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A Grateful City
28 May 2024
In our 2022 slide show of the Jones Street Tank, we told an old story.
The Little Giant. iPhone 15 Pro Max back trip camera at 6.8mm, f1.8, 1/1047 second and ISO 80. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
During the 1906 fire, the San Francisco's hydrants ran out of water fighting the inferno that was destroying the city. Van Ness Avenue was dynamited in a desperate effort to prevent the fire from going further west.
But one hydrant in the city did not fail in 1906, we wrote. It was the Little Giant.
Fed by a spring that, centuries ago, fed Mission Dolores, it kept pumping at Church and 20th Street. In recognition of its role in saving the Mission District, it is painted gold every April 18 on the anniversary of the earthquake.
And so it was again this year. A grateful city painted gold the one hydrant that kept pumping against the 1906 conflagration until the fire was out.
Of course, we didn't come by until earlier this month, its flowers faded perhaps but it was still gold, with an appreciative banner wrapped around it.
We'd already exhausted the battery in our Olympus E-PL1 but our iPhone still had a charge. Pity we hadn't bought the gold version, we thought.