segment on the history of the murphy bed, first created in the San Francisco area. What makes a murphy bed a murphy bed? August 4, 2010

Who did something similar before William L. Murphy?

Though the Murphy Bed history is mostly credited to William L. Murphy, several others had already experimented with space saving bed designs, and beds with similar functions had also been produced. The first documented catalog featuring folding beds was put on the street by Sears and Roebuck in 1895. According to one source Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere also used Murphy Beds. Entrepreneur and inventor Sarah Elisabeth Goode (1855 – 1905) was the first African American woman to receive a United States Patent in 1885, for her bed. It could be folded up, and it looked like a desk with room for storage.

FUN FACT | 625 Bush and the Maltese Falcon

According to The Dashiell Hammett Tour, columnist Warren Hinckle collaborated with innovative, advertising copywriter, Howard Gossage, to place a plaque on the movie site. When Gossage died in 1969, Hinckle stored the plaque and forgot about it. About five years later someone spray painted "Miles Archer was shot here" on a sidewalk at Bush and Stockton. Hinckle remembered the plaque and retrieved it. On February 12, 1974, it was placed on the wall at Burritt Street by three compatriots: James Kennedy, the owner of the building, Marino Nibbi, a contractor, and City Supervisor Quentin Kopp.

San Francisco Historical Home

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Telegraph Hill Tavern and “Tea Party"
31 Alta Street, Telegraph Hill

From shipyard overlook to Prohibition era speakeasy, 31 Alta is a house with rich history, including stories of wild parties and resulting police raids. But perhaps its most impressive claim: that it’s the oldest surviving home in San Francisco.

In 1852, Captain Andrews built his home on the Eastern slope of Telegraph Hill, perched for a direct view of ships sailing into the shipyards below. The home remains virtually unchanged after over a century, during which San Francisco itself metamorphosed. Entire neighborhoods disappeared while others appeared; steep streets were graded over the hills; Coit Tower and a forest of skyscrapers grew in the distance.

A survivor of both the 1906 earthquake and subsequent great fire, 31 Alta traded hands several times prior to the 1920s but the most infamous inhabitant of throughout the last century was a reputed Russian noble, Myrtokleia Sawvelle who, according to David Myrick’s San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, converted the brick dining room and kitchen into a “night club.” Myrick reports that printed cards were sent to a prospective clientele announcing her Telegraph Hill Tavern as having “all the atmosphere of the Montmarte with a Marine view.”

31 Alta, seen in this photo from the 1850s.

31 Alta, seen in this photo from the 1850s.

Apparently the views from the double balcony were even more striking than they are today. A photograph taken during the 1850s shows the broad, open view from Alta street before it was paved in the 1930s. Today that view is partially blocked by all the rest of the buildings now occupying the north side of Alta: modern architecture’s answer to straightforward utility. According to Myrick, Myrtolkleia (who came to be known as Myrtle) served tea at two in the afternoon, followed by dinner at six and supper after ten; while a Sunday morning brunch was offered from eleven to two.

On that eventful night in February 1927, Myrtle’s guests must have been carousing on the balconies and howling at the moon late into the night. However, the neighbors on Telegraph Hill were not putting up with it that night. The constabulary were called, and the Black Maria arrived to escort Myrtle and her party to the city jail for the rest of early morning.

Myrtle not only had considerable skill in the culinary arts and the charm to be a gracious hostess, but she was also a pro at public relations. While the press headlined the story “Wild ‘Tea Party’ Raided”, her account painted for the reporters a not unusual evening of tea and art appreciation. Apparently, Myrtle was giving a private exhibition of a new work of art by Elwood Decker described as “an esoteric blue damsel charging through a red fog.”

“We were sitting around admiring Elwood Decker’s new painting,” relates Myrtle Sawvelle’s account in the press. We weren’t even drinking anything but tea and I was making a pan full of biscuits for a little supper when the police came and made us all get in that black wagon. Some of the guests who arrived late were making quite a bit of noise but we didn’t realize that this was disturbing anybody, she said. We are going to start all over again with a tea room and this time there will be no nights in jail.”
— Myrtle Sawvelle

According to Myrick, it was not to be. Her food was exotic, her liquor was good — but her timing was poor because her teas were taking place during Prohibition. Her homemade brews landed her in jail again for 90 days, and she was promptly appointed jailhouse cook. Tackling her new job with gusto, Myrtle became the heroine of her fellow inmates. Her fellow prisoners never ate so well, in or out of jail, and it was a sad day when she was liberated. A year later, Myrtokleia retired to Carmel.

The current owner has owned the home since 2002 and placed it on the market for $3,800,000 in 2010 and again in 2011 for $1M less. The home did not sell and now seems to be used as a rental.

A few photos from when the home was on the market.

