"1932 San Francisco" is a short video I compiled from excerpts of my granddad's original 16mm home movie "Redwood Rovers". My granddad was Richard J. Finnegan and I am pleased to have my cousin Honor Finnegan's kind permission to use her music on this piece. I think granddad Finnegan would have loved to hear her lively music on his silent movies. This is a rare opportunity to look back at San Francisco 90 years ago. The second shot is a pan of the bay, what's missing? Yes, that's right, this was filmed about 5 years before the Golden Gate Bridge was built. Other vistas include views of Fisherman's Wharf and Twin Peaks. If you recognize someone or want to include some historic note please add your comments as provided by this Vimeo site below. I recently had all of his (Richard J. Finnegan) 3.5 hour 16mm home movie collection converted to digital form as the original film was beginning to show signs of decomposing. The collection ranges from 1929 to 1953. Many reels were shot in Kodachrome with subjects covering birthdays, family gatherings, weddings, baptisms, and travel. Granddad (Richard J. Finnegan) was from Chicago born in 1886 and died in 1955. I was too young to get know him as he died when I was 3 years old. I am his youngest grandson. However, managing the film transfer to digital form allowed me to get to know him and his personality in ways I would not have guessed. I already knew he was a generous and dedicated newspaper man, but I didn't know he could be so spontaneous, and fun loving. Richard J. Finnegan is best known in Chicago history as the former Editor and Publisher of the Chicago Times which he helped to merge with Marshall Field's Chicago Sun to form the Chicago Sun-Times. He is also known for his generosity and support of the La Rabida Children's Hospital in Chicago's Jackson Park. The wonderful music for this video is by Richard J. Finnegan's youngest granddaughter, Honor Finnegan: "Better Love Water" from her "Human Heart" CD released in 2005. Honor wrote this piece while living in Galway, Ireland and as you can gather from her song it rains a lot there. If you know the Bay Area as I have lived here since 1974, it seems to get like that sometimes. I encourage you to 'Google' Honor Finnegan to find more about her music and upcoming performances. Special thanks to Buck and Jennifer at the Video Transfer Center of San Francisco for the excellent transfer work, care, guidance and support. Special thanks to the University of California, Berkeley Campus, Pacific Film Archive's Pamela Jean Smith Vadakan and Jon Shibata for showing several of granddad's clips in the national "Home Movie Day" for the last two years and use of their manual rewinds and movie scope to get me started back in 2009. Special thanks to the Chicago Film Archive's, Nancy Watrous for accepting the entire collection into their care. -Phil Loarie
