Transcript for the Piece Audio version of History: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

MUSIC 01: Carmen ? Suite No. 2 ? Habanera

HOST The night of April 17th, 1906, the city of San Francisco blazed in all of its cultural glory. The Mission Opera House hosted the world?s greatest tenor, Enrico Caruso, performing in Bizet?s Carmen. Across town, gamblers and call girls played deep into the night in a district called the ?Barbary Coast.? Just over half-a-century removed from the Gold Rush that put the city on the map, San Francisco was the rough-hewn jewel of America?s Pacific Coast. :33

JD01A Let me paint for you the imperial city of San Francisco. Part Paris, part Dodge City? :05

HOST Journalist James Dalessandro (dah-leh-SAHN-drough) recalls the Bay town in his historical novel ?1906.? :08

JD01B Literate and boorish. Libertine and feudal. A soiled Mecca? :05

KB01A It was a very dense community. Lots of buildings. Lots of tall buildings. :06

HOST Karin Breuer (CARE-enn BREW-urr) is a curator at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. :04

KB01B It was a vibrant retail center. We know, right around Union Square. And there was a financial district. How heavily built up 1906 San Francisco was. :11

RF03 This is a relatively small city compared with many. But this is a world metropolis. We have all the attributes of a Paris, a Rome, a London, a New York. :12

HOST That?s Robert Falk, a San Francisco denizen at the time. He along with John Cahill and Charles R. Timby lived in the city. Their memories were recorded in the 1960s. :13

CT06 We had the same feeling, I suspect, of San Francisco that you have. Whatever that is. We condone what we don?t like. But still, we love the old town. :08

HOST So there they are, the night of April 17th, 1906. The end of a day like any other day one hundred years ago in San Francisco. :11

MUSIC 02: Carmen ? La Fleur Que Tu M?Avais Jetee

JC02A And I went to bed. At 5:15 the next morning this terrible earthquake came. :05

JD02 On April 18th, 1906 at 5:13 a.m. A moment etched in the memories of all who survived. :06

JC02B The building I was in jumped off its foundation and wheeled around a bit. And when I got up out of bed to open the door, my door was jammed. :10

CT01A Well, I got a terrific shake? And I got out of bed really quickly. :05

JC02C And I hollered to this fellow, I heard him in the hall, ?Push the door in!? And he said, ?I can?t. If I do that, I?ll push the building down.? :20

POST MUSIC

JD03 On the Barbary Coast, chandeliers buckled, tables overturned and gamblers were hurled from their seats. In Chinatown, terrified occupants clung to their airborne beds as their flimsy tenements burst at their mortared seams, pitched everything and everyone into the streets. :16

CT01B During this time, my clock and odds and ends on the mantle were falling down on the floor. I went over to the window and looked down at Geary Street there? The ladies were in their old ?fashioned nightgowns. And the men were in their underwear. That?s the way they slept, I guess. They were very much excited. :35

JD04 The Palace Hotel with 1200 sleeping guests, swayed in an enormous circle, grinding and wrenching against its steel bracing. Enrico Caruso awoke to the sound of tinkling chandeliers and the sensation of his bed hopping about the room. Along regal Van Ness Avenue, cobblestones resembled popping corn and the hills undulated like blankets being shaken out by unseen hands. :24

KB02 Many of them fled with literally the shirts on their backs. And so the need for clothes was one of the immediate ones. :07

CT04B ? and we proceeded to drag those trunks up Geary Street, then up to Post and Franklin. We thought we were well out of it. That?s where we spent the night, sitting on our trunks. Picked up some blankets, and we used those during the night. And believe me, that was a long, long night. :25

HOST The earthquake caused tremendous damage, but it was the subsequent fires that destroyed most of the city and left thousands homeless.

CT04A The place that I lived was burnt down. That afternoon we were ordered by the police or the military to get out. The fire had crossed Market Street and was headed up our way. :12

KB04 There?s complete devastation all around, but people are gathered in clusters observing the fire as it moves up the hill. :09

CT03 I was standing around watching the fire like the other people. :05

KB03 In 1906 parks and squares were turned into refugee camps and refugee centers. :05

JD05 The city of San Francisco is no more. The Paris of the Pacific. The wealthiest and wickedest of American cities is now ash and memories. :12

POST MUSIC

CT05A I remember those nights there sitting on a blanket wrapped up on the curb. I had nothing to eat during these days. :08

KB05 And all of these people had to be evacuated from the area and many of them were not able to return to their homes. :07

JC05 The night of the earthquake. I?d lost everything I had. My home, the little bank that had my money in it was in ashes. I lost my job and everything. :12

MUSIC OUT

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