SAN FRANCISCO.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 462, 26 June 1909, Page 3

SAN FRANCISCO.

THREE YEARS AFTER THE GREAT FIRE.

TIMES OF STRESS AND DISTRESS.

San Francisco, May 3.

It was on April Bth, 1906, that San Francisco, the city built on sand, was shaken to its foundation by the great tremor ; on that day and the two following fire ravaged the city till the greater part of it was in ruins ; over twenty-eight thousand separate buildings had been destroyed. The third anniversary of the great disaster brought back vivid recollections to every home. Some spoke with awe of those lurid, fearful days ; some talked with sad resignation of their losses; some mourned in tears ; some vented hot anger against the dishonesty of man that had killed their chance of recuperating their fortunes. The newspapers celebrated the anniversary in their own way—a way that seemed laughable to most of the people. “San Francisco is herself again ! The city is rebuilt!” This was the tone of 1 their stories. One paper went so far as to publish a picture representing St. Francis with a microscope looking in vaip for the scar on the city. St. Francis must have very poor eyesight. There are still acres at a stretch in the city covered with hideous piles of debris ; in other parts the desolate waste of several blocks is thrown into relief by a single bare building there is hardly a block in the burnt area without one or two vacant lots —vacant save for the piles of blackened bricks and warped iron. The scar is so clear that a stranger might trace with almost perfect accuracy the bounds of the fire zone. It is always a

relief to pass thence to the clean, quiet wholeness o.i the old city. Yet the people of San Francisco have done a mighty work. It is recorded that 18,000 new buildings have been erected ; but this total certainly includes temporary structures. But temporary or not, the work done since the fire has cost 150,000,000 dollars, while the property destroyed was valued at only 105,000,000 dollars. Probably half the burnt area has been covered with new permanent buildings, and on the average these are on a bigger scale than their predecessors, Within three years have been erected hundreds of huge structures of stone and steel and thousands of big dwellinghouses ; but another work almost as great had to be done before the actual building began. The ruins had to be removed, and innumerable temporary shacks and stores had to be built and then demolished.

The people of San Francisco have received little help from the insurance companies. Most of the German companies and several of the others refused to pay a cent of the claim of their policy-holders. Other companies were able to settle the claims with insignificant payments; for the insurers were glad to take a bagatelle at once rather than wait for months, with the risk of getting nothing. Others, again, were unable to meet the claims, and so were forced into liquidation. Within the past few days news has come that the American Insurance Company has settled claims amounting to 273,000 dollars, arising out of the great fire, with a payment of 27,000 dollars. If the insurance companies had acted differently, if the lull amount of the insurances had been paid and paid promptly, it seems likely that San Francisco would by now have been a finer city than before the fire.

The citizens’ resources, public and private, have been severely taxed ; the financial panic of 1907 added to their difficulties. Is it to be wondered at that bad times have come upon them ? On one building there is a notice, “160 rooms to let,” and there are many others in similar plight. It has been reckoned that the number of unemployed in the city at present is 15,000 ; that may be a little exaggerated, but not much. Business men in almost every line complain that things are “quiet”'; some of the large firms are rumoured to be struggling to keep their heads above water; some, it is certain, are reducing their staffs. In the retail stores the trouble is greatly increased by the confusion due to their return to the old sites in the burnt area; neither buyers nor sellers know whether the “shopping district” is now “down town” or in the residence district, whither it was. removed after the fire. However, the migration will soon be complete. In spite of all, the work of rebuilding proceeds apace. The builders work seven days in the week; on some of the great steel structures they work in shifts right through the night ; enormous quantities of building material —■ steel, cement and lumber—are pouring into the city ; often four or five million feet of lumber come in in a single day, exclusive of what is brought overland. In February San Francisco spent more on building than any other city in the United States except New York and Chicago ; the amount was close on half a million pounds sterling; and, be it remembered, F'ebruary is a winter month.

While the rebuilding is proceeding, the scene within the burnt area is one of disorder and dust. Builders are allowed to almost block whole thoroughfares, and most of the streets and sidewalks, where they are not blocked, are rough and broken. The street car service is frequently new rails are continally .being laid, And dust-flies

everywhere. The new San Francisco will not be so handsome as the old. In the business parts almost all the new buildings are on a square, utilitarian plan without any pretension to beauty. Only in Chinatown has a touch of the picturesque been added; the big Oriental stores have been built in pagoda style. Behind the busy mercantile centre, right out to Van Ness avenue, where the fire was stopped, there is block after block—hundreds of blocks — of hideous, barracklike apartment houses, with occasional hotels, small stores or saloons. No longer do the magnificent old family mansions grace the steep slopes of Nob Hill, which R. LStevenson described as the best part of the city. With the exception of its one pretentious hotel, it seems that this spot too is to become a barracks. In another part the City Hall, which was, perhaps, the most handsome public building in the place, is being demolished after years of litigation as to its fate, and it is not known what is to take its place.

It is remarkable to an outsider that no attempts was made to rjse the excellent opportunity the fire gave for laying out the city on a better plan. • Of the many streets that were already overcrowded with traffic, not one was widened ; none of the crooked and irregular ones were made straight. Charles the First did more for Tondon than the grafters of the Schmitz regime did for San Francisco. One thing has been done. The fire fighting system of the city has been much improved, and regulations have been brought into force compelling the erection of oply fire-proof or fire-resisting buildings over a large area. On the whole the city is little changed. It is still the same cosmopolis, with as many tongues as Babel ; still the same wicked, cheerful, ever-moving city of promise.