Holiday Cheer Throughout the Decades

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For its first century as a city, San Francisco celebrated the holidays with all the energy it could muster. With each tragedy, war and building boom, the holiday spirit seemed to be growing along with the city. The traditions arguably peaked in the 1950s, when optimism, good financial times and hometown spirit combined for some of the most magical Decembers in San Francisco. Through the good and bad times, San Francisco has always embraced the holiday spirit as depicted in the stories and quotes in this column.

Late 1800s

“Yesterday was (meteorologically speaking) another dismal day, with drenching rain and miry street crossings, suggesting anything but cheerful reflections,” The Chronicle reported in 1869. “Yet the streets were full of men and women whose countenance showed no sympathy with the untoward surroundings.”
— The Chronicle

By the 1870s, the newspaper was advertising multiple Christmas tree lots in San Francisco, including one owner who boasted he was cutting down the best of the “virgin redwood forest” in Marin County. There were early reports of charity, and boardinghouses served roast beef and plum pudding to miners and other men who were away from their families.

Jewish families were rising in economic and philanthropic clout at the end of the 19th century, and the city’s holiday celebrations started to reflect their traditions. The earliest coverage of Hanukkah was respectful (if not well researched) and never divisive.

The first Chronicle article to use the word Hanukkah, in 1897, was headlined “Hebrew Festival of Lights Observed — Children Assemble to Light a Taper.”

“‘The Festival of Lights,’ a pretty biblical celebration, replete with religious sentiment and forcibly recalling a heroic period of Hebrew history, was inaugurated yesterday at the Mission-Sabbath school,” The Chronicle wrote.

Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger’s speech to the congregation was also excerpted, and seemed to be aimed at the gentiles in the crowd as much as the Jews: “Maccabee was a hero, fighting for liberty as George Washington fought. The lesson of the Hebrew hero should grow strong in your hearts, making you faithful Jews and loyal citizens. Yours is a beautiful religion. You should be proud of being Hebrews. If you are true to your country your country will be benefited in good men and women.”

Early 1900s

“Who could believe that there would be another merry Christmas in San Francisco for many a year?” The Chronicle editorial staff wrote after the 1906 earthquake and fire. “And yet the first return of this day is the merriest Christmas of all. It is something to think of. It is something to be proud of. It is something to pass on to our children and our children’s children, as a glorious exemplification of the way in which a heroic people meet a great crisis.”
— The Chronicle

The April 18, 1906, earthquake and fire destroyed most of downtown, and many other businesses and homes. But if anything the holiday spirit grew in its wake. In the years that followed, as the city rebuilt and prepared for the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition of 1915, new traditions seemed to be added in the city every year.

In 1907, different charities decorated 12 large outdoor trees in San Francisco, with the aim of having one within walking distance of children in every city neighborhood. (The Chronicle called it “a perfect orgy of Christmas tree-ing.”)

1920s

“There will be half-orphans there that are boarded with their mothers, whole orphans, and children who were sick or poor or abandoned,” an unnamed reporter wrote of one tree celebration on Nob Hill. “There will be children of all ages up to 14, and of all sizes and colors and creeds and nationalities, and all interested in Santa and sharing the Christmas joy.”
— Unknown

Radio in the 1920s added hype to the holiday; many stations were sponsored by department stores, bringing more commercialization to the season. The KPO “Christmas party” on Dec. 24, 1929, included Christmas carols, a live visit from Santa Claus and “a Bavarian yodel number with jingle-bell accompaniment.”

1930s

“Santa Claus again is making preparations for a visit to San Francisco, according to a radio-gram just received from the North Pole,” read one 1932 story, which ran in the news section next to articles about real-life crimes.”
— The Chronicle

By the 1930s, Chronicle reporters were taking the ethically questionable (but well-intentioned) approach of reporting about Santa Claus as if they had interviewed him, or had a correspondent embedded in his workshop full of elves.

1940s

“Christmas in San Francisco is quickly assuming all the traditional holiday color,” The Chronicle reported in 1949. “The city’s fire stations, normally prosaic brick structures with cavernous entrances, now have charmed themselves into Christmas wonderlands for the second year.”
— The Chronicle

The end of World War II brought more families, more money and an all-time high for holiday revelry. Macy’s took its window displays to new levels of memorable. The City of Paris Christmas tree, rising at least four stories in the middle of the Union Square store, was a holiday destination for generations of children.

But the arrival of Santa Claus down Market Street was the focal point of the holiday excitement. In an era before Elvis started shaking his hips and before Willie Mays came to town, Santa Claus was the biggest rock star in the city. Thousands of children would line the streets as Santa arrived at the Emporium by carriage, helicopter and (most San Francisco of all) on the top of a Muni bus.

