A Guide to Lily's San Francisco
Notes From the Telegraph Club #3
This is the third installment in my series Notes From the Telegraph Club, which dives into the research I did to write my most recent novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club. I do my best to avoid major spoilers, but I do mention some things that happen in the book in order to explore the historical context. I don’t believe that knowing some plot points will spoil this book, but if you’d like to avoid all potential spoilers, you may wish to read the book before reading these essays.
In the following maps, I've marked significant locations in Last Night at the Telegraph Club with numbers, and below the maps you'll see additional information about each site. If you're in San Francisco now or sometime in the future, you can visit most of these locations, or see where my fictional landmarks are set.
Now, get ready for the tour! Throughout this post, you can click on the photos to enlarge. Let's begin with an overview of the city:
San Francisco Street Map, 1953. David Rumsey Map Collection.
I. Lily's San Francisco: Downtown
Most of Lily's life is centered on one narrow strip of San Francisco, beginning at Market Street downtown and proceeding north through Chinatown, North Beach, and Russian Hill.
1 - Hu Family Home
(Clay Street between Powell and Mason)
When I went hunting for the location of Lily’s family’s third-floor flat, I wanted to place it on the edge of Chinatown to represent the idea that her family was on the verge of moving out of the ethnic enclave. The block of Clay Street between Powell and Mason lies on the border between Chinatown and much tonier Nob Hill. Standing on the sidewalk in front of Lily’s (fictional) home, you can look up and see the luxurious Fairmont Hotel perched on top of Nob Hill.
2 - Eastern Pearl/Lum Family Home
(Jackson Street between Grant and Kearny)
Shirley Lum’s family lives above their restaurant, the Eastern Pearl, which I’ve given the location of today’s Great Eastern Restaurant on Jackson Street. (I highly recommend Great Eastern.)
3 - Fong Fong’s
(824 Grant Avenue)
Open from 1935 to 1974, Fong Fong’s was Chinatown’s first Western bakery and soda fountain. It served American hamburgers and fries as well as Chinese pastries and Chinese-American desserts such as ginger ice cream. For a trip down memory lane, watch this short YouTube video in which Chinatown locals reminisce about Fong Fong’s.
4 - Forbidden City
(363 Sutter Street)
The Forbidden City nightclub, open from 1938 to 1970, featured an all-Chinese lineup of dancers and singers. Some of the performers were gay, although they were closeted. Located just south of Chinatown, it catered to both Chinese and non-Chinese guests. For more on the nightclub, watch Arthur Dong’s documentary, Forbidden City USA.
5 - Macy’s
(170 O'Farrell Street)
A fixture in San Francisco’s Union Square since the 1940s, Macy’s is one location from Lily’s San Francisco that you can still visit today!
6 - Thrifty Drug Store
(Columbus Avenue between Broadway and Pacific)
Thrifty was a chain of California-based drug stores that became known for their ice cream, which is still available through Rite-Aid stores today. The Thrifty that Lily visits didn’t exist in reality, and in retrospect I’m not sure why I chose the name Thrifty, because it’s not clear that Thrifty had stores in San Francisco. However, in this case I’ll claim poetic license.
7 - The Telegraph Club
(462 Broadway)
Inspired by the many lesbian bars that existed in San Francisco’s North Beach in the 1940s and 1950s, I placed the fictional Telegraph Club along Broadway, where several of the real-world bars were located. I was especially inspired by Mona’s 440 (at 440 Broadway), which was open from 1939-48; Mona’s Candlelight (at 473 Broadway), open from 1948-57; and Tommy’s Place (at 529 Broadway), open from 1952-54. (I’ll share more about these bars in a future newsletter!)
8 - Kath Miller’s Home
(453 Union Street)
To find Kath's house, I went to North Beach and wandered up and down the hills looking for a location that was between Washington Square Park and Tommy and Lana's apartment.
9 - Tommy and Lana’s Apartment
(Castle Street between Union and Green)
Part of my research involved looking at period photographs, including a collection by photographer Fred Lyon. When I saw his evocative photo of Coit Tower at night from Castle Street on Telegraph Hill, I was transfixed by the small buildings on that block. Knowing that many lesbians lived in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood in the 1950s, I decided to place Tommy and Lana’s apartment in that very photo.
II. Lily's San Francisco: Russian Hill
The opening pages of The Telescope, Galileo High School's 1955 yearbook, showing the school's central courtyard.
1 - Galileo High School
(1150 Francisco Street)
In the 1950s, Galileo High School was the public school that served all teens in the Chinatown, North Beach, and Russian Hill areas. When I did my location research in San Francisco, I visited the San Francisco Public Library’s San Francisco History Center, where I was able to read through several yearbooks from Galileo in the mid-1950s. I also walked the route that Lily takes from her home to the high school every day. It’s a healthy walk, but it’s also full of amazing views.
2 - Chestnut Street steps
(Chestnut Street at Culebra Terrace)
When I lived in San Francisco, I loved that many of the city’s hills feature unexpected staircases. These steps on Chestnut Street are on the way to and from school for Lily.
3 - Washington Square Park
Located in the North Beach district, this park is one of the city’s oldest and is still there for you to visit today.
III. Lily's San Francisco: Golden Gate Park
1 - Morrison Planetarium
(California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park)
The Morrison Planetarium first opened in November 1952, using a large, locally built projector called the Academy Projector. That projector is no longer in use, but the Morrison Planetarium still exists in the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. It’s a lot more high tech these days!
This 1957 photo shows the new-at-the-time redwood facade to Sutro's, a kind of entertainment emporium that contained a museum and ice rink. (OpenSFHistory / wnp4/wnp4.0282.jpg)
2 - Sutro’s
(Point Lobos Avenue)
Sutro’s Museum was the 1950s-era remnant of a much larger swimming complex/amusement park first built by Gilded Age millionaire Adolph Sutro, who also briefly served as Mayor of San Francisco. His extravagant Sutro Baths declined in the 1930s, and the pools were closed by the early 1950s. The complex was bought by George K. Whitney, who already owned Playland at the Beach, and was turned into a museum filled with odd artifacts, ranging from Sutro’s collection of Egyptian mummies to Whitney’s collection of coin-operated dioramas. The museum burned in 1966, but you can still go to Point Lobos Avenue and look down at (and hike to) the ruins of the Sutro Baths today.
3 - Playland at the Beach
(Ocean Beach)
Open from 1913 to 1972, Playland was an amusement park next to Ocean Beach on the western edge of San Francisco. It featured a rollercoaster and other thrill rides, a fun house that made a key appearance in the 1948 Orson Welles film The Lady From Shanghai, concession stands and other games. It also included the Musée Mécanique, a kind of museum of animatronic figures and dioramas, which was moved after Playland closed to nearby Cliff House, and in 2002 to Fisherman’s Wharf, where it remains today. If you’re ever in the area, you can visit it yourself to see the Opium Den diorama that Lily sees.
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References
Disclosure: Some links go to Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. If you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a commission.
Boyd, Nan Alamilla. 2003. Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Martini, John A. 2014. Sutro’s Glass Palace: The Story of Sutro Baths. Bodega Bay, CA: Hole in the Head Press.
Open SF History: Historical Images of San Francisco.
San Francisco Street Map. 1953. David Rumsey Map Collection.
View more posts in the Notes From the Telegraph Club series