'It's essentially a story of the city, and the photographers are the storytellers.'
The Golden Gate Bridge and Marin County, as viewed from a parking lot near Fort Point on the San Francisco side, circa 1950s.Last weekend a crowd of photography aficionados lined up in San Francisco's Leica Store, many of them holding copies of a 500-page book that has potential to become the ultimate photo history book about the city by the bay.
A lifelong San Franciscan, Lyon has spent his whole life documenting the city's history. His work is featured in the book with other well-known photographers, including Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham and Robert Frank. Ladies laugh as the city burns, these onlookers perhaps too shocked to comprehend the scale of the disaster as the earthquake's damage unfolds, 1906.Merchant and Body Guard, Old Chinatown, c. 1896-1906.Passengers crowding one of the cable cars that ran to Washington and Jackson streets in Pacific Heights. The cars were taken much more often by commuters than tourists in the mid-20th century, 1947.
Chinatown's Grant Avenue at night, circa early 1950s. Densely packed with Chinese residents and businesses, the district also drew many tourists, eager for a glimpse of a culture that felt foreign without needing to step foot outside of the United States."It's essentially a story of the city, and the photographers are the storytellers," Golden explained."San Francisco has a rich history of people who've shot the city in dynamic and compelling ways.