the street. but if you looked at the front of it you wouldn't think there was anything spemble about it. it's essentially a shingled box. but if you got around to the back of it, you'll see it's actually made of two cable cars and a horse car on the second floor. this is how it's sort of put together. we're look at the backyard here. two cable cars are put together and they basically removed a wall from each to make one large room, a living room. then the horse car is still complete as a bedroom off to the side. this is photographs -- perhaps the last greatest carville house left. it's really a neat place. so with the cable cars, you know you have that little pop-up roof in the middle. what they did so you wouldn't have to duck is they removed that wall and they pushed up the side roof to sort of make this dome feeling inside. and the seats are original. they're still in there. the little ventilator windows. the woodwork is all in place. it's just really a neat thing. i'd love to live there. i can't afford it. and if you get up into the attic, you can see the crowns

of the cable cars still show. it's just an amazing place. so that's my hope, you know, that this book i wrote, this story gets out, we're on sfgov tv. somebody will say, i have a cable car house, nobody asked me. come take a look at it. because right now we're down to one or two maybe that are still around when we're talking about there used to be hundreds. >> essentially into a generation of tearing them down. no more construction. complete replacement. >> yeah. in the 1910, about 1913, 1914, they really started pushing to get rid of them. when that open block that sutro rented, right on the edge of the sunset, when that cleared

out, it eliminated the visibility of carville. we talk about a whole block of car houses that were still there. when that gets replaced by apartment buildings, suddenly you have a car house here, one there. just where people haven't taken the time to tear it out or build a conventional home. in the 1920's or 1930's, things were booming house building wise out there. so if you have a little empty lot that has an old car house on it you'd be stupid not to build a stucco house there and make a quick buck. by the 1920's, they're mostly gone. there's just a couple here and there. >> so, woody, sometimes the railroad seems to be finding old cars and rebuilding them. have -- are any of these actually rebuilt and used again? >> some of them they have saved because they've popped up now and then. like the ones on ninth avenue. those three cable car trailers. they were saved by ed zelinski who took them and donated them to the maritime museum.

think one still sits in a warehouse waiting for somebody to do something with it. but other old cars have been rescued and taken to parks where they've been restored. there's one down in san jose in kelly park. it's an old horse carrie stored that runs around on the weekend. -- car restored that runs around on the weekend. on the one hand, you're in this foggy neighborhood, there's not much insulation. on the other hand, you've got 30 windows, and the sunshine in the day could just make the place broiling. and at night all of those windows let in the cold. so they advised people to put up curtains. they'd have little oil lamps, coal stoves, little oil/coal stoves. but it was a challenge. it was sort of part of the romance i think. it's like camping. >> how long did the fad last? >> the height of it, this all really takes off around 1897, 1898. the height of it is really the

turn of the century. 1900 we're talking about 200 cars. after the earthquake in 1906, that's when it starts declining a little bit because more conventional houses start taking over and more people live permanently year-around. they're not just using it as a party pad. so it's after the quake it starts declining a little bit. >> is there a d.b.i. record as cable cars were moved to a site that there wou before the earthquake, you often don't have a record. then, yeah, you're right. it goes down to some of these pictures i found by basically finding the names of people who lived in carville and then tracking down their desendends

and asking, do you have anything? we had people who said, yeah, lots of photos and stories. but it takes a lot of leg work. it's not like you can just walk into a city department and get that info. >> i know you actively solicit the -- solicited people for stories. there's a wonderful newsletter what is it called? >> it's our organizational newsletter. >> it also has in it a mystery photograph that maybe somebody submitted. can you imagine where there is? tell us where it is. but also soliciting these histories of photographs and recollections. >> it's history groups. like we're a history group for the west side of town so we interview old-timers and get donations of photographs and stories. and there's other groups like that through the city. it's up to a lot of volunteers and people who care about the neighborhood to track this stuff down. >> so the question about house moving. house moving used to be very common in san francisco. i think you once were looking at that as well. is that right? >> well, we saved some earthquake shots.

