Less techies, more cowboys

June 12, 2014 8:34 PM

The SFMTA has published excerpts of their photo archives from donated collections, spanning the post-1906 earthquake period all the way up to modern times.

(with an infuriating, CPU-pegging, no-right-click gallery v___v )

posted by slater (9 comments total)

Great site. Misleading leader. I looked through those pictures and saw a lot of techies laying networks. No cows. Glad SF has never changed.
posted by astrobiophysican at 8:57 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

That UI >:(
Anybody figure out how to extract a URL for a specific photo?
posted by davel at 9:02 PM on June 12, 2014

Davel: I had to eff around with Firebug to get the precise URL :(
posted by slater at 9:02 PM on June 12, 2014

If not cows, workhorses, at least.
posted by davel at 9:27 PM on June 12, 2014

Some neat photos. I liked looking at the background signs and adverts. Seems like you could get a good cuban cigar for 5 cents back then. Loved the beer cart too. Sort of like an ice cream truck but for beer. We need that nowadays. Mr. Softie would be Mr. Draftie.
posted by 724A at 9:45 PM on June 12, 2014

Love this shot of the hoses between two cars.
posted by zsazsa at 9:53 PM on June 12, 2014

I love these sharp, large format type of photos, I can get immersed in the place/time. Thanks!

(Shorpy is going to go nuts with this...!)
posted by HuronBob at 2:50 AM on June 13, 2014

Cool photos, but it might help if a Mod could note somewhere in the post that SFMTA stands for San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. It's in the tags, but I about skipped the post as I had no idea what SFMTA was.
posted by Atreides at 6:23 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

People in The City love to gripe about MUNI, but move anywhere else, and you realize that initially at least, those guys really got it right. The streetcars were always amazing to me. I was a MUNI orphan between the ages of 7 & 15 & those things were my ticket to the zoo, the beach, the park - they expanded my universe as a child. I always had a special love for the twin peaks tunnel & forest hill station which maybe presaged my love for caves.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:32 AM on June 14, 2014