And here's the same shot a few years later after the earthquake. Just devastating: http://archive.org/details/tmp_50168

Wow this is amazing.. they used to have emergent / "chaotic" traffic patterns back then in the west, the likes of which you only find in (much of) Asia, Africa or India these days.

And how agile, vivid and alert most everyone is in the streets! Quite remarkable -- truly people were a different breed back then, for better or worse.

Notice no traffic lights, stop signs! Also note the conspicuous absence of women in this video and also car steering wheels on the right! In fact, I'm surprised there are so many cars on the road in 1905!

There are women in the video, although not as many as there are men. For example, you can see two women at the 35 second mark at the right side of the screen, and another near the left side of the screen at the 1:35 mark. There are more, but these are just two that show them clearly in the foreground.

Surreal indeed.

The subway video looked remarkably similar to what you would see today. Folks were overdressed, but that's about it.

However, that San Francisco street cruise was a different world!

Wow. I'm not sure if people just hung out in the middle of the street back then or if folks are just excited about the camera.

Good to know that driving on the road was a bloodsport in SF even a hundred years ago.

Anyone know what the music in this video is?

The track is called La Femme d'Argent by the band Air on the album Moon Safari. What's odd is I had just been listening to this earlier and somehow thought something had turned it back on.