Welcome to the online studio of Francisco Mattos, built with experiments in layouts, attempts to tame long-form articles, items from my scrapbook.
-| November 2024 |-
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Joe and Jill Biden hosted a 2023 state dinner
for the President and Mrs Kim of South Korea, marking seven decades of relations. Chef Edward Lee designed a Korean-spiced American surf-and-turf meal that was braised, fermented, and lightly sugared. +
The oldest Chinese diner in Central California is located in the university town of San Luis Obispo. Dishes are $10 without Protein, and served with Fresh Vegetables. +
A no-reservations seafood diner with a countertop and 18 stools opend in 1903 San Francisco. Then rumors of a secret menu came to light. +
Last of the Japanese restaurants serving old-world cuisine in San Francisco was located next to the Miyako Hotel. The main dining room had an alcove with shoji-screened booths for tatami-style dining. The fare included dishes found nowhere nearby at that time, like Clear Broths; Vinegared Fish; Beef Tripe; Prepared Monkfish Liver; Fermented Squid; Rice Porridge; Cold Noodle; Chilled Tofu.
Wolfie’s was a 24-hour-a-day diner near the beach. +
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CORNERS OF SAN FRANCISCO
♦ | Playland at the Beach
Memories of fun can still be found by the Great Highway. Off the last block of Balboa Ave are three antic ancients from Playland-At-the-Beach, made of mesh-wire to withstand the Wet Winds, and pinned to the sky.
♣ | S.F. Fire Station #1
On March 20 2013 at 4:35pm, a week before it's official opening, the sirens went off for the first time at the rebuilt S.F. Fire Station #1. A low-key celebration had been held, just days prior, by firemen for the construction crew of the first green-built fire station in the U.S.
♥ | Roosevelt Hotel
In 1924 a five-story hotel was built on the corner of Jones and Eddy, three blocks from the Powell St Cable Car Terminal. Constructed using a steel frame, the sidewalks were lined with storefronts and the hotel had 160 units with bathrooms.
The hotel was re-dedicated in 2003 and has become Marlton Manor, and now managed by a tenants council.
♠ | St Boniface
A romanesque-revival German catholic church officiated by Franciscan friars, decanting Sunday masses in English (8am), Spanish (9:30am) and Vietnamese (11am). Brothers to St Francis, they guide religious education, perform sacraments, honor Easter, Christmas and feast days. Built after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire,
St Boniface is now S.F. Landmark No.172.
♠ | John’s Grill
In Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon' (1930), detective Sam Spade was hungry, so “went to John’s Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes, ate hurriedly, and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee when a thick-set youngish man with a plaid cap set askew above pale eyes and a tough cheery face came into the Grill and to his table.” A national literary landmark since 1977.
Jack LaLanne Salad Chopped lettuce and spinach topped with crabmeat, bay shrimp, avocado, diced tomatoes, sliced button mushrooms w/ blue-cheese vinaigrette.
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♠ | Tales of Chinatown
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FLASH MOB A driverless car was cruising down Jackson Street near Grant in 2024 when it hit the brakes. Waymo had to because the non-human driver was surrounded by humans, who managed to disable it; no injuries were reported in Waymo’s fiery death.
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FORTUNE COOKIE Shoppers get to watch three vintage machines at work in a fortune-cookie factory on Ross Alley. A dollop of batter is heated until flexible and handshaped into a first shape. A message is added and, as the batter cools and hardens , the cookie gets folded into final shape. Founded in 1962 by Frank Leong, the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Co. was in 2016 designated as a legacy business.
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HERB LEE After serving in the U.S. Navy, he joined the S.F. Police Dept. in 1957, becoming the first Chinese-American police officer. Herb Lee passed in 2017, age 84.
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HELLO
This is the online studio of Francisco Mattos, built with experiments in layout, attempts to tame long-form articles, and items from my scrapbook.
How San Francisco’s cable car came to be built will require more than one stop on its telling, wending this way and that, and passing landmarks of wealth and waste.
Before the cable car, the task for getting to Nob Hill was relegated to paying for a ride in a horse-drawn cab. On October 11, 1869, this necessary yet wanton civic cruelty of using animals as beasts of burden changed for the good. The San Francisco Chronicle had a front page article on the death of a wretch. It took place when a horse finally lost it on California Street and, throttled, dragged down to its death.
