captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> stahl: we were taken down excavated tunnels and shown one of the world's great archeological wonders in the holy city built atop an ancient waterway carved into the stone. >> the whole beginning of life in ancient jerusalem happened from this little spring which is nestled in this little cave. >> stahl: where diggers are unearthing thousands of years of history, sandbag by sandbag.

so why is this dig underground creating tension at street level and sparking horrifying incidents like this one earlier this month? >> yee-hah! >> pelley: it's a convention of sorts, a three-day campout for military veterans-- veterans who are homeless. >> come on down. >> pelley: nearly a thousand showed up, and among them, surprisingly, young vets, some just back from the war. >> how long have you been homeless? >> a few months, about six. >> i don't want to waste my life anymore. i'm tired of it. >> pelley: for thousands, coming home can mean no place to go. the troops that are going to come back from afghanistan and from iraq, is this country prepared for that? >> i don't think so. >> safer: you're about to see a remarkable footnote to history, a film made more than a hundred years ago on market street, san

francisco's main thoroughfare. teddy roosevelt was president then. life expectancy was 47 years for men, 50 for women. san francisco, closing in on its rendezvous with catastrophe. the odds are some of the people you see had just days to live. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and andy rooney tonight on "60 minutes." >> cbs money watch update sponsored by: >> mitchell: good evening. housing secretary shawn donovan said it's shameful sloppy foreclosure procedures may have made the housing crisis worse. donations to the nation's 400 biggest charities fell 11% last

year. and that movie about crazy stunts made $50 million at the box office. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

>> stahl: jerusalem is one of the holiest cities on earth for jews, for muslims, and for christians. it is also one of the most difficult issues at the negotiating table as palestinians and israelis struggle to continue the peace talks. the challenge is how to divide the city between the two sides. back in 2000, then-president clinton came up with some parameters for how to do it--

areas populated mostly by jews would remain israeli; those populated mostly by arabs would become the new palestinian capital. that meant that, for the most part, east jerusalem would go to the arabs. well, it's not so simple anymore. in the decade that's elapsed, more and more israeli settlers have moved east into the arab- populated areas. one place where it has gotten especially complicated-- and volatile-- is the arab neighborhood of silwan. the complication in silwan involves an israeli archeological dig called the city of david. go to jerusalem today, and you'll likely visit the city of david, one of the world's great archeological wonders, where diggers are sifting back through time. scores of workers, filling hundreds of buckets, unearthing thousands of years. >> doron spielman: this tunnel is 3,850 years old. >> stahl: and this was the way

it was? >> spielman: this is exactly original. look at these stones. you can even see the chisel marks on the walls. >> stahl: doron spielman is the site's international director of development. >> spielman: this is the original old flooring. these are more ritual baths or water cisterns. >> stahl: he led us down to an ancient waterway carved out of the hard stone. >> spielman: the whole beginning of life in ancient jerusalem happened from this little spring which is nestled in this little cave. >> stahl: we were taken down excavated tunnels no human eye has seen for two millennia and shown the process of removing the layers of history, sandbag by sandbag, from when the city was sacked by the romans, and before them, the babylonians. this was the first time i'd ever done an interview in a canaanite fortress. so this structure was here when abraham was here. >> spielman: that's right. he saw it with his own eyes. >> stahl: he saw this. >> spielman: he saw this. >> stahl: that's a bit of a stretch-- archeologists tell us that no one has found any evidence that abraham was ever

here. it's controversial that the city of david uses discoveries to try to confirm what's in the bible, particularly from the time of david, the king who made jerusalem his capital. >> spielman: people believe that when king david captured the city, he snuck underground through this tunnel, which led him underneath the city wall up into the city. >> stahl: half a million tourists visit the site every year with guides who try to bring king david to life. there's an implicit message that, because david conquered the city for the jews back then, jerusalem belongs to the jews today. today, i've seen scores and scores of soldiers coming through. >> spielman: it's part of their cultural day to try to learn about what they're fighting for. and when we bring them here, they understand that they're not just fighting for today; they actually represent the return of the jewish people to israel after thousands of years. >> stahl: so archeology is being used as a political tool. i mean, i hate to use the word, but "indoctrination" almost.

