The San Francisco Examiner's 9 January 1880 obituary of Emperor Norton noted that "[h]is living was very inexpensive. He occupied a cheap room and boarded at cheap restaurants."
We recently discovered two sources that point to what appears to be a generations-forgotten association of the Emperor with such a spot: his breakfast patronage of Sorbier's Restaurant, on Commercial Street, less than a block from his own residence on Commercial.
Both sources are written by people who were in San Francisco during Emperor Norton's lifetime: The first is the Japan Weekly Mail's February 1880 obituary of the Emperor — the second, an article of reminiscences published in a San Francisco-based scientific journal in May 1910.
Read on for the full story.
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Announcement and details of the official dedication and celebration of “Emperor Norton Place” as the City and County of San Francisco’s commemorative name for the 600 block of Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton is documented to have lived from sometime between summer 1864 and summer 1865 until his death in January 1880.
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The best-known vista of the 245-foot-tall clock tower of the San Francisco Ferry Building is from along Market Street, looking northeast.
The best-known street vista — but not the only one.
The clock tower also rises as the eastern visual terminus of Commercial Street.
On today’s Commercial Street, the tower is most readily seen from the 2-block stretch between Montgomery Street to the east and Grant Avenue to the west. This is the stretch adjacent to, and near, the former site of 624 Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets — where Emperor Norton lived from 1864/65 until his death in 1880.
The view of the Ferry Building clock tower from here is one reason why The Emperor Norton Trust has proposal that the tower be named Emperor Norton Tower. You can read our proposal and commentaries by clicking the Learn More button at EmperorNortonTower.org.
Click through for a series of seven views of the clock tower photographed from the 7-block stretch of Commercial Street between Drumm Street and Grant Avenue during the first half of the tower’s 125-year life-so-far — the period between c.1900 and 1960.
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Does the honorary naming of a block of street put to bed the entire 90-year-long civic naming enterprise on behalf of Emperor Norton?
Absolutely not!
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If one wished to honor Emperor Norton with a street name in San Francisco, the 600 block of Commercial Street would not necessarily be the most fruitful option — notwithstanding the fact that the 600 block of Commercial is where the Emperor laid his head for the last 14 or 15 years of his life.
But, the 600 block of Commercial is what the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has put on the table. Indeed, on Tuesday 11 April, the Supes are set to vote on a resolution to add “Emperor Norton Place” as a commemorative name for this block.
Comes a couple of questions:
At the level of both poetry and design, is “Emperor Norton Place” really the best name? What about “Emperor Norton Way”?
How about adding to the Commercial Street resolution a clause (not currently included) that explicitly requests signage — as the Supervisors’ resolution for “Tony Bennett Way” did in 2017?
Here are some suggestions for how to make a good proposal much better.
Details for submitting public comment in advance of the April 11th meeting are at the bottom of this commentary.
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When one reads that Emperor Norton lived in "the Eureka Lodgings" at "624 Commercial Street," it's tempting to imagine that the Eureka was in a building with one address and one use — and that the Eureka was it.
In fact: There were two buildings on the Eureka site between c.1850 and Emperor Norton's death in 1880, with the Eureka building arriving in 1857. Both buildings had three addresses and a variety of business tenants — with the second of the two buildings hosting the Eureka and two previous hotel/lodging establishments that each occupied only a portion of the top two floors.
At various times during the 1860s ― including while the Emperor was living here between 1864/65 and 1880 — the second building was home to some of the best-known and -respected businesses in early San Francisco history.
Both of the buildings on the Eureka site were located between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, with frontages on both Commercial and Clay Streets.
What follows is, we believe, the first published attempt to establish a "tenant timeline" of the Commercial Street frontages of these buildings between c.1850 and 1880.
Read on for some fascinating history — and some terrific advertisements!
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Much of the relevant background is in the title.
The rare, fine-grained, wonderfully textured photograph, a stereoview, is by J.J. Reilly.
It's beautiful.
What's left is to get your bearings and see the view — which you can do by clicking below!
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When the fraternity of E Clampus Vitus sought in 1939 to place a plaque honoring Emperor Norton at the Transbay Terminal, in San Francisco, the California Toll Bridge Authority — the developer and de facto owner of the Terminal — said No.
Finally, in 1955, the plaque was installed at the Cliff House. But, a lingering question has been: What did the Clampers do to find a home for the plaque in the 16 years between 1939 and 1955?
Certainly, World War II made it difficult to push the project forward. But, even allowing for that, we’ve uncovered some news accounts suggesting that there was more behind-the-scenes activity than previously thought.
It appears that the Clampers continued to make appeals to the Bridge Authority for at least 18 months in 1939 and 1940.
And, the effort that resulted in getting the plaque at the Cliff House in 1955 started at least 5 years earlier, in 1950 — with several brick walls on the path to the first proper dedication.
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From late 1862 / early 1863 until his death in January 1880, Emperor Norton lived at the Eureka Lodgings — a kind of 19th-century SRO located at 624 Commercial Street, on the north side of Commercial between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco.
There is a handful of 1860s–1880s photographs, taken from across Montgomery or Kearny, that show distant views of the 600 block of Commercial Street.
What we’d never seen, though, is a photo of the 600 block of Commercial taken during the Emperor’s lifetime — taken from within the block — and showing the real, intimate flavor of the section of the street where Emperor Norton lived.
Our discovery, hidden in plain sight, is a c.1876 photograph apparently taken by Eadweard Muybridge.
A bonus: The photo appears to reveal a glimpse of the Eureka Lodgings itself.
If we’re right about this, we may have produced the first-ever visual ID of photographic evidence of the Emperor’s residence.
Kind of a big deal.
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Two newly discovered photographs show new glimpses of the eastern end of the block of Commercial Street where Emperor Norton lived — as it was just after he moved there. The photos are from 1865 and 1866. The Emperor had moved to the block in late 1862 or early 1863. Samuel Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain worked on this block — next door to the palace, in fact — in the summer of 1864.
These views would have been very familiar to both gentlemen.
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At least three times — in a 1906 autobiographical reminiscence; in an 1893 short story; and in his 1872 book, Roughing It — Mark Twain mentions a low-fare eatery, the Miners' Restaurant, that was on the same street as — and only a block away from — the Emperor Norton's residence.
Twain himself is reported to have adopted this restaurant as his "headquarters" in the winter of 1866 and 1867.
Might the Emperor have frequented this place, too?
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Join The Emperor's Bridge Campaign as we kick off our occasional series of Field Talks with a visit to the block of Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, in San Francisco, where we'll explore the histories of the site (and its surroundings) where Emperor Norton lived from 1863 until he died in 1880.
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