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When Andrew Hallidie read this, he paused and paced his inner office, reflecting on what if anything he could learn from this. Hallidie was already prosperous, although not yet famous. He had inherited a company from his father. The senior Hallidie had invented and then patented a “steel cable”: strands of wire lined up and braided into a rope that was super strong, and proved indispensable in the gold fields and gold mines.
Hallidie took on a failed concern: to build a conveyance capable of conquering the city‘s hills. He bought the Clay Street Hill Railway Co., and by May 1873 had built tracks and a cable assembly up Clay from Portsmouth Square to Nob Hill, a vertical climb of seven blocks.
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Early on August 2 1873, a prototype was in place and, lantern-lit, Hallidie stepped on board. Activating a grip lever onto a moving cable, he ascended on that peril-prone maiden voyage. Few were awake to witness, yet by opening day on September 1, the service was in demand. In 1880 over one million tickets were sold.
The first cable cars were tiny trams powered by a patented grip that alternately holds, and releases, a continuously moving steel cable running under the street. Power is supplied by huge drums housed at nearby power stations along the route.
The tram operator is stationed forward of the tram. He employs the grip grabs and holds on to the moving cable, the tram also moves. When grip is released, tram stops, even on a hill, using a gear invention preventing slippage. Besides the tram operator (gripman) is the conductor.
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Andrew Smith Hallidie was born on March 17, 1837 in London, to Andrew Smith (b.1798 Dumfrieshire, Scotland) and Julia Johnstone (Lockerbie). He died April 24 1900, in San Francisco. Six years later his cable car system would survive the 1906 Earthquake.
Cable cars then sprouted worldwide, from New York to Hong Kong. Naples crowned its opening by commissioning a song, “Funiculi, Funicula.”
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In 1917, Andrew Smith Hallidie had an innovative building named for him. The Hallidie Building (the architect is Willis Polk) has a facade rising eight stories and sheathed in glass.
When news of the discovery of gold in California traveled back east, the brawn and brains of a young nation came westward, where notions of Freedom waltzed hand-in-glove with greatness as well as greed.
Accordingly, access from the gold mines to San Francisco were surveyed. Roads, bridges and tracks were built wherever gold was found, with waystations established for respite and recreation. The mining methods these men brought with them quickly evolved to meet the challenges posed by the Comstock Lode and its tributaries.
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The Industrial Revolution created tools used in scientific precisioning, allowing innovated models to be tested and profitably manufactured. Among these ideas was the ingenuous “square set” created by german engineer Philipp Deidesheimer. Grey Brechin picks up the umbilical cord:
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The Square Set introduced methods of construction. Deidesheimer’s gift went from constructing safety zones to conduct the backbreaking business of mining into other uses, including the ability of a grid of steel beams and columns to allow support for more height.
“Skyscraper” came into usage in the 1880s; America had fifteen. These buildings usually came w/ modern plumbing, electrical outlets in every room, a telephone line in every unit, central heating, and an elevator.
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❛ … NASA took a fresh look at the steel cable in light of a super material, carbon nanotube ... uber-strong, light and flexible. “Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millenium” is the feasibility paper of this new science, to erect a track running on cables, from here to the Moon, a journey of some 62,000 miles.❜ — Meghan Neal, February 28 2014.
CABLE CAR NOTES | Based on San Francisco’s Golden Era by Lucius Beebe and Charles Clego (1060); Cable Car Days in San Francisco by Edgar Myron Kahn (1940); The Headlight, March 1947, Western Pacific Club; Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin by Gray Brechin (1999); and online articles by Mary Bellis (“The History of Skyscrapers”), Karen Barss (“Manhattan’s Golden Age of Skyscrapers”), and Meghan Neal (“Space Elevators Are Totally Possible”)
| A 1959 episode of TV series Bonanza features a Philipp Deidesheimer plot point.
| Thank you Taryn Edwards, MLIS, Mechanics’ Institute.
| Thank you Penelope Houston, SF Public Library.