>> spielman: i wouldn't call it indoctrination; i would call it giving meaning to life, giving meaning to why we're here. >> stahl: but for all the talk of king david, one thing is glaringly missing here at the city of david. there's actually no evidence of david, right? >> spielman: there's no doubt that this is the city of david from the bible. there's no doubt that the bible took place here. proof of david himself, until we find the actual name, we can't say. >> stahl: another problem is an inconvenient truth-- that biblical jerusalem is not located in the western half of the city. it's right under the densely populated arab neighborhood of silwan. and according to the clinton parameters, silwan should be part of a palestinian state. to remedy that, organizations that move jewish settlers into arab areas have infiltrated silwan. under heavy security, a group of settlers live in this seven- story building. they've barricaded themselves in and refuse to leave.

with some 450 jews living among tens of thousands of arabs, silwan is now at the center of the battle to keep all of jerusalem under israeli control. so how does the city of david tie into this? well, while a government agency oversees the excavations, the dig and the site are largely funded and run by something called el'ad. doron speilman works for el'ad, which claims they're not a settlers' organization, though people we spoke to say they are. >> spielman: i think that it would be correct to call us an organization who believes deeply in the history of jerusalem. >> stahl: so it's all archaeology? >> spielman: archaeology and rebuilding a jewish neighborhood. >> stahl: so el'ad is doing archaeology and settlements? >> spielman: we are doing archaeology, and we are buying homes and buying land. >> stahl: but is it el'ad's goal to ease the arabs away from right where we are right now? >> spielman: put it this way-- if there's a home that an arab

wants to sell and i have the money to buy it, and i can move... enable a jewish family to live there, and i can dig archaeologically underneath it, then i think that's a wonderful thing to do. >> stahl: the arabs say it's a provocative thing to do. devout jews yonatan and devorah adler live in one of the houses el'ad bought. el'ad has raised tens of millions of dollars, half from the united states, and buys these homes on land the palestinians claim for a future state. the adlers raise their six kids here, on the actual dig. >> yonatan adler: the city of david is where jerusalem began. this is where prophets walked. this is where half of the bible was written. this is what we're talking about. >> stahl: and yet, when... when you see those maps, it's over in the palestinian side. >> yonatan adler: yeah. well, maps are written on paper; this is written on our hearts. >> stahl: but it is one of the proposals on the table. >> yonatan adler: i'll tell you, jerusalem cannot be divided.

jews would never allow it. >> stahl: the adlers say they don't mind living behind gates and having guards on their roof. they would never consider leaving. but you're like a soldier on the front line. >> devorah adler: i don't think we see ourselves as soldiers at all. we see ourselves as everyday regular people, living in a very, very special place. >> stahl: palestinian jawad siyam was born in this very, very special place, and says he can trace his roots here back 930 years. he's pessimistic about the palestinians ever having their own state. what will happen to this village if there's a two-state solution? >> jawad siyam: i don't think there will be a two-state solution. that's not possible to do it. today, they... the settler groups are much stronger than before. the settler groups in jerusalem, they are controlling. >> stahl: he's angry that el'ad bought his grandmother's house and moved a number of jewish families in, so he's become an activist leader in silwan, where there has been a string of escalating confrontations.

in this protest, at the city of david, jawad got into a shouting match with a site worker behind a gate. >> siyam: you will be the rubbish of the history. there is no proof that king david was here. you want to take our land. >> stahl: some of the incidents have become violent, like this one, just nine days ago. boys were throwing stones at passing cars. watch what happens next as two of the boys get hit by one of the cars. the driver was, of all people, the head of el'ad. he later went to the police and said he hadn't stopped because he felt his life was in danger. both boys survived, one with a broken leg. fighting often erupts here with israeli guards brought in to protect the settlers. >> siyam: clashes are daily inside silwan between the villagers and settlers and the gun guards for the security there. >> stahl: the government pays for the gun guards? >> siyam: it's tax money. it's... i pay it. everyone who is paying taxes is paying it. >> stahl: you pay taxes and that

