Then … While cruising through Potrero Hill Callahan and Gonzalez receive a call to respond to a report of a body found nearby. Check out the dramatic skyline where the tallest of those downtown high-rises is the Bank of America building.
… and Now, they were cresting the steep block of Mississippi at 19th Street (map). The view today is even more dramatic now that downtown expansion has overflowed into South of Market where the tallest bragging rights now belong to Salesforce Tower.
Then … they continue on up Mississippi towards 20th Street. The monster Potrero Hill gas storage tank, visible for miles around, looms right ahead.
… and Now, the tank is not there anymore. Not all, but many, of the homes on the right side of the block have been remodeled over the decades.
Then … They arrive to find a young black boy shot dead on a large open lot. Apparently Scorpio has struck again, exactly as threatened.
… and Now, the lot bordered Texas Street near Sierra Street (map). In 2006 the 67 unit Sierra Heights condominium complex at 640 - 690 Texas was built on that lot.
Then … Callahan turns towards the boy’s sobbing mother. Across the street behind her are the premises of Wm. McIntosh & Son at 635 Texas. The two large gas holders in the distance were at the Potrero Point Power Plant prior to being removed years later.
… and Now, the office building is still there - note the matching doors and windows - but no longer McIntosh’s; it is now dwarfed by an adjacent building on the corner of Sierra Street.
Then … A police officer on a nearby rooftop reports that he found a shell of the same caliber used by Scorpio’s rifle. Beyond the hill we see that omnipresent Potrero Hill tank again; at that time it was the world’s largest natural gas holder. The buildings arrayed along the top of the slope are part of a housing project built in 1941 - Potrero Terrace, a large complex of over 600 apartments that are still there today.
… and Now, Citysleuth was able to get this matching shot of those same buildings by climbing a staircase between the Sierra Heights condos and a newer condo complex, The Landing, whose 7 stories rise to the elevation of Potrero Terrace. Omnipresent no more, the storage tank was removed years ago.
Here’s a great 1950 image of the storage tank towering over three neighboring houses; all three (right to left at 1002, 1016 and 1018 Pennsylvania Avenue) have survived to this day. How could their residents sleep at night knowing they were cheek-by-jowl with a 300 ft tall tank containing 17 million cubic feet of natural gas?
… and Now, advances in high-pressure gas line technology made the need for neighborhood gas storage redundant, enabling removal of the tank in 1988. The three surviving houses, now hiding behind trees, share the block with newer structures. At far right on the site of the former tank is the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.
Here’s another image of the tank, c. 1980, next to 1002 Pennsylvania Avenue (photo by Jo Babcock); the modest home dates from 1900. Sold in 1986 for $75,000 when the tank was still there, it’s currently valued by Zillow at $1.3 Million. The Potrero Terraces housing project can be seen on the hilltop beyond.
This Google Satellite View aerial shows all of the locations referenced in this post.
Inspired no doubt by the popularity five years earlier of the car chase in Bullitt, director Stuart Rosenberg decided to include one in this movie. As in Bullitt, the chase makes arbitrary geographical jumps around the city. It starts out in the Financial District, cuts to SoMa then over to Potrero Hill/Dogpatch before ending up in North Beach.
Throughout the chase, click or tap the image or thumbnail to compare Then with Now.
The dogged duo watch from their unmarked police sedan, a late 1960s Ford Custom, as Camerero pulls out of the Battery Street exit of One Embarcadero's underground garage in the Financial District (map). He's driving what has become a classic, a Mercedes-Benz 250 or 280 SL with the 'pagoda' concave top.
Camerero spots them and decides to shake them off. He speeds west down narrow Commercial street towards Sansome (map) with Larsen in hot pursuit; on the left is the Federal Reserve Bank building, now called the Bentley Reserve. This block today is pedestrian only, accessed by an overhead bridge across Battery from One Embarcadero Center.
Larsen follows the Mercedes across Sansome as it continues west along the next block. Way ahead, Commercial goes on to dead-end in Chinatown at Grant Avenue.
Next, both cars make a hard left out of Battery into Clay (map)...
... they continue east along Clay past Front Street. The Golden Gateway Redevelopment Project is in full swing; the old Produce Market has been swept away, the Alcoa Building already complete on the left and Two Embarcadero Center under construction on the right (map). Ahead is the Ferry Building and the Clay Street on-ramp to the eyesore double-deck 480 Embarcadero Freeway (demolished in 1991 after being damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake).
A geographical leap to the South Of Market neighborhood catches up with the action as Camerero, heading north on 3rd Street under the Interstate 80 and 480 freeways (map), is about to make a sharp turn to his right into narrow Perry Street. Both elevated freeways have undergone changes since then.
They head east over a sharp crest on Perry Street alongside the freeway (map). In the Now image a homeless group has decided this is a good place to call home.
Larsen, cresting the hill, is about to unknowingly drive right by Camerero who has sneakily pulled in to one side...
... then when they emerge onto 2nd Street (map) they make an immediate U-turn and head back to find Camerero. In this view the 80 freeway is at far left from which the 480 freeway peels off, crossing 2nd towards the Embarcadero. Demolished following the 1989 earthquake, this section has since been replaced by a west-bound addition to the 80 freeway.
