Fire and brimstone

A few weeks ago I created a post regarding Shawn Glover’s Drawbridge photos, but I was drawn to Shawn’s work with ‘now and then’ of San Francisco "The Earthquake blend". The colour photographs of modern-day scenes in the city contrast with the black-and-white images of destruction – buildings half-collapsed, damaged roads revealing yawning subterranean pits, facades blackened, trolleys smashed. Shawn has painstakingly researched and constructed images reminiscent of Sergey Larenkov’s “Ghosts of WWII series (see my ‘Penetrating the layers of time’ post). 

To put these photos together, Shawn created a catalogue of historical photos that looked to have potential to be blended. “Unfortunately most of these photos end up on the digital cutting room floor because there’s simply no way to get the same photo today because either a building or a tree is in the way. Once I get a good location, I get everything lined up just right. My goal is to stand in the exact spot where the original photographer stood. Doing this needs to take into account equivalent focal length, how the lens was shifted, light conditions, etc. I take plenty of shots, each nudged around a bit at each location. Just moving one foot to the left changes everything.” His original idea was to tear away a piece of the modern photo to expose the 1906 photo, but after playing around a bit, everything seemed more interesting when the two were softly blended together.

Shawn kept running into delays. In the case of the Valencia St. Hotel, he had to return to the scene on Valencia Street four times before managing to get it right. There’s quite a bit of conflicting information of exactly where this building once stood.

A variety of photos taken from April 18, 1906 to 1907 of the devastation of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake, that give a well-rounded depiction of the city at the time. Luckily photography was a common hobby by 1906 and thousands of photos have survived to this day.

The San Francisco earthquake struck on April 18^th 1906 with 42 seconds of intense shaking estimated at 7.8 on the Richter scale. Buildings fell, sinkholes in the streets opened up, the ground liquefied, railroad tracks bent, and collapsing bricks crushed cable cars. However, it was the out-of-control fires that did 90% of the destruction. Over 30 fires, caused by ruptured gas mains, destroyed approximately 25,000 buildings on 490 city blocks, many fires were started when firefighters used dynamite to demolish buildings to create firebreaks, which resulted in the destruction of more than 50% of the buildings that would have otherwise survived. The fires burned for four days and nights.

The city was in disarray. Federal troops and police had orders to shoot and kill looters. Thousands of tents and temporary relief houses went up to house the 20,000 displaced people.

A cable car heads towards the California Street incline while shocked residents walk aimlessly through street amidst the devastation. The tower in the background belongs to the Old St Marys Church, which survived the quake but was gutted by fire. It was rebuilt and still stands at the corner of California Street and Grant Avenue.

Happy tourists pass by the Fairmont Hotel, on top of Nob Hill, which still stands, but was destroyed inside from the fires. Built in 1902-06 the opulent Fairmont had not yet opened at the time of the quake though the interior furnishings were there. It finally opened exactly one year after the earthquake struck.

People cross Market Street in front of the destroyed Hearst Building. The building caught fire at noon on the 18^th, and the front wall facade was all that remained standing. The dynamiting of buildings started at 2.30pm.

Pedestrians cross Jones St towards a pile of rubble on Market Street. The Hibernia Bank building on the McAllister Street corner is burned out, but still standing strong. It was repaired and temporarily housed the Harbour Police after the quake. It was restored to bank use, then again became a police substation when the Hibernia Bank closed in the late 1980s.

A woman opens the door to her Mercedes in the fish wholesaler’s district on Sacramento Street while horses killed by falling rubble lie in the street. After the original photo was taken, the entire area was burned out.

Two girls stand before the partially destroyed Sharon Building in Golden Gate Park. Built in 1888, the Romanesque sandstone building was a canteen for children visiting the park. It was damaged by fire in 1974, and is now an art studio.

Cars travel down S. Van Ness, which has buckled after the quake. The fires reached Van Ness Avenue on the 20^th

A bicyclist rides towards the fallen Valencia Street Hotel and a huge sinkhole that has opened up in the street. The hotel on the west side of Valencia Street between 18^th & 19^th Streets sank one storey into the sinkhole, which was a filled-in swamp known as Lake Coppin. Up to 200 people may have died in the hotel, many drowned as a major water-main broke as the hotel sank.
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People walk up California Street amid charred scraps of lumber. The dark bricks of the Old St Marys tower is visible behind the modern day woman.

People stroll by the original adobe Mission Dolores which survived, while the brick Gothic Revival church (built 1876) next door was destroyed. The Mission District is up the hill and the fires reached there on the 21^st. The Notre Dame Convent across the road was dynamited, but the fire jumped the road to the church and damaged to the extent it was razed. The fire was halted almost on the Mission doorstep. Dedicated in 1791 the Mission Dolores is now the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. A new grand basilica was built on the church site in 1913-18.
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Horse carriages and cars park in front of Lafayette Park while a destroyed city looms in the background. Lafayette Park encompasses a four-block area bounded by Sacramento Street to the south, Laguna Street to the west, Washington Street to the north, and Gough Street to the east. More than half the city was homeless, and 11 relief camps were set up in public parks.