money goes to pay for the guards to guard the settlers. >> siyam: yes, of course. >> stahl: so you're helping guard the settlers. >> siyam: yeah, i'm a fan of the settlers and the gun guards. >> stahl: jawad says that el'ad uses the dig's archeological prestige to hide its aim of moving the locals out. and he believes that the tunneling is a way for el'ad to extend its reach deeper into silwan. they think you're digging under their houses. >> spielman: it does, at points, go underneath homes, deep underneath the ground, which is why we have these metal supports around us. >> stahl: but it's under arab homes. >> spielman: it's under jewish homes, arab homes, and a road. what concerns these residents, lesley, is not the tunnel. it's where the tunnel's going. it's what the tunnel means that concerns them. >> stahl: well, where's the tunnel going? >> spielman: the tunnel, one day, will open into the western wall plaza. then, you will have undergone an experience that shows the jewish temple was important 600 years before muhammad. >> stahl: to understand why this is so explosive, you have to understand the geography.

silwan lies in the shadow of some of the holiest sites in the world-- judaism's western wall, and islam's dome of the rock and al-aqsa mosque. there's a feeling of encroachment. the arabs feel it. >> spielman: there's no other place in the world that jews want to live in more than here. the arabs have mecca, the have medina, and they may also be interested in jerusalem. but for the jews, this is our only home. >> stahl: that feeling of jewish encroachment has been heightened by the mayor of jerusalem, nir barkat, who is doing all he can to make sure east jerusalem remains under israeli sovereignty. >> nir barkat: we have to maintain a united jerusalem. >> stahl: the mayor brought us to a hilltop over silwan to show us his latest project, called king's garden. >> barkat: this is the most important area in the world. >> stahl: in the whole world? >> barkat: definitely. and in the valley right there below us is where king's garden was. >> stahl: he wants to create a bible-themed garden and turn it

into a tourist park adjacent to the city of david. but as with the dig, the local arabs see this as another attempt to gobble up their side of jerusalem. building the mayor's park requires demolishing 22 arab homes in silwan. if you began to demolish these houses, it would be explosive, wouldn't it? >> barkat: that's why you have to be very smart and sensitive dealing with an area so important in the city of jerusalem. >> stahl: he says that area is a slum in which the houses were built illegally, and his plan will fix that. but the locals want to stay in their homes. i heard you wanted to evict people. where are those houses? >> barkat: that's just not true. >> stahl: well, wait, but if you make a park, then those houses can't be there anymore. >> barkat: they mustn't have been there in the first place. >> stahl: yeah, but so... so you will evict. you will evict. >> barkat: not evict. when you improve their quality of life, the right word to say is that you're dealing with

improvement of quality of life. >> stahl: his park, he says, will upgrade the area, and he'll allow the people who'll be evicted to build new houses nearby. but locals tell us the only way to do that would be to build on top of other homes in silwan. the european union, the united nations has criticized this plan to get rid of these 22 homes. public opinion, especially while the peace talks are under way, is looking at this and saying you're trying to get rid... move arabs out of jerusalem. >> barkat: that's not true. >> stahl: but that's the way it looks. and my question is, why not wait until the peace talks are settled? >> barkat: lesley, the facts are wrong. those structures are illegal. they're sitting on an area that the world... the world wants to be part of a city that's flourishing, that is clean, that is beautiful. so what i'm saying here is get your facts right before you bash israel, before you bash jerusalem. >> stahl: but my question was, why now? that's the question. >> barkat: what do you mean, why now? >> stahl: because it's on the

table at the peace talks. that's why now. >> barkat: lesley, listen, i'm committed to bring more tourism to the city of jerusalem. now, this plan is a plan that i started a year and a half ago. >> barkat: you say that jerusalem must never be divided. but most of the rest of the world says that if you want peace, that may be the price that you have to pay. >> barkat: lesley, it's not going to work. you have to understand that, for a city to be functional, to increase tourism, to be able to see the sites that you've seen, it has to be a united city. >> stahl: meanwhile, in the city of david, the excavations are continuing in full force. you can say they're digging in. settlements have been a stumbling block in peace negotiations of the past. and what your organization is dedicated to doing could become the stumbling block again. >> spielman: we are looking, lesley, to go down and uncover history.

