Powell and Market Changes Through the Years

Unfinished History

This image taken in 1866 looking north on Powell is just fifteen years after the area was still largely sand dunes covered in scrub. Note Temple Emanu-el in distance, a block north of Union Square.

Photo: Private collection

Baldwin Hotel at Market and Powell in the late 1880s.

Photo: Private collection

Flood Building at Powell and Market, 1908.

Photo: C.R. collection

Powell and Market, c. 1910.

Photo: Private collection

Flood Building across from Techau Tavern at Powell and Market, c. 1910.

Photo: Private collection

Powell, Eddy, and Market Streets, c.1920s, when this corner was the entry point to the Tenderloin.

Photo: C.R.collection

Man standing under awning of Owl Drugs on ground floor of Flood Building at Powell and Eddy and Market Streets, c. 1940s.

Photo: Private collection

Cable car turnaround at Eddy/Powell and Market Streets, c. 1940s.

Photo: Private collection

Woolworth's new store interior—dining room. Flood Building at Powell and Market Streets, Oct. 10, 1952.

Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp28.0488

Eating at Woolworth's, 21st century meme.

Photo: provenance unknown

Powell and Market Street, c. 1957.

Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.6541

Cable car turnaround at Powell and Market, 1958.

Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.3892

Powell and Market Streets, 1963.

Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.4240

Cable car still ends here, but turnaround no longer in use at Powell/Eddy and Market Streets, 2023.

Photo: Eihway Su

Flood Building, 2023.

Photo: Eihway Su

Erased Landscape

Video: Glenn Lym