Korea, Part One – Photographs taken in 1968 & 1969

These photographs were taken during 1968 and 1969 when I was in the U.S. Army stationed in the Republic of Korea for thirteen months.

On 3 September 2016, I was contacted by a representative of the National Archives of Korea, a branch of the federal government of the Republic of Korea. The National Archives of Korea were interested in acquiring my Korean photographs. I was honored by their request, and I donated approximately 900 original color and black-and-white photographs to the Korean people. 

On 2 February 2017, I went to the Republic of Korea's San Francisco Consulate. Jung Yoon-Ho, the Deputy Consul-General welcomed me; I gave him the film and associated documents. The film was then sent to Seoul via diplomatic pouch.

Below are some of the photos that I took while stationed in South Korea. The National Archives of Korea expertly scanned and digitized each image.  

Click on an image to view the full-size photograph.

The Han River

The village of Suksu-Dong.

My trusty steed.

The village of Suksu-Dong and the home of the 83rd Ordnance Battalion.

On the MSR (Main Supply Route) to Seoul.

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Go Here to view Korea Part Two

Go Here to view Korea Part Three

Go Here to view Korea Part Four

Go Here to view Korea Part Five

Go Here to view Korea Part Six

Go Here to view Korea Part Seven

Go Here to view Korea Part Eight

Go Here to view Korea Part Nine

Go Here to view Korea Part Ten

Go Here to view Korea Part Twelve
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I visited Japan in 1968 and 1969. Here are some of the photographs that I took while in Japan. 

Go Here to view Japan, Part One

Go Here to view Japan, Part Two
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Would you like to see additional photographs taken while I was stationed in Korea? If so, I suggest that you view my Korean photo page.

These photos were taken with a Nikon F 35mm camera mounted with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Question or comment? I may be reached at neil@mishalov.com

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"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Ansel Adams

"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt 

San Francisco, from Cole Valley to the Mission District: 16 July 2017

This ramble started at La Boulangerie de San Francisco on Cole Street. It was then straight up to Tank Hill, and the route continued to Kite Hill. We descended Kite Hill via a circuitous course and then walked east on Eighteenth Street through the Castro District; passing Mission High School in the Mission District. We had a quick bite to eat at Taqueria Cancun on Mission Street. After which, we accessed BART at the Sixteenth Street Mission BART Station.

These four houses were constructed in 1876; the houses are on Lexington Street in the Mission. These dwellings escaped incineration during the 18 April 1906 earthquake and fire by being located less than one block from the fire's area of destruction. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

The distance traveled was approximately 4.4 miles (7.1 kilometers). The cumulative elevation gain was about 995 feet (155.5 meters). Mile markers are displayed on the GPS generated track. Click on the image to see the full-size map.

On Tank Hill; the view is looking north. The Marin Headlands and Mount Tamalpais are visible, as is a portion of San Francisco Bay. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

Sutro Tower as seen from Kite Hill.The view is looking west. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

Corona Heights neighborhood as seen from Kite Hill. The view is looking north. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

An impressive home in the Dolores Heights Neighborhood. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

Corona Heights Park. The vista is looking northeast. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

A house is in the Castro District. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

The southern side of Buena Vista Park. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

Another view of Corona Heights Park. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

Downtown San Francisco is ahead. The view is looking northeast. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

Inside Taqueria Cancun. Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

The entry to the BART Station at Mission Street and Sixteenth Street. Click on the image to see the full-size photo.

"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Ansel Adams

"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt

The first volume of the San Francisco Bay Area Photo Blog contains galleries of photographs that were posted on the Internet between 2002 and 2011. Click Here to view these photo galleries.

A Sony RX-100 camera was used to take these photographs.

Question or comment? I may be reached at neil@mishalov.com

San Francisco – Noe Valley, the Mission District, and Mission Dolores Basilica: 11 July 2017

  Here is a view of Noe Valley as seen from Twenty-seventh Street at Castro Street. This view is looking north. 

The distance traveled was approximately 6.9 miles (11 kilometers). The cumulative elevation gain was about 995 feet (303 meters). Mile markers are displayed on the GPS-generated track. 

The rocky and partially tree-covered Duncan & Castro Open Space is located in Upper Noe Valley. 