lawrence helped us get the pormeyit to move them. we pulled out the ledger, you know, with like the official city ledgeser of moving houses. there were tons of them. i don't know, at some point it just kind of petered out and somebody moves a house like once every 15 years now. >> so we in our digital age, issue house moving permits once every couple of years. i pull out this little book. it's got a piece of carbon paper in it. you put the carbon in and you write, you know, house moving permit number, you know, 36. you say from here to there. we charge a fee. a very low fee. it's really right out of the turn of the century before. >> yeah, it has that dusty, old-school feeling. >> actually, we maintained that. i tried to maintain this little book. we still do it that way. >> would the post earthquake installation of building codes and building requirements have

impacted carville to expand? and ultimately was that part of the demise as our desire and need to have structures that were earthquake safe and fire safe? did that have an impact on it, i guess? >> well it seemed more that they were health issues. they were really not happy with the plumbing in carville. yeah. that shows up a lot more than anybody worried about building integrity or anything. the thing that comes up a little later and we talked a little about, these earthquake refugee cottages. after the 1906 earthquake, the relief corporation that was attending to these refugees built thousands of these small little redwood cottages for the refugees. then when the camps closed after a year, people could take the cottages to these empty lots and set them up. it was a far bigger outcry about whether those were appropriate and what the code would be because most of them weren't put on foundations. they were just dragged out to

empty lots. they were combined together. sometimes lifted up off the ground even. so you'd find articles about that far more often than finding anybody having a problem with these cars which were actually pretty sturdy. we talk about they're used as public transportation all the time. they're made of some hefty material. so people weren't too worried about them. at least it doesn't come up with the historical records. >> do we have any left? and how are we recognizing and preserving them? >> well, there's that one left that's great that we saw the interior of. and that is not a city landmark. the guy who owns it is very aware of its significance as maybe the last and best example of a carville house. he really wants to take care of it. i don't know if he would go forward with any landmark designation just because like a lot of homeowners he doesn't want to be at all boxed in with what he can do. but that's kind of where we are. i think it is a landmark. if anything had to come up, i would definitely nominate it as

one. the other examples of carville houses, there's one on 47th avenue where the cars have been basically removed and all you've really got left is perhaps the floors of a couple of cars. it was a great example until, i guess, the late 1950's. and whoever bought house decided to take out most of the woodwork. that might be the only one, the one on great highway. >> i mentioned one of the problems with plumbing with these carville homes. i was wondering at what point in history did outhouses become illegal in san francisco? >> i'm not sure of that. but outhouses were the big part of carville. you see these early shots. there are outhouses like right next door. >> i found out, when i moved to my current house, my house had been moved from the reservoir site at holly park to where it was. there was a woman, this was 20 years allege, who had seen the move. she was a kid. she described it coming on a wagon, pulled by a mule. it was basically being breaked

by the mule. because it was coming down a hill. and that was just information in my neighborhood from a woman who had lived there for a long time as a kid. and the time is getting further and further away from when these existed. but i think the best thing is humans. and maybe tchutch societies that have senior members. >> yeah. no, if you go to almost -- almost all of our members -- we're a nonprofit organization. so we have a whole membership program. almost all of our members are these kind of people you're talking about. people who grew up in the city, are getting on in years and have these memories. they point us to a lot of other people, people that maybe aren't on the internet who live in their neighborhood. we interview them. if you go to outsideland.org, you'll see some examples of the interviews we do of the feedback we get, of the messages that these seniors post. when we have an issue like we're trying to find out about

earthquake cottages or carville, we do put out an all points bulletins to seniors who might have some relation to it, some memory of it. one reason we starteded this organization is the western neighborhoods -- started this organization is the western neighborhoods are the newer neighborhoods in san francisco. the creation and development is in the living memory of a lot of people still. so we want to start this organization and capture those memories before those people are gone. >> it's a really, really neat thing i think they're history minutes? >> yeah. one-minute videos where we give a little history of some building or site or event. >> we're in seal rock. this used to be adolph sutro's estate. these weren't there then. >> ♪ in the richmond guess i ain't that cool ♪ >> when i was a kid, my father told me those were machine gun