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>> pelley: one weekend a year, nearly a thousand military veterans assemble in a camp in san diego. what brings them is what they have in common-- they're all homeless. the vets gather for something called stand down, started in 1988 by a solider turned psychologist named jon nachison. then, it was an emergency response to homelessness among vietnam vets, but 23 years later, nachison is welcoming the generation from iraq and afghanistan. stand down is a three-day campout that's part jobs fair,

part health clinic, part sobriety meeting. the name is a military term for the time when a solider can put down his weapon and stop fighting. the homeless go for a shot at redemption. we went to understand why so many people who've served their country find coming home so hard. >> hey, good morning, you guys. how you guys doing? we're going to have a great stand down this year. >> pelley: it's a friday morning in july. jon nachison is greeting his troops-- homeless vets and their families-- who'd waited all night to get in. >> jon nachison: we're going to open the gates. let's do it. >> pelley: they were literally a battalion-- 947 men, women and children. >> good morning, sir. welcome to stand down. we'd like to give you a breakfast bag and something to drink. >> nachison: when people come in, they're instantly transported back to the military, a time when they wore the uniform, where they were proud, where they were walking tall. >> pelley: you want them to

remember a time in life when they were proud of themselves. >> nachison: i want to evoke that person in them. >> pelley: nachison does that by putting them inside a military- style base on a san diego high school athletic field-- 30 tents erected by marines from nearby camp pendleton. here, there was hot chow, warm showers, clean clothes and fresh hope. so, who can you save? >> nachison: people can save their self; i can't save anybody. >> pelley: you don't expect a miracle to happen when they came here for three days. >> nachison: oh, i do. >> pelley: you do? >> nachison: i do. >> ready, sir? step forward. >> pelley: the chance at that miracle came with over 3,000 volunteers who helped the vets check into v.a. benefits and look into jobs. there was medical care, dental care... >> please remain seated and come to order. court is in session. >> pelley: ...and even a court where they could clear tickets for loitering or sleeping on the street. >> the matters that are

currently pending are dismissed with people's motion. >> thank you, your honor. >> your welcome. >> pelley: why are these people on the street? >> nachison: there must be some gap that exists between military service and becoming a civilian. you're told what to wear, you know, you're given everything, and then suddenly, you've lost your entire family, you've lost your identity. >> pelley: you think some people fall through that gap between military life and civilian life? >> nachison: and for some people, it's a chasm. >> okay, mr. worley. >> pelley: it was a chasm for charles worley, who served with the marines in iraq. he's still in the reserves, subject to being recalled. we mistook him for a volunteer until we heard this. >> how long have you been homeless? >> charles worley: a few months, about six. >> have a good weekend. >> pelley: worley left the marines in 2008 and joined the great recession. like everyone at stand down, he had his service record verified by the v.a., then he was assigned to one of the tents

that go by the names alpha, bravo, charlie, and so on. delta tent was worley's first home in a long time. where did you sleep the night before you came here? >> worley: in old town park down in san diego. >> pelley: he hadn't imagined that leaving a war could be risky. >> worley: i got used to the structure and was having a hard time adapting to civilian life, because if you change commands or you move from job to job in the marine corps, they give you a checklist. >> pelley: life gets pretty simple. >> worley: yeah, it's pretty simple. it's... you know, i turn... they say "turn right," you turn right as fast as you can without bumping the guy next to you. you know, i didn't have a checklist when i got out. >> pelley: without a checklist, worley burned through the combat pay he'd saved before he looked for a job. turns out, unemployment among these young returning veterans is double the national rate, about 20%. the v.a. tells us that, already, there are more than 9,000 iraq and afghanistan vets living on the street. charles, what's it like out there living as a homeless man?

