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This is an excerpt from a 2-hour interview, part of the Shaping San Francisco "Ecology Emerges" oral history collection, with long-time San Francisco environmental writer Harold Gilliam (conducted by Chris Carlsson). In this short clip he tells how he was lured to Washington DC to work for the Stewart Udall Interior Dept. under LBJ, where he was able to help derail plans to run a northern Bay Bridge from apx. Telegraph Hill to Angel Island to a new freeway up the Tiburon Peninsula. Below are images and proposed routes for this never-built bridge.

Thanks to Eric Fischer for making these images, and many more, all in high resolution, available at his flickr account.

Proposed Central Freeway along 7th Avenue, 1956

The deconstruction of the Embarcadero Freeway, 1990

Freeway hides historic ferry building in this 1985 photo until its demolition in 1990.

Photo: Greg Gaar Collection, San Francisco, CA

Demolition of Central Freeway at Duboce and Valencia, 2003.

Photo: Chris Carlsson

Demolition of Central Freeway at Market and Octavia, April 21, 2003.

Photo: Chris Carlsson

In the 1940s the California Dept. of Highways came up with various plans to blanket San Francisco with freeways. This is a version proposed in 1948 by San Francisco's Planning Department.

Thanks to Eric Fischer for making this map, and many more, all in high resolution, available at his flickr account.

Maps and photos of San Francisco's original freeway plans

images and maps of many San Francisco freeways that were never built and some that were

Freeway Revolt 1958-64

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