Inspired by Dexter’s Muni Time Capsule post of old Muni tokens, reader Mike sends his tokens and token dispenser. Mike says:
“I used to use the tokens in the mid 1990s on the bus. You could buy the roll of tokens: I can’t remember if it was 10 or 20 per roll, but the tokens were discounted to 80 cents each, when the standard Muni rate was $1. I used the antique token dispenser in the photo to carry them. Sometime in the late ’90s, the machine that rolled the tokens broke and they started issuing the sealed plastic bags. I recently found the old roll in the picture at the Alameda flea market. This roll is much older than the ones I used to buy, but the tokens look the same. On this roll it says “S.F. MUNI. RY.” and “20 TOKENS 20″ and “Standard-Johnson Co., Inc. Brooklyn, N.Y.” There was a Johnson Fare Box Co in Chicago that made coin dispensers. Not sure if they’re related in any way.”
Thanks, Mike. We’ve got more capsule items from Mike coming in the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
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jeff
Following this Muni Time Capsule post on Muni tokens, friend of the time capsule, Dexter, sent us a few photos (front above, back below) of the tokens he’s got at home. These look different from the ones we posted in December. The “holes” in those were in the shapes of the letters S and F. And check out how on the front of these tokens, it’s got MSR President Samuel Kahn‘s name emblazoned. Kahn left MSR in 1946, best we can tell. That’s quite a long time ago, eh?
If you’ve got tokens or other Muni memorabilia, share it here on Muni Time Capsule.
Thanks for sharing, Dexter!
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jeff
Flickr user Muni Better Late Than Never posted this photo to the Muni Photos group. What an adorable little vehicle.
But I’ve never heard of the 1-Sutter, and I can’t find any information on it. Was it a real route? Or was it a one-off fluke? It certainly wasn’t the dearly departed 4-Sutter.
Do any of you have insight into this mystery bus?
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jeff
Photo taken by Muni Photographer Ken Snodgrass
Image from the SFMTA Photo Archives ©2011
www.sfmta.com,
This photo came to us courtesy of the SFMTA Photo Archives. According to its archivist Heather Moran, this photographed was titled, “White Motor Coaches, “New” Maroon Paint Job on Coit Tower Coach 062,” taken on January 18, 1968.
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eugenia
milantram captions the photo above thusly:
Twin Coach 642 and St. Louis 862 are at 26th and Mission on September 14, 1970. Twin coaches were rare sights on the 41-Union route, especially in the Mission District, while 862, on line 12-Mission/Ocean Avenue, is working the South Van Ness detour for BART subway construction.
My first thought here was, What is the 41 doing in the Mission? Best as I can tell, a series of changes on Howard included the introduction in 1941 of the R-Howard, S.F.’s first trolley bus line, which ran from Howard and Beale to South Van Ness and Army (now Cesar Chavez). The R got folded in with the E streetcar in 1947, and ran the same Howard route, then hooked up with Union. The E’s designation changed to the 41-Union/Howard in 1949, and in 1971 (just after the photo above), the former R-Howard portion of the line was dieselized. It was abandoned in 1983.
Are you one of the lucky ones who had a chance to ride the 41-Union/Howard while it serviced the Mission? Let us know.
Previous Muni Time Capsule posts on the 1970s:
1972: J-Church Aboveground on Market Street
1972: The first-ever printed Muni time table
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jeff
Here’s what “Muni — Better Late Than Never” (an actual Flickr account) has to say about the photo above:
Pizza and a soda was .99 cents…the store had an awesome toy department in the basement for some of you that lived here forever…..what ever happened to all the HARE KRISNAS that used to chant in front of the Cable Car Turntable????
I’d wager that they’re not gone entirely. And this is the second Muni Time Capsule post involving photos of the old Powell Street Woolworth’s.
Here are some more PCC streetcars from the 1970s that Muni — Better Late Than Never shares on Flickr:
An old N-Judah at Church and Duboce, 1973
F-Market at Market Street and Eighth Street, 1973
J-Church at Church and 18th Street, 1972
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jeff
From Eric Fischer:
This is a strange picture. It is a Muni streetcar, signed as if it were a Washington-Jackson cable car, on Broadway going east from Mason, where, as far as I know, there was neither a cable car nor a streetcar route, on the wrong side of the street.
Anyone know what is going on here? Could this have been a temporary route during construction of the Broadway Tunnel?
So, anyone know what is going on here?
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jeff
Cranky Old Mission Guy wasn’t so cranky when it came to sharing these gems. The three Fast Passes show that bygone era when, among other differences, the passes were only $11. We love the image backgrounds, also, too.
Larger image here.
Thanks, COMG!
Written by:
jeff
February 17th, 2011 in
Fast Pass | tags:
1970s |
2 Comments
Today, we tend to think of San Francisco’s fleet of vintage PCC streetcars as being kind of cool, kind of sleek, and kind of retro. But that wasn’t always the case. In the twilight years of the 1970s, shortly before the Muni subway tunnel opened on Market Street — and with it the arrival of more modern light-rail streetcars — Muni’s PCC fleet was frumpy, battered, old, and clearly marked for extinction.
Yet even back then, a few visionary souls saw the beauty in those battered PCCs. For example, Flickr user Dan Haneckow posted a gallery of streetcar photos taken during a boyhood trip to San Francisco in 1978. Dan writes:
On a family vacation on March 20th 1978, I was able to convince my Dad and family that it was essential that we drive into downtown San Francisco to photograph the PCC cars on Market Street. As an avid reader of Pacific News, I knew the PCC on Market Street would soon be history (the F-Line of today would have been as much science fiction as sharing photographs on the internet).
We tended to avoid big city downtowns, but this time thankfully my pleadings were heard.
Want more? Check out Dan’s complete set of photos. Meanwhile, here are a few more for you:
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Todd Lappin/Telstar Logistics
This pamphlet sparked the idea for Muni Time Capsule. According to the owner of this relic, Randy Alfred, it’s the product of one Muni operator’s renegade efforts to achieve the then-lofty goal of an informed ridership.
1972 marked a great stride toward a more-informed ridership. Before then, Muni didn’t print schedules, so an operator took it upon himself to step up where his employers backed off. Richard Morley was that man. We’ve made some attempts to locate him, to no avail. If anyone knows whether Morley is still alive, and if so, how to contact him, we’d sure love to know.
Another of Morley’s creations (which we’ll get scanned and into the vault soon) notes that it cost him $125 to print 3,000 copies (this in 1972 dollars would be the equivalent of $652 in today’s money). And remember: Muni operators weren’t compensated as handsomely then as they are now.
One thing I’d love to know that’s perhaps undecipherable: Was the relationship between Muni operators and riders better then than it is now? Hard to see how it could be otherwise, no?
PS: “Draggin’ the Line” was apparently a drivers’ newspaper. Man, how we’d love to see that one in the capsule.
More photos after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Written by:
jeff
February 4th, 2011 in
Muni schedules | tags:
1970s |
4 Comments