>> worley: as sad as it is to say, i've gotten good at being homeless. when you have two pairs of jeans, a pair of shorts, and three shirts, and you don't have any money to wash them, after a while, the... you... you start to smell, and you know you smell. and so you try... i just try to what... try to avoid people. >> pelley: so you keep moving? >> worley: yes, sir. >> pelley: it's a familiar story for jon nachison, who, as a clinical psychologist, has been working with vets for almost 30 years. it's a new generation of homeless veterans. >> nachison: it is. this group is becoming homeless quicker than the vietnam veteran. vietnam vets came back, it took about eight to ten years before we started really seeing them on the street, homeless. this group is coming back, and within a year, they're ending up on the street. and my best hunch is that, for many of them, it's these redeployments again and again. >> pelley: over the last nine years, 800,000 troops have been redeployed-- sent back to combat at least once. >> pelley: getting redeployed

two, three, four, even five times, why does that make a difference? >> nachison: when you go back and you are re-traumatized, it also brings up all the old stuff. go back again, and it layers over the top of that. and so now, we're getting to the point where it's going to be difficult for the person to function. >> pelley: two million troops have already served in iraq and afghanistan. the v.a. believes there could be thousands more homeless, in part, because of the combat stress and brain injuries that roadside bombs inflict. already, a quarter of a million troops have asked for mental health treatment. the troops that are going to come back from afghanistan and from iraq, is this country prepared for that? >> nachison: i don't think so. >> pelley: saturday morning, we met marguerite somers and learned about something else that's new. there are more women among homeless vets, because women now make up 14% of our forces.

somers is a former sailor who served until 1999, and she too had trouble making that transition from military to civilian life. shortly after getting out of the navy, she got divorced and began drinking. now, homeless three months, she's desperate for help with her alcoholism and meth abuse. >> marguerite somers: i have more potential than that, and i don't want to waste my life anymore. i'm tired of it. and this has given me new hope. >> pelley: you said that you'd lost everything and your family. >> somers: i lost my son a year ago because of my abuse issues. i owned a home-- i lost that. i lost my family's support, i lost my job. wound up with a bunch of legal issues. you know, i was facing prison time. just nothing good came out of it. >> pelley: addiction is a big reason some vets remain on the street for years. >> my name is woody, and i'm an alcoholic and a combat veteran. >> my name's eddie...

>> pelley: it's part of the deal at stand down that they come to the meetings that might be the first step to recovery. the best shot at rehab attracted marguerite somers to this tent. it was a chance to go to veterans village of san diego, which sponsors stand down. veterans village is an $8 million a year program, much of it funded by the v.a. it offers nearly a year of inpatient rehab. but it's overwhelmed. funding is limited, and they were taking applications to choose only 68 patients out of the 947 at stand down. >> do you want to get clean? >> yes, ma'am. >> pelley: they were looking for people who seemed motivated. somers wouldn't find out whether she made the cut until the next day, sunday. as we walked around the camp, we found some of the reasons that homelessness among vets is a chronic problem, with a quarter of a million on the streets last year. a lot of it is addiction and

debilitating illness. bill yarling was more typical of those at stand down. older, an army medic in the 1980s, he been disabled by years of epileptic seizures. here, yarling knew what no one else could see-- that the solider inside hadn't surrendered. he washed off a year of homelessness and, if nothing else, enjoyed a cease-fire from the struggle on the street. >> bill yarling: it's hard to explain. it really is. but it just makes you feel better about yourself. >> pelley: you get back in touch with... >> yarling: you get back in touch with reality. >> pelley: ...the person you were before you were homeless. >> yarling: exactly. and as you can tell, i did, you know? but... it's not easy living on the streets, okay? >> pelley: yarling came looking for housing, but he found what charles worley discovered. sometimes, the programs don't match the need.

