Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 10/29/2020 at 09:30 • Filed to: good morning oppo

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Midtown Motors, 950 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, 1946

ranwhenparked > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 09:42

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This space is apparently now used for classic car storage by the owners of Mercedes-Benz of San Francisco

ttyymmnn > ranwhenparked 10/29/2020 at 09:48

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I think I may have posted this pic in the past. Hard to remember. 

Milky > ranwhenparked 10/29/2020 at 09:55

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Across the street is a Tesla dealer.  Kind of poetic how different they are.  

The Snowman > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 10:10

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I’ve been in there! When I went to SFSU I worked for a locksmith who was the go to for old cars and locks. I restored tons of 1800's door locks and my fair share of car door and ignition locks. The owner had the largest stock of vintage automotive key blanks  so I also cut keys for some very special cars.

InFierority Complex > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 10:14

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Shorpy is such a goldmine.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 10:31

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I like how the trend of the era when laying linoleum squares like that was always to alternate the grain.  It clearly places it in time and style.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 10:34

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In a side note of SF Observation-- a buddy in commercial real estate got pulled into a deal to assist.  The owner had bought a small commercial building on Van Ness in 1971... for $275,000.  They just closed a sale on that building for $8.8 million.  Wow.

ttyymmnn > The Snowman 10/29/2020 at 10:48

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That’s cool. 

ttyymmnn > InFierority Complex 10/29/2020 at 10:49

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As a history nerd, I am fascinated by the whole Farm Security Administration project to document poverty in America, and those photos form a very large part of the Shorpy library. And even better, they scan them at ridiculous resolutions. It’s a fantastic site. 

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 10/29/2020 at 10:50

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Intersting observation. I hadn’t even noticed that. It looks a bit like the underside of the Space Shuttle.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 10/29/2020 at 10:53

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The inflation calculator says that $275k would be about $1.8M today. I’d say he did well. My wife’s grandparents did quite well with a similar thing in CA. They had bought land in the 40s and sold it in the 80s for a large chunk, some of which ended up as the seed money for our mutual fund which we received when we married 30 years ago. 

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 10:56

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My grandmother’s kitchen had that pattern in a green... and they alternated the patterns 90 degrees like that.  Always found it odd, but that the engineer’s view of the world.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > The Snowman 10/29/2020 at 10:58

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so I also cut keys for some very special cars...

... so had access to lots of fun cars to drive “after hours”...

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 10/29/2020 at 11:11

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We’ve redone our kitchen and bathroom, both with rectangular tile. The guy asked me how I wanted it laid. I went with a 50/50 offset in the kitchen, but a random one in the bathroom. I prefer how the bathroom looks. If you had put those 1940s tiles all going the same way, it probably would have looked weird. Or, just weird to our modern sensibilities. 

ttyymmnn > InFierority Complex 10/29/2020 at 11:12

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What is the story behind that photo? Is that the SecDef in his own personal tracked vehicle coming out to inspect the maneuvers?

InFierority Complex > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 11:28

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Secretary of War and a bunch of higher up looking over some equipment in DC in 20-21. Not too much is know about the 8 wheel Model T. Just somebody trying to get a contract that didn’t pan out I guess . The tank behind them is a Mark VIII Liberty which were made from 18-20.

http://www.fordmodelt.net/blog/2014/05/08/a-ford-model-t-equipped-with-chase-tracks/  

Commenters on shorpy are convinced that the general with the spurs is Pershing.

ttyymmnn > InFierority Complex 10/29/2020 at 11:51

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I’d say it was him. He was a cavalry man, so he probably slept in his spurs. 

The Snowman > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 10/29/2020 at 11:54

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Unfortunately most of the keys for really special cars were cut manually based on measurements for cut spacing and depth. I didn’t really get to drive anything cool at that job. I did have a SF fire knox box key so technically I had access to almost every building in the city. 

InFierority Complex > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 12:21

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I’m not sure. The general in the first photo looks to be clean shaven while Pershing had a mustache for decades. He would have been General of the Armies by then too. That man has 2 stars on each sleeve, although together they could be the 4 gold stars of the rank at the time. Not an expert on 1920s uniforms... or uniforms of any year or nation really.

Pershing in early 1920 with no stars on his coat.

ttyymmnn > InFierority Complex 10/29/2020 at 12:39

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I still think it’s him. Look a the earlobes particularly,  and the cheeks and the nose .

InFierority Complex > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 13:06

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I’ve spent way too much time on this. He would have been a two star at he time and served in at least 2 cavalry units and is seen wearing spurs in other pictures.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Harbord

ttyymmnn > InFierority Complex 10/29/2020 at 13:23

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I’ve spent way too much time on this.

Beats working.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 10/29/2020 at 13:49

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John D. (for Dickhead) Rockefeller out to re-possess everybody’s shoes.