They backtrack along Perry and spot Camerero ahead of them. In a slick piece of stunt driving the Mercedes, crossing 3rd Street, is almost broadsided by a spinning green sedan forced to slam on its brakes.
The next cross-town segue takes us to Potrero Hill. The chase continues north on Iowa under the 280 freeway, approaching 23rd Street (map). The recent image shows seismic upgrades to the freeway supports.
Camerero turns left into 23rd and uses the steep half-block incline under the 280 freeway to launch the Mercedes into the air. The thriving industrial area these days is packed daily with bumper-to-bumper parked cars.
Larsen guns it up the same slope, about to get air himself. Note the huge storage tank on the corner of 23rd and Pennsylvania - it's gone now.
The site of the storage tank is now occupied by an anti-hunger organization, the San Francisco Marin Food Bank.
The hefty Ford gets even more air than the Mercedes did. Behind them 23rd Street recedes east through the Dogpatch neighborhood to San Francisco Bay.
Now the chase jumps clear over to Russian Hill to where tourists regularly gather every day to take in the east view to Coit Tower from Lombard and Hyde at the top of the famous crooked street (map).
Not surprisingly they're not joining the procession down the eight switchbacks; instead this is a convenient vantage point from which the camera can zoom in to the two cars, arrowed, crossing Columbus Avenue (map). In the recent Now image a Powell-Mason cable car clangs by on Columbus.
The car chase ends when Camerero abandons his Mercedes in the middle of Union Street in North Beach and takes off on foot across Columbus with Jake in hot pursuit (map). This view looks west along Union rising up to Russian Hill.
He spots Camerero boarding a Muni bus and runs across Washington Square Park in time to jump on at its next stop in front of Sts. Peter and Paul church (map). As he takes a seat with a clear view of Camerero the second phase of the pursuit - the bus chase - is about to begin.
Leads are few and far between in this case but an arrested drug dealer anxious to soften his sentence on a third strike passes on the name of the bus victim who had lured Jake's partner onto the massacre bus - a Gus Niles who sported a distinctive eagle tattoo. But they still don't know who the bus killer was and their search for someone who might have been asking around for an automatic weapon, aka "grease gun', takes them to another quid pro quo meeting at a Hell's Angels hangout, known to the police as a source of weapons.
Then ... Driving up Texas Street they breast 19th Street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood (map). The city glitters in the background and in the center of this view the 6th Street and King Street exits mark the end of the incoming 280 freeway.
... and Now, the freeway is almost hidden by one of the many Lower Potrero Hill projects currently under construction.
... recently ... in 2014 the freeway from here was still clearly visible, a closer match to the movie view above.
Then ... one of the bikers glances this way and that and, the coast being clear, beckons them in.
... and Now, this is 605 Texas Street, a couple of blocks south of the top of the hill above (map). Other than the added security gate on the front door it still looks the same.
Then ... a short passage leads them into the living room where a picture of a scantily clad female reclining on a Harley catches Larsen's eye. Always the ladies man.
... and Now, Déjà vu! CitySleuth is nothing if not nostalgic and was delighted to find the room to be completely unchanged, including the built-in storage area.
Then ... the biker grabs a bottle of liquor from the kitchen to add lubrication to the negotiations.
... and Now, the current owner had heard about the filming when buying the house two years after the movie came out and told CitySleuth that the kitchen remained exactly as above for another thirty years until it was remodeled into this current layout.
Then ... The visit wasn't a complete waste - the Angels tell them that prior to the bus massacre someone with an eagle tattoo had been around looking for a grease gun. The detectives leave and, in this shot of them reversing out, the background reveals three of the adjacent houses.
... and Now, those houses too have seen little change in over forty years.
Then ... They head back the way they came, up Texas Street.
... and Now, as they leave Larsen reflects on what they have just learned... "Terrific... our John Doe now has a name, Gus Niles. Now we know that Gus Niles was looking for a grease gun. We also know that he was a victim on the bus, shot by a grease gun. Now that ain't complicated at all is it?"
Then ... Back at his workshop Caul continues to tweak the recorded conversation. He's particularly frustrated by one garbled comment that he can't quite make out but after running it through a customized filter, bingo! ... the words suddenly become coherent.
... and Now, this location, Suite 360, 1616 16th Street in Potrero Hill, has been described in detail in an earlier post. In the matching shot today at the back corner of the Dara Rosenfeld Design studio the two major alterations are the partitioning wall incongruously terminating mid-window and the earthquake-protecting steelwork.
In his mind's eye he pictures the moment as he hears the words ... "He'll kill us if he got the chance". His worst fears are realized; the lives of this young couple are in danger!
Then ... What to do? He's consumed with guilt and so, a practicing catholic, he seeks the confessional to tell the priest he has sinned, he has put lives at risk and what's more not for the first time.
... and Now, this was filmed in St. Patrick’s Church at 756 Mission Street (map). We see in this recent matching photo that Caul's confessional is still in the same spot but Saints Rita, Therese and Anne have reversed their positions after moving along one pillar to make way for the mounted loudspeakers.
The English Gothic styled church faces Yerba Buena Gardens. St. Patrick’s was founded in 1851 but this building dates to 1914. Dwarfed as it is by the Art Deco styled 'Jukebox' Marriott Marquis Hotel and other high-rises the once-classic structure now looks at best forlorn and at worst completely incongruous.