Here is a view from the summit of Corona Heights Hill. The vista is looking northeast. 

The 500 Club is a quintessential San Francisco dive bar. It is located in the Mission District on the southwest corner of Guerrero Street and Seventeenth Street. Yes, that is Donna, across the street.

NOW  Mission San Francisco de Asis was founded in 1776. This structure is the oldest intact building in San Francisco. 

THEN  This picture of Mission San Francisco de Asis is circa 1890. A portion of its cemetery is visible; it is the only cemetery still sited in the City and County of San Francisco. The view is looking west. 

Glen Canyon Park. The view is looking northwest. 

NOW  The New Mission Theater. The theater was built in 1916 and was updated in 1932. The theater closed in 1993 and was converted to a furniture store. After many bizarre twists and turns, the theater was renovated and reopened in 2015. The view is looking northwest. 

THEN  This photo was taken in 1943. The theater was designed by the Reid Brothers. The Nasser brothers, who owned the theater, commissioned architect Timothy Pflueger to update the theater in the early 1930s. Image courtesy of Jack Tillmany.

THEN The New Mission Theater in 1935. The theater is on the west side of Mission Street, between Twenty-first Street and Twenty-second Street. Visible on the east side of Mission Street is the New Rialto Theater. It opened in 1916, and through 1987, a period of over ninety years, the building was occupied by numerous theaters. The building then remained vacant for twenty-two years until 2009, when it reopened as a Billiard Palace and amusement arcade. 

This graph shows the elevation changes encountered in this ramble. 

"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera." Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Ansel Adams

"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt

The first volume of the San Francisco Bay Area Photo Blog contains galleries of photographs posted on the Internet between 2002 and 2011. Click Here to view these photo galleries.

A Sony RX-100 camera was used to take these photographs.

Question or comment? I may be reached at neil@mishalov.com.

Tilden Park to San Pablo Reservoir. Included are views of Nike Missile Batteries SL-08 & SL-09: 1 July 2017

This ramble started in Berkeley at the Little Farm in Tilden Park. We climbed to the summit of Wildcat Peak and then strolled past the site of Nike Missile Launch Battery SL-08L and Nike Missile Launch Battery SL-09L. This was an unusual dual battery configuration. The location housed two missile-launching batteries, each of which had three missile launchers. Each missile launcher could launch four missiles simultaneously, if necessary. This dual missile battery site, therefore, had the ability to launch twenty-four missiles within a very short timeframe. 

We then descended the east side of the Berkeley Hills and passed by San Pablo Reservoir. After which, there was a steep ascent of the east side of the Berkeley Hills to Inspiration Point and then, finally, back down to the Little Farm.

 San Pablo Reservoir. The view is looking east. 


Nike Missile Launching Stations SF-08L and SF-09L

The route: The distance traveled was approximately 10.6 miles (17 kilometers). The cumulative elevation gain was about 1,705 feet (520 meters). Mile markers are displayed on the GPS generated track.

 Another scene of San Pablo Reservoir looking east. 

 NOW  This is a view of the former location of Nike Missile Launching Stations SF-08L and SF-09L. The view is looking northeast. 

THEN  This photograph of Nike Missile Launching Stations SF-08L and SF-09L was taken from the cockpit of a small single-engine military reconnaissance plane. The airspace above this area was off-limits to all civilian aircraft. A partial view of Missile site SF-09L is barely visible at the upper left side of the photo. This view looks northeast and is circa 1959. 

NOW  Nike Missile Radar Station SF-09C was located on the top of this hill. The view is looking north. 

THEN  This photograph of Nike Missile Radar Station SF-09C was taken from the cockpit of a small single-engine military reconnaissance plane. The airspace above this area was off-limits to all civilian aircraft. This view looks northeast and is circa 1959.

 Mount Vollmer, at 1,905 feet (535 meters), is shrouded in fog and is not entirely visible. The summit of Mount Vollmer was the location of Nike Missile Radar Station SF-08C. A segment of Nimitz Way is visible in the lower portion of this image. This view looks south. 

This graph shows the elevation changes encountered in this ramble. 

"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Ansel Adams

"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt

The first volume of the San Francisco Bay Area Photo Blog contains galleries of photographs that were posted on the Internet between 2002 and 2011. Click Here to view these photo galleries.

