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The Crystal Palace Market was more than a market, it was an adventure. At least that's what my friends and I called it in 1935. We were about thirteen, and on Saturdays when we didn't know what to do, someone would say, "Let's have an adventure."
We lived in the Western Addition at Herman and Fillmore streets and would walk up to Haight and take a Market street car downtown, a number 6, 7, or 17. The fare was five cents. My allowance was ten cents a week, and the round trip left me broke.
At Ninth and Market we got off the street car and walked across to the Crystal Palace Market. It looked just like its name... a Crystal Palace; a large iron beamed structure laced with frosted glass panels. It was always bright inside; even on a gloomy foggy day.
Inside there were numerous stalls criss-crossed by aisles.
Some were big, most were rather small. It was not operated by a giant corporation, but by individual merchants, nor was it laid out like a supermarket with each category in its place. Everything was jumbled up. You could buy any kind of food at the Crystal Palace... fruit, vegetables, meat. It had wonderful aromas to guide you; garlic and coffee and hot bread, cheese and sausages.
The owners would stand in front of their stalls and hawk their wares: "We got a special on artichokes today, folks. Get 'em here."
There were stalls that served sandwiches and small meals. People sat on stools at counters with crowds swarming by them; friends stopping to chat. It was no place for a quiet lunch.
We never ate at them because we didn't have any money; just the five cents we needed to get back home, but when we were hungry we knew where to get free samples: The Peanut Butter Man.
We all loved peanut butter and this stall had open tubs of peanut butter in front. The owner would spot us, "Could we have a sample?" He knew we would never buy anything, but gave each of us a small wooden spoon and we would dig into a tub, trying to get as much peanut butter on the spoon as possible... twirling it around, until the owner said, "All right, boys, that's enough." We would wander off, wondering where to go next, licking the spoon, then scraping it with our teeth to get the last bit of delicious peanut butter.
There were cheese stands with samples on a plate. When the proprietor wasn't looking, we would grab a couple and go see the Snake Man.
He didn't sell snakes, but medicinal soap, which was supposed to cure acne and other perils of the skin. He used the snakes to gather a crowd around his stall. They were in glass cases on his counter.
We had never seen snakes and pushed up front to watch him open the case and take out a snake. "Move back, boys,"
I think they were harmless garter snakes. He would wrap one around his neck and the women in the audience would shriek. He would tell you about snakes and when he was finished would put the snake back and start talking about his soap. We were no longer interested and moved away.
In one corner of the Crystal Palace the Anchor Brewing Company had a stall where you could get a sandwich and a glass of steam beer. This photo is just as I remembered it.
Courtesy Anchor Brewing Co.
San Francisco"The Crystal Palace Market is just a memory, but isn't it wonderful that the Anchor Brewing Company is still with us today."
BillInvariably we would end up back at the Peanut Butter Man, hungry once again, "Could we have a sample?"
He'd look at us, "Haven't you been here already today?
"Us? Oh, no."
Sometimes it would work and we would get another spoon, most of the times it didn't.
The downfall of the Crystal Palace came when some drugstore corporation bought it and chopped it up to put a drug store in one corner. It never looked the same again and pretty soon people stopped coming. We never went there again.
Eventually it was torn down so an uncharming motel could take its place.
I don't know much about economics, but I bet if the Crystal Palace Market was there today it would be one of San Francisco's top attractions... unless the people who fixed up Fisherman's Wharf got their hands on it.
Bill
FACTS ABOUT THE CRYSTAL PALACE I DIDN'T KNOW. Daniel J. Boorstin, in his book: The Americans: The Democratic Experience. Random House, 1973, wrote:
San Francisco's Crystal Palace, opened in 1923 in a large steel-frame building on the site of a former baseball diamond and circus ground with 68,000 square feet of selling area and parking for 4,350 cars (one hour free). Offering food, drugs, tobacco, liquor (after 1934), jewelry, a barber shop, a beauty parlor, and a cleaning establishment, the store by 1937 had set sales records of 51,000 pounds of sugar in one hour, five carloads of eggs in a month; in a single year it sold 200 tons of lemons, 250 tons of oranges, and 300 tons of apples.
