By ROBERT TAYLOR
Contra Costa Times (California)
One San Francisco neighborhood celebrated Tuesday as it always does on the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and fire: clustered around a fire hydrant 31/2 miles from the civic hoopla at Lotta’s Fountain downtown on Market Street.
It’s not just any fire hydrant, but the one at 20th and Church streets in the Mission District that was one of the few still working after the quake ruptured water mains in much of the city.
Water from that single hydrant on the edge of Dolores Park saved blocks of homes and kept the flames from sweeping up the hill toward Twin Peaks.
Amid all the civic commemoration of the losses, the fire hydrant that saved the neighborhood gave the city something to celebrate Tuesday morning.
Every year the vintage hydrant is repainted gold, and this year it was carefully antiqued so it looked like a relic from the window of Shreve’s, the jewelry store that dates from the 19th century.
Normally the anniversary draws a handful of neighborhood residents who drink champagne from plastic glasses at dawn and look down at the city that would have been destroyed. The regulars talked about their once-secret event, when one of them who became known as the “phantom” sneaked out of his house at 3 a.m. to gild the hydrant.
On Tuesday, however, the crowd swelled to an estimated 500 people by 7 a.m.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said John Simonds, who lives a block away on 20th Street. “How do you celebrate the 100th anniversary of the earthquake? I guess by paying attention to the present, and the future.
“It’s a way to focus attention on the everyday value of the Fire Department, and the water system and even the fire hydrants,” he said. “We don’t really appreciate them until we’re in desperate, desperate need.”
Neighborhood residents were joined by firefighters and Fire Department officials who had taken part in the downtown event two hours earlier. Some men and women dressed in Victorian-era costumes, firefighters from Auburn arrived in vintage red-and-black uniforms, and civic leaders waited for TV cameras before they began their speeches.
But it was still a neighborhood event in this city of neighborhoods. Some men were dressed but unshaven at dawn, carrying mugs of coffee. Others brought toddlers in strollers.
A half-block from Dolores Park, a modest 19th century house was decorated with red, white and blue bunting and a sign that read “We Survived 1906.”
Celebrating the district’s survival a century ago, some people in the crowd also knew of the aid the neighborhood provided to the stricken city.
Not long after the earthquake and fires, Dolores Park became a refugee center, filled with tents for families who had been burned out of their houses. The hillside neighborhood’s springs and wells provided them with water.