A Sony RX-100 camera was used to take these photographs.

Question or comment? I may be reached at neil@mishalov.com

The Symbionese Liberation Army: June 2017

This is how the FBI describes the moment when Patty Hearst lost her anonymity forever:

"Around 9 o’clock in the evening on February 4, 1974, there was a knock on the door of apartment #4 at 2603 Benvenue Avenue in Berkeley, California. In burst a group of men and women with their guns drawn. They grabbed a surprised 19-year-old college student named Patty Hearst, beat up her fiancé, threw her in the trunk of their car and drove off. Thus began one of the strangest cases in FBI history." 

Strange, indeed. Hearst’s kidnappers were part of a small group of self-styled revolutionaries called the Symbionese Liberation Army. The group distinguished itself with slogans like “death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people.”

But the group was no joke. In November 1973, members had ambushed and murdered Oakland school superintendent Marcus Foster, the district’s first African-American school superintendent. Foster’s “crime”? The SLA branded him fascist because it mistakenly believed he had backed a plan to require ID cards for all Oakland high school students.

Three days after the kidnapping, the SLA  announced that they were keeping Hearst as a “prisoner of war.” They imprisoned her in a small studio apartment at 1827 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.

The Hearst kidnapping transfixed the nation as it took one strange, scarcely believable turn after another. Shortly after Hearst’s disappearance, the SLA demanded that the Hearst family undertake a massive food distribution program throughout California as a condition for the release of the kidnapped heiress. The Hearst family agreed with the demand and put together an effort that by 22 February made its first food distribution within San Francisco.

It was a disorganized disaster. Scores of people were injured as panicked workers threw boxes of food off moving trucks as huge crowds of people unexpectedly showed up for the food. The SLA issued a "Communique" the next day demanding that a community coalition is put in charge of the effort.

Patty Hearst issued a series of tape-recorded verbal messages over a period of a few weeks. Among other things, she criticized her family’s poor response to the food distribution demand, and eventually declared she had joined the revolution and that “I would never choose to live the rest of my life surrounded by pigs like the Hearsts.” 

  The first time Patty Hearst was seen by the public after being kidnapped was 15 April 1974, when she was visible on bank surveillance cameras. She was armed with an M-1 carbine rifle, holding up the Sunset branch of the Hibernia Bank along with several members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The robbers shot two people in the bank and stole more than $10,000.

THEN  This photo of the Hibernia Bank was taken in 1976. The bank was located on Noriega Street at Twenty-second Avenue. (Image courtesy of Western Neighborhoods Project.) Click on the image to see the full-size photograph.

In this picture from left to right are Nancy Ling Perry, Donald DeFreeze, and Patty Hearst. They are running out of the bank and are jumping over one of the two people they shot during the robbery. Both people survived their gunshot wounds.

It was early February 1974, and it was dark outside as three people arrived at 2603 Benvenue Avenue in Berkeley. 2603 Benvenue Avenue was a 4-unit apartment building built-in 1967. To build the structure, the owner of the property had to demolish the old single-family house that formerly occupied the site. The City of Berkeley approved the request to demolish, and two separate buildings were constructed on the site. The front building, shown above, contains two apartments: #1 and #2. Behind the front building is a second building which also includes two apartments: #3 and #4

Patty Hearst was a 19-year-old heiress to the Hearst family fortune. She and her boyfriend, Steven Weed, were Cal students and they rented the 2 bedrooms, one bath,1,024 sq ft apartment #4 at 2603 Benvenue Avenue because it was within 4 blocks of the Cal campus. On that February evening, three men walked up the walkway to the rear building; they knocked on the sliding glass door of apartment #4. The door was opened, and Patty Hearst was kidnapped by 3 members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The ransom demand was 70 million dollars.

2603 Benvenue Avenue, Berkeley

19 April 1974

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"A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera." Dorothea Lange 

"Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important." Henri Carter-Bresson

"There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." Ansel Adams

"The important thing is not the camera but the eye." Alfred Eisenstaedt

The first volume of the San Francisco Bay Area Photo Blog contains galleries of photographs posted on the Internet between 2002 and 2011. Click Here to view these photo galleries.

Question or comment? I may be reached at neil@mishalov.com