1950s

“He appeared at the brink of Nob Hill, sitting in a chimney atop Muni’s No. 514, filled with a throng of happy children and an engineer at the controls of the public address system to broadcast Santa’s cheery, preseason greetings,” The Chronicle reported in 1952, on the eve of an election. “A torrent of multicolored balloons spilled from the top windows of the Emporium, and as he paused, Terry Gould, a Cub Scout of Pack 30 presented Santa with an ‘absentee ballot.’ Then the crowd, following behind Santa, surged into the store and up to The Emporium’s Christmas roof playground.”
— The Chronicle

Possibly the greatest holiday tradition in San Francisco history, which lasted just three years from 1948 to 1950, was the decorating of the city’s firehouses. San Francisco Fire Department stations transformed their facades — turning the buildings into presents and toy factories and giant letters to Santa. Neighbors pitched in, building props and sewing costumes. Muni offered San Francisco children free tours of the finished product.

It was more than a playground. The Emporium had rides on the roof, including a carousel and giant slides. One year, the store on Market between Fourth and Fifth streets used a giant crane to lift a cable car to the top of the building.

The tradition ended, in true San Francisco fashion, with a battle between the unions and the city. After the citizens failed to pass a proposition that included a firefighter pay raise, the organizers decided decorating fire stations was too expensive. There were no fire stations decorated in 1951.

1960s and 70s

Santa Claus continued his parades through the 1960s and 1970s, but with television, “Star Wars” and arcade games stealing the hearts and imaginations of children, the sight of St. Nick became less of a novelty. The first mention of Kwanzaa was in 1977; once again treated respectfully, even if the celebration honoring African American culture was oversimplified.

The new Transamerica Pyramid in the 1970s transformed itself into a large red-and-green Christmas tree, and then stopped, according to Herb Caen, because of the high cost. There’s a bright light on top of the Pyramid now, and smaller buildings downtown have added colored lighting. But it’s all hard to see anyway, because newer construction blocks the view.

Today

Progressive change was arguably positive for the city, but not as good for the San Francisco holiday spirit. Families have traditions, but there are fewer celebrations that unite San Francisco as a city. Union Square still has an ice rink. The San Francisco City Hall Christmas tree still exists (now named the more politically correct World Tree of Hope).

One of the last great traditions is one of the best: The Embarcadero Center rims each of its four buildings with lights, looking like a pile of shining presents near the waterfront. Take a ferry to Alameda or Larkspur, and you can pretend San Francisco is still embracing the old days, when Christmas in the city was the most important day of the year.

Or you can just read the old clippings. There are messages from previous generations, practically begging us not to forget to count our blessings and celebrate the season.

Special thanks to the Chronicle and Peter Hartlaub. These are excerpts from an article he wrote in 2015.

Landmark #119 and the Murder Mystery??

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If you set out to unravel the facts behind one of San Francisco’s most gruesome murders, you’ll find yourself with a handful of details most likely culled from old ghost stories.

The tale always begins with Richard Craig Chambers, a silver baron from the Midwest. With his wealth, he moved to San Francisco and built the palatial home at 2220 Sacramento Street. Richard and his wife moved in in 1887. When Richard died in 1901, a few years after his wife, two of his nieces inherited the home.

It was an unhappy arrangement. The nieces did not get along. In some variations of the story, one niece built the house next door to get away from the other, Claudia Chambers. It is Claudia who meets the most unfortunate end — and under murky circumstances. Most sources say she died in a “farm implementation accident.” Many agree she was sawed clean in half. A few say it was no accident, that a deranged family member faked the accident in order to murder Claudia.

2220 Sacramento

Regardless of the circumstances, the Chambers mansion became synonymous with ghost stories. Ghost tours today still stop outside the home, warning curious looky-loos of Claudia’s spirit, which manifests itself in the form of flashing lights and shadows in the windows.

But the historical record says something else altogether: that almost none of this happened at all.

The truth behind the Chambers mansion

The first mistake becomes apparent immediately. There is no Richard Craig Chambers, the name universally attached to the historic San Francisco home. His name was Robert, as dozens of newspaper articles and census records attest. Some accounts also claim he was a U.S. Senator; Chambers never served in the Senate, although he was the Plumas County sheriff from 1858-62.

 He made his fortune as the superintendent of the Ontario silver mine near Park City, Utah. He eventually sold the mine to George Hearst, father of the newspaper magnate; by the time the mine tapered off, it had yielded $50 million in silver and lead.

Robert and his wife Eudora were well-known fixtures in San Francisco society but, for reasons lost to time, the pair never had children. Sometime before Eudora’s death in 1897, they took in two of Eudora’s nieces, Lillian and Harriet. If your interest is piqued by the mention of two nieces, they’ll become pertinent later on.

