A private streetcar just for the kids, with plush curtains decorating the windows? Not a bad way for a bunch of San Francisco school kids to embark on a class field trip, as seen in this photo from 1927. Even better, Santa was waiting at the end of the line. Market Street Railway provides the backstory:
57 kindergarten children from Raphael Weill School (now Rosa Parks Elementary School) rode this Market Street Railway Company streetcar downtown for a visit with Santa in December 1927. The “San Francisco” was dedicated to San Francisco school children and classes for education and charitable purposes. It was used exclusively to transport school children on excursions and had no fare box or charged a fare.The children on these excursions were each rewarded with a Market Street Railway Company wooden ruler, and the teacher received a Market Street Railway Company paperweight. This streetcar is now part of the Bay Area Electric Railway Association Collection.
As always with photos like this, the angels are in the details. Like the special sign at the front of the car:
And apart from the uber-styley hat the teacher is wearing, check out the faces of the school kids, who were way multiculti way before it was cool:
Now consider that this picture was taken 84 years ago, and that any of these kids who survive today must be pushing 90 years-old, at least.
Yet here they are, captured for eternity at five or six, during an excursion by streetcar that reminds us all how time flies when you're having fun.
Photo: Courtesy of Market Street Railway
...yes, diversity is the GOOD news...the BAD news is HALF of these children were sent to concentration camps 14 years later...
Posted by: David Jensen | 10 March 2011 at 12:40 PM
I assume you meant to say internment camps? Those sucked too, but big difference. Also, I don't believe Chinese-Americans were sent, and most Asians in SF are and were of Chinese ancestry.
Posted by: Telstar Logistics | 10 March 2011 at 12:47 PM