nests up there put in during world war ii to fend off japanese attackers. >> these two structures were build in 1943 by the u.s. army. also, these were spotting positions for the big post artillery gun batteries. the stations would work together. say win here and one at fort funston. using telescopes, they named a ship and target. and the two different sightings allowed them to trianglely position the ship at sea. >> so it was a lookout, essentially >> it was a lookout. >> i doubt if we saw a japanese ship today -- >> it would probably say toyota on the side of it. >> they are really fun. if shows you what can you do in

60 seconds. >> the pri sidot maps. people -- presidio maps. people keep forgetting that the army was a major presence. before the city was functioning, the army was functioning. and there are maps from the 1800's that show the farmhouses in the valley, the eureka valley, and mission district that were done by the army. so the army is its own resource for the history of the city before there was a building department. they would have everything. you could find out what was the original house in an area. again, this is the 1800's more than the 1900's. but the earthquake obliterated a lot of records. >> there's the survey map that the government did. that's a great resource to just kind of show -- you know, we saw that map on the grid pattern. they had that, like i said, on maps in 1968. but there's no streets yet.

but the coast survey map will show you where there are streets put in and buildings sometimes. there's lots of great resources out there. >> that was terrific, woody. thank you so much. >> i couldn't have enjoyed it more. [applause] >> we'll see you next >> good morning. my name is ann crone enberg, i'm director of emergency management here in the city of san francisco. i'm here dem, our role is really to prepare for large disasters, the disasters that happen every day, too. i'm very excited today to present a new idea that the sharing community in san francisco has come up to partner with us in preparing for disasters and in responding to and recovering quickly. last month we had a very good

drill mimicking a 7.8 earthquake. we fed 6,000 people in the tenderloin with no electricity. we had set up a shelter up at st. mark's. it was just an incredible day. and that's what working with our community partners with the faith-based community and with the sharing community. ~ so, when mayor lee came to us about six months ago with this idea to partner with the sharing community, we were very excited and we said yes. we had our first meeting, first of many figuring out how we can build a platform together to make it very simple for our residents in san francisco to be able to get the resources they need and to be able to connect in a disaster using the tools that already exist in the platform. so, on that note i'm going to introduce mayor ed lee who knows disasters like no one else.

he is the biggest supporter of our preparedness in san francisco and it's an honor to work for you, mr. mayor. >> thank you. thank you, ann. good morning, everybody. the good news this morning is that there's no city-wide disaster. but we take this opportunity to remind ourselves that everything that we can do ahead of time to better prepare for disaster is going to be incredibly beneficial to our residents, to our small businesses, even to our major businesses. and, so, i have been very glad to have been working with board president david chiu to be working on the working group that as we review and understand what these new companies are doing, the technologically oriented companies that are part of a share economy, get more people involved in the economy in general, and creating ideas about how people can participate. we came across a very great idea that as we go through more

exercises in our disaster preparedness, ann and her staff have been great at that. in fact, the last one i kind of had fun in, how do we feed 10,000 people in the middle of the tenderloin in a major erredthtion quake disaster. we walked through that. we saw how meals are served. we tried to do it in the proper way. ~ earthquake we know we're going to need a lot of help. the main message that we wanted to have was after a disaster hits, we want the message to be out before disaster, during a disaster, and right after, that we welcome everybody to participate in our recovery. and the best way to recover quickly and faster is we engage everybody immediately about how we can help and assist each other. and that's partly a philosophy of the sharing economy as well. and whether it's a need for space, people need to have space as they did in the aftermath of hurricane sandy,

