San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now

Rincon Hill, below Market Street, was originally the “Nabob” Hill of San Francisco in the mid 1800s. (Nabob, a reference to rich snobs, would be where Nob Hill got its name) Three developments would change the area of rich mansions into an industr...

Here’s a set of comparison pictures of Alioto’s Restaurant I’ve posted in the past that I updated to triplicate, yesterday. This collection doesn’t have a happy ending; that’s right, Alioto’s is gone. It seemed lonely and depressing walking around there yesterday; nothing felt more “San Francisco” than lunch or dinner upstairs in Alioto’s overlooking the Boat Lagoon. (Thumbna...

I took another visit out to the Cliff House today, first time since January of 2025. That was an overcast day too, but the pictures I took today aren’t as dismal as they look; a fence around the Cliff House means renovations, and renovations means a positive step toward the Cliff House reopening. The January before last there was talk of a possible Cliff House reopening by De...

An article in the April 6th San Francisco Chronicle concerning the restoration of the old Clay Theater on Fillmore Street, refers to the Clay as the oldest theater in San Francisco. I didn’t know that! There seems a little controversy concerning this; Wikipedia and AI state that the Clay theater opened in 1913, which would make the Roxie Theater in the Mission District, opene...