Looks at how a city used to run-the old transport systems, former city halls, stores, theaters and cinemas, gas stations and car showrooms, restaurants, and people on the sidewalk. Looks at how a city used to run-the old transport systems, former city halls, stores, theaters and cinemas, gas stations and car showrooms, restaurants, and people on the sidewalk Aspects of lost San Francisco that are examined here include the Victorian Alcatraz, Cliff House Hotel before it burned down, the early Embarcadero, the devastation of the 1906 earthquake, horse-drawn streetcars, the grandeur of the Sutro Baths both outside and in, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition buildings, the changes made to combat a possible Japanese invasion during World War II, and some of the key hippie stores on Haight-Ashbury before the area became more upscale.

Astonishing images of vanished Los Angeles, from the landmark Ambassador Hotel to the original life-sustaining Zanja Madre Los Angeles is less than 150 years old, yet in that short time a great deal has been built and torn down. Like most cities it has suffered the loss of classic old cinemas, Victorian hotels, and grand railroad stations, but L.A. has also seen the passing of major industries, film companies, film lots, hills, airfields, piers, and a speedway. Citrus groves have come and gone, oil derricks have sprung up in their place and been replaced by housing tracts. The movie industry moved in from New York and Chicago, expanded, contracted, and then sold off their lots. National radio stations built, then soon vacated, grand art decos studios around Sunset & Vine. Abbot Kinney's vision of a Venetian suburb was largely filled in after the banks eroded. This book displays an extraordinary variety of lost glories from this unique city: Barker Brothers, Beverly Hills Speedway, Bradbury Residence, Casa Don Vincente Lugo, Chaplin Airfield, the community in Chavez Ravine, Church of the Open Door, The City of Los Angeles train, County Records Building, Court Flight, the Egyptian marquee, Eternity Street, Fort Moore Hill, Grand Central Air Terminal, Helms and Van de Kamp bakeries, La Grande Station, the MGM backlots, Mount Lowe Railway, Pan Pacific Stadium, Jayne Mansfield's Pink Palace, Richfield Oil Building, Sears, the Temple Block, Theme Building at LAX, and Wrigley Field.

Archive photographs of San Francisco's dramatic past have been matched with specially commissioned color photos to reveal the past and present of this most alluring city. San Francisco Then and Now pairs photographs over a century old with specially commissioned views of the same scenes as they exist today. San Francisco is home to some of America’s most intriguing architecture and design, including the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, the bustling Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, the ornate Chinatown, and the mysterious prison on Alcatraz Island, which housed legendary inmates such as gangster Al Capone, “Machine Gun� Kelly, and Robert Stroud, also known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz.�   The book alows you to visit Coit Tower and Lombard Street—the “crookedest street in the world�—on Telegraph Hill, hop on one of the famous streetcars and travel through eclectic neighborhoods where Victorian sophistication is juxtaposed with modern elements. Stop by the Mission District, which was once home to the Ohlone Indians and Spanish missionaries, and is now full of artists and hipsters. San Francisco has seen the dawn of many countercultural movements. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was home to Beat poets and writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, as well as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of the landmark City Lights Bookstore. San Francisco has also seen the birth of social trends that influenced the nation: antiwar protests, the sexual revolution, and the fight for women’s rights. Beat, counterculture, and gay and lesbian movements have thrived in such storied neighborhoods as North Beach, Haight-Ashbury, and the Castro.  Sites include: Golden Gate Bridge, Palace of Fine Arts, Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street, Coit Tower, Chinatown, Nob Hill, Ferry Building, Bay Bridge, Lotta's Fountain, Union Square, Candlestick Point, Alamo Square, Castro District, Twin Peaks, Haight-Ashbury, Cliff House, Ocean Beach.