or now in oklahoma, or whether they needed to get a car because their car was damaged, or they needed some repairs in their house, they're trying to relight the pilot in the stove and they didn't know how to do it. they can't find the big utilities enthralled in a great effort elsewhere. these sorts of things people can help each other and we can access the companies that are part of bay share and the share economy to get some help for people right away. it's all in the general effort that i want people of san francisco in every single neighborhood to know we want them here as part of the recovery, that they're not going elsewhere, we're not leaving them alone. we're not leaving them isolated. i learned that big lesson as myself and others who went with me to new orleans a few years back a couple years after their levees broke. we tried to understand the frustration of people in the ninth ward, and we kept getting

these testimonies. local government and the businesses didn't ask us to come back. they didn't register a note for us to want to recover with them immediately. i want that to be a philosophy that is so strong, not only with our inter faith community, but also with our businesses, with our residents. and so, we're tasking up for that already with dem's leadership by saying that companies who have already figured outweighs to share in the economy can also join us in the planning ~ of what we can do to bring residents back quicker. and if it means, like i read this morning, somebody who wants to donate mattresses to fire victims or any disaster victims in the city, they have that ability to do that through a website. my job is going to be to make sure we have the power on and the big stuff happening so that our companies can help us. so, we're figuring that out through the life lines council,

working with all the utilities and sharing information there. but today was about bringing companies, whether they're task rapid or air b and b or the car sharing companies together with us and not only brain storm, but plan for the event so we're already have the task -- we can practice that. we can actually practice this today and involve neighborhoods through s.f. car, all the wonderful programs that dem has set up, we can actually practice the sharing economy after an event happens today. and i think that will get people not only expecting to be here, wanting to be here, but know that they'll have help to be here, help on the ground, help in their small businesses, help in their neighborhoods. so, this is what bay share's operation and work with dem is going to be all about. this is why we have decided to welcome them onto the disaster council so that they can work with us on an ongoing basis,

work with all the other utilities, bring our small businesses into action in a major disaster. and we're already seeing those efforts across the country when air b and b experimented what they can do to help people find some space with all of their memberships. they immediately said, we've got to turn the fee side off of the website. we've got to get people going. people wanted to help. they actually wanted to help. and for the kind of philanthropic spirit we have in san francisco and the bay area, i think there will be a lot of people that want to help. they just need to have that medium to be able to connect up. so, working with bay share, we decided it's got to be one port at for that to happen so that you're not looking for different companies and what they're expert in. you just have to go to one portal, through the dem process, and we'll set that all up. and then you can access different tasks that people are willing to help you out on. i think this is incredibly helpful to us to have more people involved on the front

end of preparing for disaster so they can help the city recover quickly. this has been a philosophy that i have wanted to have in this city. i'm so proud of our dem and our bay share groups that come together today with all the other people who have been committed for many, many years, helping us even improve in what we do, we know we're going to be there for each other. we'll be there with resources, with skill sets, and with even a higher level of appreciation for everybody. so, great announcement. thank you to bay share and all the members for coming together to be with us and for your work on an ongoing basis to help the city prepare for disaster, recover quickly, and invite all the residents of the city to be part of it. thank you. (applause) >> thank you, mr. mayor. now it's my pleasure to introduce president david chiu who would like to say a few words. >> thank you so much. good morning. this announcement today is about how we best prepare being

ground zero. ground zero in a number of meanings. first of all, san francisco, we are ground zero when it comes to emergency preparedness. i want to thank the department of emergency management and all of the folks who as a community ensure that just as we had to recover after the 1906 fire just as we recovered after loma-prieta in 1989, we know that the big one will hit us with a certainty over the next 30 years and we have to be prepared. but san francisco is also ground zero for another wonderful phenomenon, and that is the sharing economy, the collaborative consumption movement that many of the folks here represent. i want to thank those of you who are innovating, thinking about how can we better use resources, how can we better share services, how can we ensure our housing, our transit, our tasks a shared among each other to maximize benefits for all our local communities. today obviously we are merging these two things, emergency preparedness and shared economy.

