San Francisco 1976 archive footage 

There are some things you just don't get over, like the way things were.

I was 24 and working my first job in San Francisco when this film was shot. SF was a magical, relatively clean place back then. Brimming with possibilities. Great food. Fun people.

I was young then. Today I’m still in San Francisco but the magic is gone.

I was 16 that year, it's strange how time goes by, I'm 62 now and my past seems like it was yesterday and like it was eons ago at the same time.

Seeing this old footage make me sad for some reason. These times are gone and there’s nothing we can do about it.

I was there in 1979; it was so beautiful. I have no desire to return, especially nowadays.

I lived in SF then. It was a great place to be. Everyone friendly and fun, city bursting with creative energy, Cheap apartments. Gay men pouring in from all over the US to escape the hate in their hometowns. It was a great era, long since vanished between AIDS and the tech takeover. Ill never forget my time there in my 20s.

that's my father the pushing car off the turn table an that my brother my dad was gripman

Ahhhh....the cozy 70s oh what I would do to go back to big cities like SF and NYC when life was better 😪

I was there just that year. Almost daily I kept cruising through the city in my 1966 Rambler😜. I went along Lombard St. and conquered the Coit Tower. S.F. was such a beautiful city back then but I don't want to see it today. I know it would be a shock😟.

Just imagine that was 44 years ago

I remember being a kid and helping to rotate the cable car on the turntable and help with a few others to push it on to engage with the cable, then stepping up and ALWAYS hanging out during the ride! Felt so cool.

Bring back lots of memory

So schön, man weiß diese Zeit eigentlich erst heute zu schätzen. Wir kommen aus Deutschland und waren schon oft in den letzten Jahren in SF für uns die beste Stadt der Welt .

To all the older ppl commenting your experience during this year thank you❤❤. I was born 2000 and my mom was born this year. Sometimes I just wonder what life was then. I must say that I miss the early 2000s it was also a great time to live out here. Have a blessed life ❤ cheers from San Francisco 🍻

Look I get it people, you were young and life was full of hope back then, and now your old and yearning, but dont take out your frustration on the city. Take it from me, someone who grew up in sf recently, that its still a great place to grow up and raise a family. The city has its issues now, but it also did back then. Serial killers were sending letters to the press, assassinations at city hall, cars were way more loud and pollutive and there was a damn highway in front of the ferry building. Don't be blinded by nostalgia .

I was 14 in 1976....... living at 631 fillmore street between fell and hayes.

Possibly the most annoying watermark I have ever seen on a video though. Shame, it's great footage.

I've noticed how much the population has grown since 75 until now in 2019.

I went to the academy of art back in 2015, had no clue it was open this long ago it was so cool to see the school sign in the back of this video!

I moved there in 1975 till 1991. Such a beautiful city back then. Yesterday I watched a video of Market Street nowadays...so sad

Fantastic footage! Love the jazz too!

And no cell phones or Uber in 75!!!

A city that once was.

What I like about San Francisco is the diversity of cultures and ethnicities

Simpler times I have the impression people were happy with less. I was 6 then, lived in Germany. I remember time flew slower...

If i could jump in the video, i would hitchhike to Southern California and see my parents. They passed away in 2010 and 13. I was 4 in 76. I remember taking my first plane flight from Orange County to San Francisco when i was 7 (1979). It only took an hour but it was so exciting! I remember they announced we reached 20,000 ft. We flew over clouds.

good old days

I was there in 76 but I couldn't find myself driving around. But it was April when I was there

This is the real San Francisco. The city people dreamed about.

This is fun. I was born in San Francisco 1976....Trying to see if I can't deduce the month.

amazing the foot traffic on powell street. now there is probably a tenth of that. and only a handful of stores...

I sure miss those days.

Thats right down the street and a beautiful city of San Francisco to thank you 😊

Armistead Maupin made me fall in love with this city wvwn though I grew up in Australia in the 80s

Ah yes! @14:00n next to the Golden Pavilion restaurant is my most favorite Chinese restaurant…Johnny KANS….their cuisine absolutely delicious to the palette. I think movie star Danny Kaye would still join Mr Kan in the kitchen at this time.period. Wonderful times, beautiful memories….nevermore?!!

$1.88 seems like kind of a lot for cake mix.

Yes it was a totally different world

At 12:25 we can see Nicolas Cage's former house, 898 Francisco St, corner of Hyde!

I love seeing San Fran when it was Beautifu. Butl it makes me really sad to see how bad society has gotten in the last couple decades. Wonder if it will ever be like this again?

Where are all the freaks?

One year till i was born

13:04 people waiting at the lane with no phones.. wow

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

Imagine seeing videos from people 5000 years ago. Even 1000 years ago i would give all my money to go back in time.

Yes the magic is gone

Cables Cars we're pretty much like nowsdays...

