i passed by this strange building and while taking a picture of it, this man was parking in front of the building. as i was still clicking, he got out of his car, crossed the street and asked me if i knew what the building was. i said no, and he told me it used to be where they kept horses for the carriages (he said cable cars, but i'm thinking he meant carriages?) that ran along mission street!! he said the window seen here was the hay loft, and that when they excavated the building to make it into a church, they found all sorts of old horseshoes! so cool. in europe maybe this kind of info wouldn't be so exciting since the cities are older and there is more of a sense of history. but it made my day to hear this old timey info about SF! and just that this man would share the story with me was nice. he obviously thought the history was super cool too. the building is on San Jose (one block up from Mission St.) near 24th. (the man then went into his house right across the street from the stable-church.)
7 comments:
What a nice surprise of cool information!
how neat. I've never noticed this building, maybe I'll take a detour when I walk to the bus stop tomorrow. :)
i have always wondered what that building was shash. great story! the guy is most likely correct in telling you that it housed the cable cars as they did used to run throughout the city and not just downtown. the mission, bernal hill and the bayview used to be "farm land" and the cable cars were a way to transport goods and livestock. have you ever seen those brick circles in the center of the streets? you can see them in weird places all over the city. those are old cable car turn arounds (just a little more sf history for you...oh and a lot of the houses that you see double doors on the "garages" those garages used to be the stables for peoples horses and buggies. :)
ooh i love a bit of history - fascinating stuff...x
hi gals! thanks for the comments. fun that you all like to hear this stuff too!
diana, thanks for the further info. yeah, i have one of those turnarounds in my hood. i always walk on that street because i like the circle/history (and because it's the least sketchy of nearby streets). so you think that the guy meant the building housed cable cars and horses? interesting!!
i love finding out about this stuff too!
Check out the cable car museum when you have a spare hour or two. Some of the lines were pulled by horses, but they couldn't climb the steeper hills with passengers so some interesting engineer figured out a way to make the brake system part of the cable system--the cable cars don't actually have a 'brake' per se.
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