mayor mentioned hurricane katrina. before i became a supervisor i spent nine years running a technology company. a few years after hurricane katrina, i was asked with a national team to go visit new orleans to figure out what we needed to do to get literally hundreds of websites up for nonprofit and city agencies that were looking to provide help. and at that time it took us months longer than it needed to do for recoveries that still years later have not yet come to be. and from our perspective, today's announcement is really about how we take those months and years and compress them into hours and days. the fact that on top of our emergency preparedness, on top of our local volunteers and i want to thank our churches, i want to thank our nert volunteers, community members who are already prepared what we need to do when the next big one hits. account fact we are layering on top of our emergency innovators to think today how we prepare for the future, i've been excited about, gratified to work with mayor leon our sharable economy working group.

this is one of the outputs of that. and i look forward to many, many ways in which our community will learn how to share both before and after the next big one hits us. thank you very much. (applause) >> thank you, president chiu. milicent johnson is the leader of bay share and she's going to tell us a few things about bay share and how it came together. >> bay share is so thrilled to have the first of this kind partnership, to work with the city, and to really pitch in to help our hometown, the bay area, become stronger and more resilient. bay share is a collection of companies and stakeholders in the sharing economy who see the value of coming together, to pitch in, to start initiatives, to be a resource, and to collaborate with our city officials and our communities to help build a stronger community.

a more connected community is a more resilient community, and communities that are connected are communities that share. and, so, it's a natural partnership and a natural collaboration for us to work with our cities and the bay area to help build a stronger community. we are incredibly excited for our users to engage in department of emergency management initiatives. we are powered by the citizens of the bay area. whether they share cars, the city car share, or get around, share space through liquid space or para soma, or air b & b, or share stuff through yerdal, those are the people that come together and help each other in good times. those are the same people that are going to come together and help each other in disasters. and, so, we have a bunch of bay share members that are here and they have ideas for how they want to work with different

city departments and want to pitch in to help create a stronger bay area. our next speaker is actually going to give you a concrete example of one of our member really stepping up to the plate and helping to create a stronger bay area. thank you so much. (applause) >> thank you, milicent. next we have nate blajarzek, co-founder of air b & b. >> it was november of this past year when super storm sandy hit new york. it was an unprecedented event for the region. and in the midst of this disaster, we were really inspired by something we saw within our own community on air b & b. users of the air b & b platform were updating their profiles to say if you're a new yorker and you need a place to stay tonight, i'll take you into my

home, no money. and we started seeing this, and we were really inspired. and we asked ourselves, what can we do to promote this further? and so over the next couple days we sent e-mails to our community, encouraging others to open up their homes. and we fundamentally changed how our system worked. we did away with the concept of payments so people could open their homes for free. we did away with our service fees and we created a landing page to organize information and get the word out about what was available to those in need. and through those efforts, after several days, over 1400 homes were made available free of charge to the citizens of new york city. and looking back on that, we did a lot of good, but it also took a lot of work to organize. and i think if we had been a little bit more prepared, we could have done so much more. and, so, that's what today has been about, is starting a conversation with air b & b and

the other members of the sharing economy about how can we do some proactive thinking about leveraging the greater community to help come together and be organized in a time of need. for air b & b, we've taken that functionally it that we developed for hurricane sandy and we made it such we can deploy it next time within 30 minutes, whether it be here in san francisco or anywhere else around the world, to rally, to rally support and provide services. and, so, in closing i just want to thank our city leaders, mayor lee, president chiu, the department of emergency management, the bay share and the sharing economy companies for getting this dialogue started so that we're ready when it's needed. thank you. (applause) >> thank you, nate. and thank you all for coming. this has been a great day today.

we are going to get -- go back into our meeting and continue our dialogue, but mayor lee and president chiu and i believe nate and milicent also will be here to answer a few questions if you would like to. so, thank you all for coming. (applause)