It was another rainy Sunday, so I did some walking over to central Mission where I had my first apartment, beginning at lower Capp Street. Capp is a curious street that is pretty seedy at its northern end around 16th (once notorious as a hang out for prostitutes, and may still be) and having some rather pleasant residential as you get below about 18th Street. The first building — the “Telco Building” — that houses what is now SBC-Pacific Bell is no more charming today than it was in 1948. Virtually unchanged 66 years later, I couldn’t figure out how to replicate the original photo angle which appears to have been taken from the roof or a upper story window across the street,
Head up the street a couple of blocks to 843 Capp shown above in 1936 and below as it appears today. It’s not the duplexig that was a tragedy but the stripping of the building of all of its original “Stick” style details.
Go up a couple of houses, and the one below is more typical of how others in the block have been restored. Of course, the folks living at 843 likely have rent control, and it’s only a matter of time before someone does restore it to its original glory while the current residents are forced to move to Daly City or Stockton.
The Seventh Day Adventist Temple at 675 Capp was no architectural marvel to begin with, but what a sad looking place it is today. In the 1954 photo above and the one below from today, it is impossible not to feel it is upstaged by the impressive steeple on the right
These pagodas behind the larger structure, suggest this house of worship has evolved through the years.
Its cornerstones tell us that 114 years ago it was built to house a German evangelical Lutheran Church.
Today it houses Hua Zang Buddhist Temple. You can learn more about it here.
I used to live a block away in the mid-1990s, and once before it became the temple it was used for an episode of the Don Johnson series Nash Bridges. The show had a fake explosion coming out of one of its Gothic windows.
Take a stroll another two blocks on Capp, and you have 500 Capp shown above in 1886 and below seen this afternoon. Today it is the 500 Capp Foundation, a gallery and the former home of artist David Ireland. Before the restoration work began in 2009, it was painted a dark gray and was always a mysterious building.
Too bad they weren’t able to bring back the old street light, but the one across the street at Alioto Park isn’t bad.
Now let’s head west and south a few blocks to 22nd and Bartlett. The large building on the right at the end of the block in both the above 1940 photo and in the one below is the Mission branch of City College. The private homes on the right in 1940 are long gone and now a public housing project. This street is shut off Thursdays as home of the Mission Community Market that started about four years ago.
Wind around the corner a block, and we are at the southwest corner of Mission and 22nd Street. What was Leed’s Shoes in 1948 is now a Skechers outlet. I actually prefer the mid-Century design of Leed’s, but at least they have not altered the integrity of the second floor design which I suspect predates Leed’s.
Turn to the right and we are looking north up Mission Street, seen above in 1936.
Now we see it eight years later in 1944. I find this photo especially interesting because of the woman in the foreground crossing 22nd Street. Even in San Francisco, it would be unusual to see a woman wearing trousers. Maybe it was because this was late in World War II and she was getting off her shift working in the Oakland shipyards. I’d love to know her story!
In today’s photo above as well as the two earlier ones, we see the iconic New Mission Theater midblock on the left. Long slated for restoration, it appears that may finally be happening as the Alamo Dafthouse Cinema.
It couldn’t happen soon enough. There is an informative document that petitions for historic preservation of the Mission Miracle Mile, once home to at least half a dozen large cinemas. I have long heard old timers say that the decline came in the 1970s with Mission being torn up to build BART.
Mission Street used to be the vestige of the old heart of the Mission, filled with dollar stores, taquerias, mom and pop watch and jewelry stores. But look what is going in next door to the New Mission Theater.
I just hope someone saves this building on the other side of the theater that has sat vacant for much of my nearly 20 years in the Mission. I’d had to see it razed for “modern condos”.
The Shattering of Time 
Meeting David Ireland: I was lucky enough to have tea one afternoon with David Ireland years ago at 500 Capp street. I knocked on the door and introduced myself. We had mutual friends so he invited to come back that afternoon for a tour and some tea. It was a great visit. the house, to spite what i just said about ordinary was anything but. The amber coated interior gave the space a beautiful luminosity. I saw Ireland’s collects of rubber bands, wire and string. as well as his flatware with cement handles. the effect was subtle, amazing and, while quite describable in one way, leave me completely empty of words. We had smoke-laden tea in the living room. Ireland lit the homemade blow torch chandelier hanging above us and gave it a swing lending a strange wonderful light to the room and the proceedings. we didn’t talk about much as i recall-tea mainly, but that afternoon was an amazing moment in my life.