Farewell Favorites: Vintage Traffic Signals

Don't ask why Mister SF posed in front of this phone booth in 2006 - okay, the deliciously inappropriate graffito and the billboard above have been cropped - but a few months later workers cropped the phone, too. Detail

Vintage Traffic Signals from the 1930s-1950s are disappearing with progress. The TV series Streets of San Francisco and The Lineup are excellent archives of these details and other street acoutrement such as police call boxes, phone booths, and train switches. San Francisco is itself a work of art. Mister SF's photo series marks the death of a small detail, perhaps. But, as with all great art, every brush stroke matters.

Detail I
Detail II
Detail III
Detail IV
Detail V: Wired Memories
Detail VI: Historic Street Lamps
Detail VII: Miracle Art
Detail VIII: Freeway Revolt


Copyright 2007 Hank Donat
mistersf.com home