RARE: San Francisco Trolley Dash Cam Footage - 1905 (Video)

LiveLeak ^ | November 26, 2009 | ghastlyghost

[bogusname]

This is a film taken from the dash of a San Francisco Trolley in 1909. The image flips just a few times but 99% of the video is good quality footage. It's interesting to see how the people on the street acted in those days. If there were any traffic or jaywalking laws at the time they clearly weren't enforced. If you can't stand modern drivers then take a look at what your grandparents and great grandparents had to deal with.

[jwparkerjr]

I see some now, in the early frames. I started looking for them in later areas the first time through. Still not very many and none that I saw in cars, just walking. Good point about 8 AM!

[Vendome]

that was cool. Market has always been a wide street. I have often wondered why such an old street was so wide and now I know it always was.

[Vendome]

It is the San Francisco Ferry Building

[surfer]

Thanks that was cool!

[ichabod1]

I didn’t think it looked so primitive. I was surprised at how many cars there were vis a vis horse drawn wagons. I did see more horses toward the end, so I think it might have had something to do with the districts they were passing through. I think trucks didn’t really take over from horses until the 30s, and there were some in use up till the 60s.

[6SJ7]

Neat video. It’s almost like a time machine; you’re watching a real slice-of -life and not a staged event. Mesmerizing.

I wonder what kind of camera they were using. It’s amazing to me 100 years ago they had the technology to have a video cam small enough to fit on a trolley.

Oh, and forget about the jaywalkers. It’s jaydrivers you had to watch out for back then!

[Skooz]

cool

[hwkbeer]

Try this link

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1920427,00.html

[backhoe]

I wonder what kind of camera they were using.

( Slaps head to jar brain into gear... doesn't work, dammit, just hurts... )

As I recall, there was a French film camera from that era that produced some surprisingly good-quality movies- darn good, even compared to the still cameras of that time.

I remember viewing footage of various wars in that age and was surprised at how clear it was.

[Popman]

I keep waiting to see the gay parade go by...........

[2sheds]

Some observations :

appears to be a cable car, not a trolley car (yeah, nitpicking)

car must have had a sign on the front saying "Out Of Service - Making Moving Picture!" or something. Some folks hail it then stop when it draws near. A few are even mugging for the camera.

I thought people drove crazy now!!

And the dizzying array of mens fashions.

[driftless2]

"current times"

I remember in 1972 talking to a man who had grown up around the turn of the century. He said that the people who were complaining about how tough life was now had no idea how easy they actually had it. He remembered the early nineteen hundreds very clearly. He firmly stated, and I believed him, it was a lot tougher to live back then.

[driftless2]

"Lack of ladies"

There were a few, but they mostly stayed off the middle of the street. Saner than the males. One woman can be seen climbing on board a streetcar going in the opposite direction.

[vietvet67]

Your description of Saigon traffic sure brought back memories.

MACV(before its move to Tan Son Nhut) had a small compound in downtown Saigon and daily travel on my Honda motorcycle encountered all that you described.

The most memorable experience was broadsiding a vietnamese fella’s motorcycle during one of the monsoons. Have always wondered what he was screaming at me as he righted his cycle.

From what I’ve seen since, things haven’t changed much traffic wise.

[Since 2009-07-21]

It’s amazing to me 100 years ago they had the technology to have a video cam small enough to fit on a trolley.


It would have been a film camera. There were no video cameras back then. (My apologies if you were being facetious, but I've run into quite a few younger people who have no knowledge of film. They believe movies were always shot with video cameras!)

[PUGACHEV]

Vietnamese practice which they adopted from (who else) the Frogs (French) At night, most drove with either only parking lights on or none at all.

Drivers in rural Mexico have the same habit, they drive with their headlights off. The theory is that without headlights you can more easily see the lights of an approcahing car, especially before it crests the top of an on comming hill. It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? But, of course, remember that you have to be insane to drive in the Mexican courtyside at night anyway.

[6SJ7]

It would have been a film camera. There were no video cameras back then.

True enough. I guess I'm stuck with the modern lingo. I know very early movie cameras were hard cranked, but the video quality of this film is very smooth, with none of that usual "hurried" motion one often expects with movies of that vintage. It's all the more remarkable in that the film was shot not on a stage with a stationary movie camera, but on the street. It's like an early version of a mobile video van!

I love seeing the footage because it is unrehearsed, unlike many films of that vintage. You really get the sense your transported back in time, 100 years ago.

[P.O.E.]

Grand Theft Trolley?

[martin_fierro]

Excrement in the streets. Traffic lane markers as pretty much just suggestions. Clueless pedestrians.

Just like today.

[hoosier hick]

I thought that too. The longer version on YouTube identifies it as 1905, a year before the quake. The Ferry Building is in the background, I think....

hh