>> worley: no, i have a bed problem. i need somewhere to sleep, and if telling them i have an alcohol problem gets me a place to sleep, i will sit through the a.a. meetings and the classes so i can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about anything. >> pelley: worley and yarling couldn't get into available housing because they don't need rehab. there are other programs that provide housing for thousands of vets, but they cover about 20% of the homeless. >> worley: so, we've just wasted our time, haven't we? >> pelley: stand down can't track a thousand homeless vets, so there's really no way to know how many might have picked up a lead on a job or a home, or how many decided, finally, to stick to their recovery meetings. what we could count were those chosen to go into that veterans village inpatient rehab program. sunday morning, the vets came in one at a time, and most heard there was no room for them. >> marguerite. >> pelley: marguerite somers, who had no place to go, came in next.

>> you followed through this weekend, and we think you'd be a great candidate. >> somers: yes. i made it. >> pelley: why do you think you can do it now? >> somers: i know i have that hope restored in me. and i have the resources. and i just know that's what i need to do now. and i want it for myself, you know. i'm done living like this. >> nachison: all right, we need everybody in this picture. come on, now, everybody in this picture. >> pelley: sunday afternoon... >> all right, ready? yee-haw. >> pelley: ...stand down ended with what they call graduation. >> come on down. left, right, kilo. >> pelley: they marched with military pride for one last shot of self-esteem. ( cheering ) bill yarling raised the flag for bravo tent; charles worley for delta.

( applause ) >> so let's have everybody in the circle now. >> pelley: they joined hands in a closing prayer. ( cheers and applause ) >> pelley: then, it was time to leave. and when you see them leave, you think what? >> nachison: it's hard. it's like, you know, god speed, you know. and there's so much that people need to do to be able to... to reach that escape velocity from... from being homeless. i hope that they get it. i hope that they have it. >> pelley: recently, the v.a. set a goal of ending homelessness among vets in five years. the government will spend a billion dollars next year on housing and rehab. but the 23rd annual stand down turned out to be the largest ever. >> this is just great. >> pelley: marguerite somers was among 68 who drove to rehab,

while 879 others, including bill yarling and charles worley, picked up their burdens to rejoin their battles. fresh troops fell in with a column that spans generations. man: everybody knows you should save for retirement, but what happens when you're about to retire? woman: how do you go from saving to spending? fidelity helped us get to this point, and now we're talking about what comes next. man: we worked together to create a plan to help our money last. woman: so we can have the kind of retirement we want. now, you know how this works. just stay on the line. oh, yeah. fidelity investments. turn here. ♪ [ ballad ] ♪ they ♪ asked me how i knew ♪ my true love was true

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,,,, bob ehrlich says he wants to fix maryland. but he increased state spending by record amounts. ehrlich raised $3 billion in taxes and fees... including property taxes... and a 40% increase in college tuition. and now he's made over $1 billion in new promises... with no plans to pay for them... except for cutting education. cuts that will lay off teachers and increase class sizes. that's not a budget. and bob ehrlich's not the kind of leader... we can trust. cooked numbers, false attacks. the truth? frank kratovil is ranked one of the 10 most independent members of congress. frank kratovil does not follow

anybody's party line he looks at his district, his family, the community, and that's the important thing to him. endorsed by the chamber of commerce, the nra, veterans, and police officers. as a career prosecutor i made decisions on facts not politics, in washington i've tried to do the same. i'm frank kratovil and i approve this message. >> safer: you're about to see a remarkable footnote to history, a film made more than a hundred years ago on market street, san francisco's main thoroughfare. in fascinating detail, it shows how people lived and traveled and dressed in what was then, as now, the golden city of the american west. the film is well known to historians.

but who made it? and why? and most important, exactly when? for a century, time, like the fog that blankets san francisco, has shrouded the answers. but now we know. the film is a time traveler's glimpse of a joyous city on the brink of disaster. our trip into the past begins on a san francisco streetcar built in 1895. >> rick laubscher: it still comes out once in awhile and carries passengers down the main street. it looks just like a cable car because it was built by the people who built the cable cars. >> safer: our tour guide is rick laubscher of the market street railway, a non-profit group that keeps the city's vintage trolleys rolling. >> laubscher: this is the main artery of san francisco and always has been.