 Robert died of appendicitis, just short of 70, on April 11, 1901. The Chambers estate, valued at $1.5 million at the time, was split between Robert’s brothers and sisters. The house went to his sister Ada Chambers Martin, who appears to have lived in it with her husband until their deaths in the early 1910s. After that, the home passed to another Chambers sibling, Margaret.

 Those are the facts, backed up by newspaper accounts and property records. A further dive into census records and city directories turns up no trace of anyone named Claudia Chambers which, at least, should reassure anyone worried she was sawed in half.

A good ghost story, though, has some threads of truth, used to weave together the tale. And it seems Claudia’s haunted soul does have a model in reality: Eudora Chambers.

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The history of Eudora Chambers

We know little about Robert’s wife Eudora, save for a few sad episodes recounted in the San Francisco Call. In May 1893, Eudora went missing from 2220 Sacramento St. Her friends and family searched for her, but the 40-year-old had vanished without a trace. A week later, a man found her wandering the beach near Mussel Rock, “very weak and helpless.” Although she’d been missing for seven days, the family doctor said she showed no signs of exposure. The doctor speculated she’d been taken in at some point during her lost days.

Eudora went missing from 2220 Sacramento St. Her friends and family searched for her, but the 40-year-old had vanished without a trace. A week later, a man found her wandering the beach near Mussel Rock, “very weak and helpless.”

Her strange behavior comes tragically into focus seven months later when the Call ran an article with the headline, “Mrs. R.C. Chambers Tries to Commit Suicide.” On New Year’s Eve, a train engineer near Valencia Street noticed a woman walking perilously close to the tracks. As the train approached, he saw her throw herself in its path. Remarkably, she was thrown clear of the tracks, suffering non-fatal injuries to her head and hip.

“From persons who are acquainted with the family it is learned that Mrs. Chambers is thought to be slightly unbalanced mentally,” the paper callously reported.

Three years later, Eudora was dead. Her cause of death is not known.

Then there is the matter of Eudora’s nieces, Lillian and Harriet. There was indeed conflict with the nieces but not between each other. After Robert’s death, Lillian and Harriet filed suit against his family, alleging they deserved a cut of the estate. According to the lawsuit, Lillian and Harriet were taken in by the Chambers after their own parents died and had been raised "like [their] children." On the condition Robert’s will would provide for them after his death, the sisters handed over their tract of land in Butte County.

After Robert’s death, Lillian and Harriet filed suit against his family, alleging they deserved a cut of the estate.

Because they "were treated with such kindness after the marriage and after the death of Mrs. Chambers ... they had no hesitancy in complying with Chambers’ request they deed the property to him," the Chronicle reported.

Upon his death, however, Lillian and Harriet learned there was no such provision. They sued the Chambers, hoping for at least the land in return, but after some years and several appeals, the nieces lost their case.

They never again lived in the house on Sacramento Street.

Last Sold November 8, 2013 for $4,085,000 by our very own Joseph Lucier.

The Chambers mansion, today

As for the mansion, it’s had a few incarnations since housing the Chambers family. In the late 1970s, it was turned into a 15-room luxury bed-and-breakfast. Among its many celebrity guests were Robin Williams, Barbra Streisand and John F. Kennedy Jr. At night, the Mansion Hotel hosted magic shows (flashes of light in the windows, anyone?) and private concerts (once, Liberace performed).

In 2000, the Mansion Hotel was sold to a private developer and turned into two townhouses. The real estate site Zillow estimates they're worth about $6 million each. Today, the mansion is nearly hidden from the street by bushes and trees, easily missed by anyone walking to or from Lafayette Park. 

For those hoping to find answers beyond the grave, there's one last footnote: There is no grave. An obituary indicates Robert was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery, a defunct graveyard that was moved to Colma in the 1930s. At that time, the graves were dug up en masse, although occasionally forgotten coffins are found during present-day renovation projects.

Eudora Chambers' final resting place is a mystery.

Credit: Katie Dowd, SFGATE Monday, October 22, 2018

Iconic Coca Cola Sign

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Coca+Cola+SF.jpg

San Francisco History

Standing 112 feet above Bryant Street atop a three-story building in San Francisco's South of Market area, the Coca Cola billboard has been a landmark for drivers going to and from the Bay Bridge since 1937 -- One year after the bridge opened to traffic.

The Spencerian script of the logo with its glowing background in a shade known as Coca-Cola Red was originally illuminated with neon. It alternately twinkled and shone for the better part of seven decades, but in 2010 it began showing its age.

Seventy-feet long and 30 feet high, the new sign is about the same size as its predecessor, but the look at night is crisper and the colors seem more vibrant.

The work to remove the original lighting system and reface the billboard with 4,800 CFLs for the white lettering and strip LEDs for the background took crews working day and night. The billboard was dark for only four days.

When I return from a long trip, I can always count on one of my favorite signs to light up and welcome me back to San Francisco. I am sure for years to come.......