Then … Jo is listening to the radio in his cab while approaching the south portal of the Stockton Street Tunnel where Bush Street crosses over (map) . The tunnel, 2 1/2 blocks long, was built to provide a level streetcar connection from the Union Square neighborhood to Chinatown. It opened in 1914.
and Now… this portal has long been a favorite with film directors, having appeared in several movies. Note the same two blade signs Then and Now, at upper left. The Sutter-Stockton Parking Garage on the right has been there since 1960.
Before the tunnel was built this block of Stockton Street climbed an 18% grade to Bush Street. The 1913 image below shows the dig in preparation for boring the tunnel. The Bush Street apartment building facing us at upper right, built 5 years earlier in 1908, is still there today - it’s now a Wyndham Destinations time-share.
Then … As he drives through the tunnel he hears the radio announcer talking about the arrest of the 82 year old Mainland Chinese supporter who shot and killed a man at the Chinese New Year parade because he was waving a Taiwanese flag; the same incident as that described in the newspaper cutting that Jo had found in Chan’s jacket pocket.
and Now… the northern portal welcomes traffic to Chinatown just south of Sacramento Street. The construction site on the left, above, has been fully built out, below. Note the walkway railings on both sides of the tunnel, added in 1984 after a pedestrian was killed by a passing car (a classic case of closing the barn door).
On a trivia note, the radio announcer was Jim Clancy, a reporter at that time at the local KGO-TV station; he would go on to a 34 year career at CNN. Here he is c. 1979 interviewing tourists on a cable car. (Photo by Nancy Wong).
Then … Jo and Steve wait for customers in front of the Holiday Inn Hotel at 750 Kearny Street under the bridge that crosses over from Portsmouth Square plaza. Jo is puzzled: why did Chan have that newspaper cutting about the flag-waving murder in his pocket? Steve shrugs … “ Shit, the Chinese they love to fight, man … over mahjong, food, anything”.
and Now… this is the ‘Bridge To Nowhere’ which is hardly ever used. That will soon be even more so; city planning approval is well underway to remove it as part of yet another major plaza redesign (will they ever get it right?) scheduled for completion by 2026.
Then … Jo drops in on Steve and his sister Amy (Laureen Chew) to speculate on how Chan might be involved with the flag-waving murder.
The kitchen scene above was filmed in the Richmond home of actress Laureen Chew. It appeared again in Wayne Wang’s follow-on 1985 movie Dim Sum: A Little Bit Of Heart, below. Everything matches, including the patterned kitchen tiles.
and Now… the home, in the center, is 416 20th Avenue in the Richmond district. The house also doubles later in the movie as Chan’s wife’s home.
Then … Jo next meets Henry the cook on that same bridge (we saw him earlier hilariously cooking in the Golden Dragon restaurant). This time he’s smartly dressed in a 3-piece suit, surprising at first until we learn he owns eight restaurants and is quite rich. Director Wang has Henry alternate between English and Mandarin as he speaks so that the English-speaking audience understands while at the same time experiencing the lilt of the Chinese language. Henry thinks that Chan, an FOB immigrant (‘Fresh Off the Boat’), went back to China because he was never accepted here by Americans nor by ABC’s (‘American Born Chinese’). Jo is not so sure.
and Now… behind them, above, is a decorative ornament and a sign for the Garden Restaurant at 716 Kearny, both of which are still there. The 14-sided polyhedron however has been reoriented.
and Now… the ornament is one of many arrayed in the reoriented position along both sides of the span of the bridge. The scene with Henry was filmed at the far end near the Holiday Inn (the hotel was renamed the Hilton Financial District in 2006). The 716 Kearny building is on the right.
Then … A school bus approaches on 15th Avenue on the west side of Grandview Park in the Golden Gate Heights neighborhood (map). It stops at the steps over on the left that lead down to 15th Avenue’s lower level.
… and Now, other than the new homes on the left side this looks the same today (and the lamppost and fire hydrant are still there). The spectacular north-facing vista looks across the Sunset to the green swath of Golden Gate Park , with the Richmond District beyond that. The clear view of the fog-free Pacific Ocean on the left and Mount Tamalpais in Marin County in the distance at far right are an added bonus.
Then … Scorpio appears. He hustles up the graffitied steps towards the bus as some of the schoolchildren are getting off.
… and Now, The steps link the upper and lower levels of 15th Avenue. Note that 40+ years later the battle between graffiti and cleanup continues. The summit of the small park is crowned with trees.
Several children are on the bus as he forces his way in with a chilling message for the driver (Ruth Kobart):
… “Hear me, old hag. I’m telling you to drive or I’ll decorate this bus with your brains.”
(On a trivia note, Ruth Kobart was a former opera singer, stage, film and TV actress and for decades a regular member of San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater).
Then … the bus continues on down the same road; confusingly, this stretch is named Noriega Street.
… and Now, there are newer homes built on either side.
Scorpio turns and encourages the children to sing a song. They begin with ‘Old MacDonald Had A Farm’ but don’t be fooled; the mood will soon change for the worse.
Then … A view looking down to the departing bus from the park’s steep hillside captured the hilly terrain of this part of the neighborhood.
… and Now, that view from here is not as unimpeded as it was but the hillcrest houses are all recognizable.
Director Wayne Wang cast a light not only on the Chinese in Chinatown but also other Asian communities, including Filipino. This next scene was filmed at the Senior Center in Manilatown, a ten block section of Kearny Street that overlapped Chinatown as it stretched from Market Street, on the left below, to Columbus Avenue, on the right.