>> safer: market street is three miles long, 120 feet wide-- the beating heart of the city since the days of the gold rush. >> laubscher: this is where the original film started, right here, about 8th street. >> safer: right here is where the past comes alive, thanks to a camera mounted on the front of a cable car a century ago, catching glimpses of fashion, faces, and the helter-skelter of city traffic-- horses, trolley cars, and that new devil's own invention, the motor car. >> laubscher: rolling, you can see when people turn to look at the camera. it was really the shock of the new. can you imagine? here comes this contraption down the street with these guys hand- cranking this camera furiously. >> safer: others had made films of san francisco, starting in the 1890s. but this cameraman had the good sense to simply turn it on and leave it on. when you saw that film, what did you make of the people, the newsboys, the cars, the horses,

everything all happening at once right here on the tracks? >> laubscher: yeah. i mean, you can see the people would circulate wildly. and they're just kind of wandering across the street. you have these huge drays led by teamsters with four, sometimes eight horses hauling along. >> safer: and it seems, watching the film, that there were absolutely no traffic rules. >> laubscher: it seems like it. i mean, sort of, people... it was optional to stay to the right. but you know, it seemed to be honored in the breach. people will tell you today that market street is still that way. >> safer: looking back a century from the same spot on the same street is an eerie sight. teddy roosevelt was president then. life expectancy was 47 years for men, 50 for women, most of whom still couldn't vote. and no one-- man, woman or child-- went out without a hat. the last few blocks of market street today-- banks and

brokers. it's wall street west. a century ago, the wholesale district, offering coffee, tea and spices, a time when a decent salary was $400 a year. a time reborn on film. >> rick prelinger: it's left us an astonishing record, the likes of which we rarely see. >> safer: film archivist and historian rick prelinger owns the clearest of the three surviving copies of the film. >> prelinger: this is over 100 years old, but the image quality is just absolutely excellent. >> safer: how fragile is this? >> prelinger: extremely. >> safer: this is a digitally restored, high definition copy, seen here for the first time on television. what is it that moves us so when we see something like this? >> prelinger: it's uncanny, first off, to see something

that's so old-- in almost an alternate universe, really. i love when the little kid, in the carriage ahead of the streetcar, and opens up that curtain and peeks out. and then, at the very, very end, the streetcar turns around. and you have a glimpse of newsboys looking at the camera and waving, just for a few frames. it dazzles audiences. people applaud this film. >> safer: it ends here, at the ferry building on san francisco bay. the movie is a small gem about a much larger gem-- this magnificent city on the hills. but it's more even than that-- it's a mystery; a mystery quite literally ripped, as they say, from the headlines of the past. >> david kiehn: it just seemed like it was an important enough film that something must have been written about it someplace. see him?

and why not try to figure it out? i'm like that. >> safer: david kiehn is another movie historian, a man obsessed with unlocking the secrets of the market street film, who spent days, weeks, months at the san francisco library, scanning old newspapers for clues. judging from the state of the construction on the various buildings along the way, the library of congress had dated the film to september of 1905. screening it over and over, kiehn wasn't so sure. >> kiehn: there's some water between the tracks, there. reflection. >> safer: the film showed puddles from a recent rain. but the san francisco newspapers from september, 1905, showed no rain at all. >> kiehn: clear. zero precipitation. >> safer: more clues came from the surprising number of cars. there were only a few thousand of them in the whole country in those days.

and it appears the drivers on market street were recruited to fill up the screen, circling around the camera to make the city look more lively. was that one of the car registrations you were able to identify? >> kiehn: yes, that's j. barry anway, who was a chauffeur... >> safer: kiehn checked old car licenses and registration records, and discovered the chauffeur's car-- number 4867-- was registered in january, 1906. another one, number 5057, registered in february of 1906, suggesting the film was made sometime after that. kiehn went back to the 1906 newspapers and found... >> kiehn: starting around mid- march and going to the end of the month, there was quite a bit of rain. >> safer: enough to account for the puddles, and to push the likely time the film was made into april, 1906.