Joe and Jill Biden hosted a 2023 state dinner
for the President and Mrs Kim of South Korea, marking seven decades of relations. Chef Edward Lee designed a Korean-spiced American surf-and-turf meal that was braised, fermented, and lightly sugared. +
The oldest Chinese diner in Central California is located in the university town of San Luis Obispo. Dishes are $10 without Protein, and served with Fresh Vegetables. +
A no-reservations seafood diner with a countertop and 18 stools opend in 1903 San Francisco. Then rumors of a secret menu came to light. +
Last of the Japanese restaurants serving old-world cuisine in San Francisco was located next to the Miyako Hotel. The main dining room had an alcove with shoji-screened booths for tatami-style dining. The fare included dishes found nowhere nearby at that time, like Clear Broths; Vinegared Fish; Beef Tripe; Prepared Monkfish Liver; Fermented Squid; Rice Porridge; Cold Noodle; Chilled Tofu.
Wolfie’s was a 24-hour-a-day diner near the beach. +
Illustrated w/ collages, drawings, maps, paintings, photographs, prints and quotes
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Out west, when 1848 was only twenty-four days old, mechanic James Marshall was making a routine inspection on the grounds of a sawmill he managed for his employer. That was when the New Jersey native noticed some odd-looking ore in a water channel of the South Fork of the American River. It was “... bright, yet malleable. I then tried it between two rocks, and found that it could be beaten into a different shape, but not broken.”
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Nine days after Marshall emerged from the waters w/ his find, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, transferring a large tract of Mexico to the United States.
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These concurrent events together precipitated the California Gold Rush of 1849, when folks came from all over, bringing dreams while praying to the god and goddess of wealth for a show of “colour”
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The first came from Monterey, San Francisco, San Jose and Sonoma: when clerks, doctors, laborers, lawyers, mechanics, rancheros left their jobs. Sailors deserted their ships. Soldiers deserted the Mexican War. As word spread more came from Hawai‘i, Mexico and Oregon.
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Gold seekers showing up near the sawmill of John August Sutter, where gold was first discovered, had no need for milled lumber, and his business went into decline. All the while, a new settlement grew across the American River to become Coloma, the first gold rush town. Nearby stands a monument, by the Native Sons of the Golden West, to mark the grave of James Wilson Marshall, the “discoverer of gold.”
One can cross Panama to get to California rather than sail around Cape Horn. Up Chagres river to the town of Culebra; then donkeys to Gulf of Panama, eleven miles away.
Maps were consulted
and what became the California Trial began w/ existing routes. Emigrants showed up along the Missouri river and towns in Illinois or Iowa. Wagon trains hitched, they headed out, crossing landapes of grasslands, prairies, steppes, valleys and rivers to Wyoming and Fort Laramie.
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The only way to cross the Rockies was a corridor beyond Fort Laramie, level and broad. South Pass afforded several routes passage to California. At a fork in the road soon after, the Oregon Trail veers right while the Mormon Trail turns south toward Fort Bridger.
|⁋| Overland travelers chose routes dependent on starting point and final destination. Other factors were the condition of their wagons, livestock, and the availability of water.
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From California, one can get to Oregon on the Applegate Trail (1846), an alternative to the hazardous last leg of the Oregon Trail.
|⁋| The Oregon Trail begins in Missouri and leaves either Fort Leavenworth, Independence or Saint Joseph for a two thousand mile trek to the Oregon Territory. Past the Great Plains, then the Rockies, heading west northwest to the Snake river, Fort Boise, Witman Mission, The Dales, Fort Vancouver, the Columbia river, and the coast.
The Santa Fe Trail starts off in Missouri, rolls through Kansas and a corner of Colorado. Crossing the Arkansas river before dropping to New Mexico, the trail loses its identity somewhat in Santa Fe, where it is braided to the Gila Trail, a local 16th-c. commerce and travel high road, bringing trade from inland to the coast.
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The Mormon Trail, gathers in Illinois and wends by Iowa and Nebraska before joining established trails in Wyoming. Together they cross the Rockies, then the Mormon Trail continues south southwest to Utah Territory to end up in Los Angeles. Besides the overlanders there were also seafarers.
|⁋| An eight-month sea route from New York to San Francisco would involve a hazardous rounding of Cape Horn.
A 49er carries pickaxe, shovel and pan. Can add a rocker and a hopper; some also conduct hydraulic experiments. A water wheel would be jim-dandy, to pick up individual quantities of gold-bearing gravel and sand.