At its peak, over 1000 residents lived in Manilatown together with 30,000 transient laborers who for decades were forbidden by legislation to own land or set up businesses. They mostly lived in rooming houses and low-income residential hotels such as the International Hotel at 848 Kearny, which also housed the Manilatown Senior center until 1977 when the hotel was evicted prior to being torn down.
Jo and Steve stop by the Manilatown Senior Center after hearing that Chan often enjoyed listening to mariachi music there.
The camera pans the width of the room then captures several shots of the manongs and manangs as they relax and dance to the easy rhythm of Sabor A Mi by Los Lobos del Este de L.A. (you can hear it here).
Then … But this isn’t the International Hotel, which was an empty lot when the movie was made: instead it was filmed two blocks away at the Senior Center’s transplanted home at 636 Clay Street in the basement of the Hotel Justice building, seen below in a 1964 photo (map).
… and Now, the hotel has since been renamed the Balmoral Hotel. 636 Clay is the entrance in the center of the building; it’s now the DaVita Chinatown Dialysis Center. (CitySleuth was unable to enter to get a matching Now photo of the interior space because it’s off-limits to non-patients).
In a back room Jo and Steve meet staffer Presco Tabios (left, in front of a photo of tenants taken outside the International Hotel before it was torn down) and Frankie Alarcon (right). They each have different ideas about where Chan might be. Presco tells a long story about a musician who lost his ability to play and ended up realizing the only person who could help him was right there reflected in a rain puddle.
“You guys are looking for Mr. Chan?” Presco asks, “Why don’t you look in the puddle?”
Blogger Jimmy J. Aquino captured that thought with this whimsical cartoon ...
Frankie tells them he thinks Chan went back to mainland China to sort out a property issue with his brothers. Then he remembers Chan had left a jacket right there in the Senior Center. They find it and in a pocket there’s a newspaper cutting about an old friend of Chan’s, a People’s Republic of China supporter, accused of shooting a Chinese flag-waver at San Francisco’s recent Chinese New Year Celebration - because it was a Taiwanese flag. (The P.R.C versus R.C. antipathy within the community is a recurring theme throughout the movie).
A word is in order here about the shameful demise of the International Hotel. It had been at 848 Kearny since 1873, eventually becoming the heart of the Filipino-American community, surrounded by restaurants, coffee shops, pool halls, gambling venues - all things Filipino. But by 1968 the city had decided to gentrify (aka ethnic-cleanse) the area and supported the eviction of the elderly tenants, prompting a bitter nine-year conflict with anti-eviction protesters. This 1977 photo of the hotel shows one of their protest banners spanning Kearny Street.
Most of the 179 residents were evicted during the 1970s but 55 of them held out. ln the early hours of Aug 4, 1977 3,000 protesters assembled there to resist a rumored forcible eviction by the police (photo by Nancy Wong).
Sure enough, they came, 300 strong. Police on horseback dispersed the crowd with batons while others used ladders to gain access to the building (photo by Terry Schmitt/Chronicle).
Sheriff Richard Hongisto wielded a sledgehammer to personally evict one of the tenants. Earlier, he had been held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail for 5 days for refusing to carry out the eviction order. Go figure! (photo by Terry Schmitt/Chronicle).
… by 1979 … after the eviction the hotel was demolished, seen here reduced to a street-level facade (photo by Nancy Wong). The Manilatown Kearny Street corridor would never be the same again.
… and Now, the corner site remained an empty parking lot for years; the developers withdrew while both sides of the conflict licked their wounds and bickered over what to do with it. In a final irony, a cross-cultural coalition received federal HUD funding to build a community center and 104-unit building for low-income seniors; it opened in 2005, 28 years after the eviction.
Then … Scorpio crosses under the Embarcadero Freeway heading to the brightly lit liquor store across the street at 148 Embarcadero South (map), next to the entrance of the Embarcadero Hotel at 146 Embarcadero South. That’s one of the freeway’s concrete support pillars on the right.
… in 1971 … this vintage photo, taken in March, 1971 (the year Dirty Harry was filmed) captured not only the double-decker freeway in all its ugliness, but also the Dirty Harry liquor store site (arrowed). It was vacant at that time, in fact it had been vacant since 1968 when it was the Longshoreman Cafe and continued to be vacant for several more years. So clearly the Dirty Harry set designers must have created the liquor store specifically for the movie.
… and Now, there’s no concrete pillar in today’s matching shot below - the freeway was taken down after being badly damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Perry’s restaurant took over the 146/148 Embarcadero retail space in 2008. The hotel above it is now the Griffon Hotel.
Here’s the 1971 city directory for the 100 block of Embarcadero South which lists number 148 as a vacant property. Elsewhere in the block were two real liquor stores.
Then … another freeway pillar is seen behind Scorpio as he approaches the store. The Ferry Building is visible two blocks away along the Embarcadero.
… and Now, the Embarcadero went through a transformative upgrade after the freeway was pulled down and is now a wonderful open thoroughfare popular with walkers, joggers and visitors who enjoy the food courts and restaurants in the repurposed Ferry Building or a ride in a vintage streetcar along the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Then … In this closer view of the liquor store we see some of the detailed set design including flashing neon beer signs. Next to it are the Embarcadero Hotel entrance at 146 Embarcadero and the Admiral Tavern on the right.
… and Now, The hotel entrance is now the Embarcadero entrance into Perry’s - its main entrance is on Steuart Street.
Then … Inside the store the owner tells Scorpio he carries a gun for safety’s sake. Bad idea. Scorpio buys a bottle of whisky, violently knocks him to the ground with it, takes his gun, and leaves.
… and Now, the Perry’s space is an expansion of the 148 Embarcadero store space; the action above was filmed in the right side corner.
