Anyone who has strolled through North Beach along the city's oldest avenue has felt the lure of Schein & Schein. Filled with old books, historic photographs, and drawer after drawer of antique maps, it hints at adventure in the great unknown. A short chat with Jimmie Schein reveals a polymath's understanding of what you are actually seeing. In 1852, marshes intersected Mission Plank Road (the toll lane which carried gold to Mission Bay) and an 80-foot sand dune blocked Market Street between Second and Third; boxcars would work day and night to shift the sand to fill in Yerba Buena Cove. By 1853, when well-known draftsman Richard P. Bridgens came for a fresh survey, a lot had changed (to start, a plank road called Folsom Street had opened, as had the first gas-lit theater). Between 1852 and 1854, 18 earthquakes and at least 10 fires were reported, but a copy of Bridgen's tremendous map survived within the hallowed walls of the Mechanics' Institute. In his talk "Tent City No More," Schein celebrates the map's new exhibit on the second floor and explains the complex history its surprising detail reveals.
415-393-0100
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