on april 18, 1906-- as depicted in this painting-- the great san francisco earthquake struck. it and the subsequent fire killed thousands. was there a eureka moment when you said, "aha, it was not 1905. it was spring of 1906"? >> kiehn: well, certainly, seeing the "new york clipper" articles, that was the... i think the defining moment. >> safer: the "new york clipper" was a show biz paper where actors, jugglers, songwriters, and movie makers advertised their wares, and where kiehn found a series of ads from the miles brothers, filmmakers offering movie houses a travelogue called "a trip through market street." this ad from april 28, 1906-- ten days after the quake. >> kiehn: we have the only pictures of any value ever made

in san francisco before the frightful catastrophe. >> safer: this strongly suggests that the film was made just before the earthquake? >> kiehn: yeah. well, it actually spells it out exactly right here. this film was made just one week before the complete destruction of every building shown in the picture. >> safer: new research this summer confirmed that. kiehn had stripped away the haze of history to show us the real story behind "the trip through market street," san francisco closing in on its rendezvous with catastrophe. the odds are some of the people you see had just days to live. when you look at that film, all you can think of is what was about to happen. >> laubscher: it takes on a power that is almost

inconceivable, because you can look at the buildings and know with certainty that almost all disappeared. you can look at the people on the street and wonder who survived. you're watching a shade fall over an era. >> safer: this is market street after the quake and fire. among the buildings destroyed-- the offices of the miles brothers. their film of san francisco in happier days barely survived. they'd shipped it to new york by train just the night before the quake. >> scott miles: knowing that it was our relatives that did that, we were very proud. >> safer: scott miles and his uncle dwayne are descendants of earl miles, the man who supervised the filming. they have one of his cameras and a family album of still pictures the miles brothers took of the damage and the city's refugees. but they never knew the miles brothers made the market street

film until david kiehn uncovered the story. >> scott miles: david kiehn just produced so much wonderful information for us, and we're astounded. >> safer: what is it about "the trip down market street"? why do you think people are so moved by it? >> scott miles: i just see the people there, and they don't know what's about to hit them. and you can't help but feel for them. >> dwayne miles: it's just how vulnerable we are, you know? >> safer: as for the man who figured it all out, he was armed only with a computer, the internet, and an incurable curiosity. >> kiehn: here's some film that we found up in the projection booth. >> safer: kiehn understands well the strange power of images from the past. in the california town of niles- - a throwback itself to a gentler age-- kiehn runs a theater devoted to silent films. charlie chaplin himself made movies in niles, and watched them in this very room where,

this night, the film to which david kiehn gave new meaning, "a trip through market street," is the star attraction. >> kiehn: that's the beauty of film. it captures something that nobody today has seen anymore. it makes a connection. young and old, they still react with amazement to it. ( applause ) >> safer: and 30 miles across san francisco bay, the ferry building still welcomes travelers, and market street-- a century later-- rolls on and on. >> this is the cbs sports update presented by viagra. i'm james brown in new york with sports from around the nfl today.

new england overcomes a ten-point deficit to win in overtime. ben roethlisberger throws three touchdown passes in his victorious return. the vikings hold on to beat dallas, while kevin kolb throws for three touches as the eagles fly. miami goes down 3-0 on the road, and the jets make it five straight. more news on cbssports.com. [ male announcer ] you're at the age

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letters that say i've done something well better than letters that call me an ignorant idiot. i get some of those, too, of course. scottie casey from austin, texas, wrote, "i am a huge fan of you and your work! i think you are the most talented and creative writer on the planet! you are the reason why i watch '60 minutes'." well, thank you, scottie. i wish you hadn't finished your letter by asking for an autographed picture of me. it makes me wonder if you really meant what you said. i tell a lot of people who ask for my autograph that if i send a picture or an autograph, you'll be the first one. and you'd be the first one, scottie! a nice but strange letter from carol vivona, in hackensack, new jersey. she writes, "we look forward to your commentary every week. many times, people who have written to you make comments about your eyebrows. i think they're cute and match your personality." carol, thank you. you're the first person who ever

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