Frisco Vista

This seven-minute film taken from the front of a San Francisco streetcar going the length of Market Street toward the Ferry Building is said to have been shot four days before the earthquake and fire of 1906, and to have survived because it was sent by train to New York for processing before the quake. Virtually all of the buildings shown (except the Ferry Building itself) were destroyed in the quake.

The street scene is lively and chaotic, and many details are fascinating.