Secret Signs at 641 O'Farrell / by Kasey Smith

I’ve been doing some research on the OpenSFHistory site, cross referencing their pics with my map to see how many of these signs can be traced through the historic photographic record of the city. Specifically, I’ve been looking at their Vista Views Map which features, as the name suggests, big sweeping photos of the city at large. My goal - to find an image, or images for my book that really show the scope of earthquake devastation and help explain the uneven nature of recovery in the Tenderloin. Basically, a visual origin point that explains in one fell pixelated swoop how we ended up with so many secret signs hidden on the backs and sides of buildings.

And I did! 

On 641 O’Farrell is a fairly standard, very weathered apartment building sign that isn’t visible from street level. At one point there were signs on all three sides of the building (seen here and here) - the back sign being visible from the adjacent playground and the other side sign being similarly boxed in from street view.

Having looked at a lot of similar signs, I didn’t even need to research the building to know that the Cornelia Apartments were constructed in the first wave of post-earthquake buildings. After all, this is generally how a building would end up with TWO secret signs. However, for the sake of precision, it was constructed in 1907 and was the first building on its block to go back up after the 1906 earthquake. 

And going through the OpenSFHistory Vista Views Map I found an amazing visual example of how this situation came to be.

This image, visible on their site here, shows this exact address for the Cornelia Apartments immediately after the 1906 Earthquake. You can see all the way down to City Hall, an uninterrupted view across several city blocks that could only be made possible by a disaster of epic proportions. Absolutely nothing is left on this block of O’Farrell , as well as all the adjacent blocks, which means everything had to be started over from scratch post-earthquake. 

Really good visual food for thought about the scope of the disaster and why it took so much time for the city to truly bounce back from it, resulting in some seemingly oddly placed signs.