Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Saturday, April 10. 2010

Market Street, April, 1906

Video of Market St., San Francisco, 4 days before the quake. The camera is mounted on the front of a streetcar.  I cannot embed it...but maybe Dr. Merc, our Embedder In Chief, can figger out how to. 


The population of SF was 400,000. Some traffic, eh? No lights, no crosswalks, no rules. Everybody dodging cars, horses, and streetcars. Total chaos, and wonderful. I love the two guys running to jump-start the car in front of the streetcar.


Also, dig the serene dude on horseback weaving through the people and the traffic. Reminded me of the absurd end of the already-insane Blazing Saddles.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 12:18 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

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Notable (to me): Absent any official regulation of behavior/traffic, you have a lot of people taking care of business, staying out of each other’s way, and even having a little fun. Chaos and order combined. It's beautiful.
#1 Rick on 2010-04-10 14:14 (Reply)
My word, but that was an enjoyable way of spending 7 minutes!
#2 SCOTTtheBADGER on 2010-04-10 15:54 (Reply)
Wow, nothing like a good Zen experience to cleanse the mind.

Although the video, itself, was obviously slowed down, you could still tell that "hurry" wasn't exactly at the top of everyone's list. Best title for this would be "Life At 4 MPH".

And since it's already popping open in almost-full-screen size, I guess there's no sense in embedding it here. Cool post, BD.
#3 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2010-04-10 16:05 (Reply)
I loved the video! Here's a link to a parallel video taken in 2005.

youtube.com/watch?v=Vqcz_tllnwM

It's fascinating to see how much has changed in 100 years.
Bob
#4 TahoeBob on 2010-04-10 16:18 (Reply)
From the speed of pedestrians and of running boys it seems that most movement was less than 5 mph.

The most aggressively driven autos reach perhaps 15 mph but only for a moment. That was clearly too fast.

There were many more cars than I expected.

Not one auto produced visible exhaust fumes? And little or no haze appears down that long street.
#5 KTWO on 2010-04-10 17:19 (Reply)
Search for any Vietnam traffic video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MECdBuUiLP0

Signals are unnecessary.
#6 rhhardin (Link) on 2010-04-10 17:42 (Reply)

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