Personal gear: pair of blankets, frying-pan, flour, salt pork, brandy (or other sanctifying spirit). Field gear must-haves: pickaxe, shovel and pan. Some procure a mule.
|⁋| Gold miners w/ no financial backing learn to congregate along mountain roads and wait for supply wagons passing through, bringing food and tools and carrying out gold dust. Saturday nights were for salooning and carousing. Sunday is a holiday – laundry, tool repair, swapping stories, writing letters, napping.
|⁋| A twelve inch shallow sheet-iron pan to rinse soil w/ water and locate the gold.
|⁋| A rocker is a rectangular wooden box mounted on two rockers and set at a downward angle.
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The hopper is a box sitting on top of the rocker, lined w/ a sheet of perforated iron. Beneath is an area called the “riddle-box.”
|⁋| The long tom is an improved rocker plus hopper, reaching to twenty feet in length. A long sheet of perforated iron lines the bottom and beneath that iw the riddle-box.
|⁋| Women too had gold fever, coming from Mexico, Chile, Peru, England, France, New York and New Orleans.
|⁋| Depicted in history as adventuress, courtesan, harlot, pickpocket, prostitute and the demimonde, these women were also bookkeepers, cooks, laundresses, shop-keepers, maids, wives. When mountain roads improved sufficiently to make travel between towns feasible, they set forth as performers.
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Mrs Clappe came west in 1851 w/ her husband. In her letters home she gives an account of the era, about geology and a visit to a rural doctor’s rude office of pine shingles and cotton cloth.
Yerba Buena was a hamlet on the San Francisco peninsula w/ an excellent harbor. The Spaniards established a maritime trading post and built the Mission of San Francisco de Asis. Ships docking in its cove discharged seafarers to a Spanish-style plaza known as Portsmouth Square.
|⁋| On arrival gold seekers rented lodgings in shanties and tent towns, and stayed long enough to buy tools and provisions before heading out.
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Brought over from Australia to perform labor, English convicts deserted en masse and instead formed a gang. Soon a frontier patch of lawlessness, Sydney Town, sprouted at the base of Telegraph Hill. The Sydney Ducks preyed on people and property, augmented by a gang of lady pickpockets, and willingly committed murder to survive.
|⁋| The embers of Sydney Town rekindled and gave birth to the Barbary Coast, chock-a-block w/ bars, saloons, brothels, concert halls, dance halls; where “getting shanghaied” was first rehearsed. Survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, by 1917 the red-light district was no more.
Sutter’s Mill on the South Fork of the American River.
Coloma, next to Sutter’s Mill, was the first gold mining town. A post office and jail were added in 1852 – both proved popular. Gold mining also took place north at Bidwell’s Bar, Cut Eye Foster’s Bar, Downieville, Dutch Flat, Goodyear’s Bar, Grass Valley, Helltown, Illinoistown, Iowa Hill, Kanaka Flat, Lousy Level, Marysville, Murderers Bar, Nevada City, Plumas City, Poker Flat, Rough and Ready, Washington, Whiskey Flat, Wisconsin Hill, and You Bet.
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Coloma is now a ghost town inside Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park.
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South at Angels Camp, Chinese Camp, Dogtown, Fair Play, Hornitos, Jackson, Mokelumme Hill, Mormon Bar, Rawhide, Rich Gulch, Shaw’s Flat, Sonora, Volcano.
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Gold was found along tributaries to the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. At Auburn, Diamond Springs, Grizzly Flats, Missouri Flat, Placerville.
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Home to Native Americans incl. the Miwok, the Sierra Nevada was rudely affected by the Gold Rush. In 1849 an incident occurred along the Middle Fork of the American River when some 49ers died and some indigenes killed. An uneasy truce obtained when Native Americans were hired on as laborers and paid in tin, but by 1900 their population had declined to only ±16,000.
|⁋| Before James Cagney was the Frisco Kid and Edward G.
Robinson dramatized life in the Barbary Coast era, there was a 1913 feature, The Last Night of the Barbary Coast, now a lost film.
The 1849 state census counted 42,000 overlanders and 35,000 seafarers caught up by gold fever; together w/ 3,000 sailors who had deserted ships.
Like all who seek a better tomorrow, the Chinese too came to the California Gold Rush, formed a fraternity in Coloma, squatted spent claims and worked as a team over the “tailings” left behind. In 1880 this gold-mining Chinatown was lost to fire.