Bunch of whiners here who have never learned life's basic wisdom that *everything changes* . San Francisco is still completely magical and amazing as it was when I was 16 when this footage was shot. Travel the world and compare. I knew every spot in San Francisco like the back of my hand, having traveled to every corner on my bike with my brothers and friends by the time I was 16. Yes it was different - and in some ways better, other ways not so. I sure don't miss that daily smog (or the bufugly Embarcadero Freeway). As a Catholic school kid (Mission Dolores) I was a target for punks on the way home sometimes, definitely had to live in fear in '68 and the 70s when racial tensions were sky-high. Also scary were the zebra murders and zodiac killings. San Francisco was not especially friendly to anyone who wasn't white and relatively well-off (we were)…so I don't buy all these Archie Bunker rose-colored glasses view of a still-amazing city, a still-creative and open-hearted city having to deal with major societal challenges because it is that way. It will self-correct, hopefully sooner than later. Lots of people are working extremely hard on that Downtown, in the Tenderloin, in the neighborhoods. It's not only nostalgia - Fox News and other brainless media have made SF a target of hate for obvious reasons, but the truth is that it's just going through its own version of what every major American city is going through.

Time machine I wasn't even born then.

My mom was 12 born in 64

Young woman ringing the bell for Salvation army. About 5:39-5:57.so this video had to have been made in late November or early Dec. Didnt notice any holiday decorations. I live in Long Beach CA, have rung the bell for about 16+ yrs straight. Nice experience, just volunteer now, since 2021, they dont pay for doing it, understand that, more money to directly help people. Nice Jazz music, who is.the artist or, group?

I was 10

My old Friend Hun de see, Hugh

When San Francisco was still enjoyable to live in. It's a sewer now.

Because I was adopted in 1971 Jason Eugene Britt I am the one at the last post

My mom is born in 1976 in Muar. The minions movie copied my parent's birth year. 😭

Can someone name the music please??

1:35 celebrating the brutal climb to the top with a cig.

Cynical Boo Hoo session here, no waiting, just drop in and bawl...but you got it wrong. The T-Loin is a mess, but the T-Loin is not San Francisco. I live in a part of the city, North Beach with lots of restaurants of various cultural tastes, including Italian, Mexican, and Viet Namese, Philly Cheese always offers tasty burgers and sandwidges, and Chinatown is very near, harboring some of the best cooks in the world, and some bars as well. On weekends, or warm nights people still fill the sidewalks and streets, or simply cruise about, on foot or by car, the street musicians are out busking. The famous and most excellent City Lights Books is only a few steps from Colombus and Broadway. If youre looking for 'green' theres a Grant Street dispensary, Pipeline offering excellent fare. Green Street betwixt Grant and Colombus offers everthing in Italian dinners, including sea food, or pizza, Gino & Carlo's is a venerable hangout for regulars, newbies or tourists. We have several very attractive popular and classy coffee houses, Greco's and Stella are excellent, and one of them classy, some say sacred for its arts literary and film history, the Trieste. Our luminaries are approachable, I occasionally shared a table there with Corso: "Tony, the world owes me a living!", and where FF Coppola created a big chunk of GF 3, in a coffee house going for it's century mark. North Beach is not dead by any means, and we still love tourists with money, were true blue that way.

why did you put your logo all over the great footage

This was a waste to watch, In 1976 I lived, worked and played in San Francisco. I restored Victorians, partner in an Americana and Collectables store on Haight st. I eat and hung out in several cafes in town but mostly the Cafe Flora on Market St. Most of 1976 I lived in a warehouse commune and studios with other artists. You didn't show jack with this video where was Golden Gate Park, with its tea garden, flower house, museums and aquarium. Where is Hamburger Mary's or the Stud. No cafes were shown. No Coit Tower, or Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the City Lights Bookstore, beside the Vesuvius cafe. Where is Sutro Baths, and Lands End. Afraid to show Castro Street. the bath houses, San Francisco in 1976 was one of the eating capitals of the world, Every night, when we desided to go out and eat we would take a vote, Chinese, Mexican, Basque, Russian, Thai. Indian or just some cafe other than the one we were at at that moment so as to try something different. Just Desserts was a choice place. Buds Ice Cream with lines waiting sometimes in the rain. After the bars called out to the people 'Last Call For Alcohol", many times we headed to Church Street Station all night restaurant (Packed with artist, actors, gays, some in drag, hippies and left over Beats, every kind of person could go there. How about the hundreds of Guru's and Spiritualists along with the Moonies, EST, and Scientology. In San Francisco you were either the actor/performer or the watcher/audience some times both. If I was someone looking to visit San Francisco, this video wouldn't impress me to spend time or money there, People would fly in from all over the world to have a great time and experience there. In June 1981 everything changed, I left on the 7th of June to move to the Islands in the Caribbean, The 12th of June there was an announcement about some illness being found in the gay population, they at first called it GRID then later to AIDS, I saw money moving in to the city I was even a part of it but then realized what was happening. I quit in the early spring and started selling off my things, and set the date for June 6th or7th to leave, go into exile. I'm trying to write a book about my life and travels, San Francisco will be many chapters or maybe even a whole book. Lots of juice, colors and happenings as well as some great parties, and talk about my many projects and some of the characters that I knew or had encounters with.As Don Genero Flores told Charles "You can never return to Ixtlan " For me it is the Hotel California lyrics that speaks loudly, but it's the line " You can check out any time you like.But you can never leave!" I love the city (Thanks Tony) And I keep the dried flowers pressed in a sandwich between my heart and my mind. I will probably never go back, I don't want to destroy My San Francisco with what is there now. Same reason I don't go to funerals to view the bodies of my loved ones or friends, they remain alive within me. I realize this was filmed by a tourist from Germany, His intention was see how boring a place S F is come to Berlin for the real action.

Drugs really did a number on SF. Summer of love started the rot.