Fun, fascinating history about The City By the Bay | San Francisco's Lost Landmarks

Land Of the Lost | San Francisco's Lost Landmarks | James R. Smith

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	• San Francisco's Lost Landmarks James R. Smith Word Dancer Press, 2004 - 244 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Just a treat

For a native San Franciscian, this was a thrilling read. I was shocked on what I learned and it is interesting to see how things change. Strongly recommended.

Fun, fascinating history about The City By the Bay

We all know San Francisco is a growing, changing city. But it's not just businesses, buildings, and other human-created landmarks that have changed in San Francisco over the years. The coastline, streams, marshes, bays, hills, valleys - all these natural parts of the landscape were filled, leveled, increased, decreased, and otherwise radically modified in the City's early years.

All that information is just part of the first chapter of this fascinating book. Other chapters look at famous San Francisco restaurants throughout the years, the theater scene, hotels, expositions, gambling halls, and many other notable attractions in this always-fascinating City by the Bay.

It seems like fully half the book is pictures: photos, vintage drawings, theater playbills, even a menu for the Clift Hotel, that closed down just recently. The pictures are all interesting and clearly captioned. The information is all reliably presented and well-organized. The author, a San Francisco native and local historian, obviously did his homework well. What a fun book!

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Land Of the Lost

I am a fan of the 1960's coffee table, giant picture book histories of urban America distroyed. Lost New York, Lost Chicago, Lost Boston, and the now hard-to find pre hurricane Katrina, Lost New Orleans had a part in urban historic preservation awareness. Lost San Francisco never existed. And that's too bad. James Smith's book, Lost San Francisco Landmarks is a fine, well written work of local history. It explains San Francisco better than anything I've read. The why of Treasure Island, the tolleration of "civic sexuality" and the over use of quake prone land-fill engineering all get aired. It's A great read. RW Los Angeles.

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History at its best

So many books appear yearly on San Francisco that it's easy to miss one - and San Francisco's Lost Landmarks is not one to miss; it holds riches like few others. Where competitors offer listings of dates and facts, San Francisco's Lost Landmarks uses vintage pictures to blend with history to tell of lost pieces of the past. From the Tivoli Opera House and Gardens to Ralston's failed Grand Hotel, San Francisco's Lost Landmarks is history at its best.

Could be better

Some very interesting tidbits here, but as a San Francisco resident I kept asking "what's there now?" It would have been great to include more (brief) history on what happened to the properties after these places were no more, or at least the addresses of the buildings that are there now. Some of this info is there, but it's hit or miss. Also, poor editing is a distraction throughout.

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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.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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