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Rudyard Kipling (1865-1935) http://tinyurl.com/Kipling

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Kearney Street

From Kipling In California, [Thomas Pinney, editor] 1889.

Reader: Wm Leslie Howard

You're probably familiar with San Francisco's reputation as a city of style and elan. But did you know that even in the rough-edged nineteenth century, the one-time Spanish presidio already offered a well-established theatre of fashion?

In an 1889 reflection on his travels to California, English poet Rudyard Kipling recalls with fascination the enticing, and oddly democratic, elegance of San Francisco's Kearney Street.

Night fell over the Pacific, and the white sea-fog whipped through the streets, dimming the splendours of the electric lights. It's the use of this city, her men and women, to parade between the hours of eight and ten a certain street, called Kearney Street, where the finest shops are situated. Here the click of heels on the pavement is loudest, here the lights are brightest, and here the thunder of traffic is most overwhelming. I watched Young California, and saw it was at least expensively dressed, cheerful in manner, and self-asserting in conversation. Also, the women are very fair. The maidens were of generous build, large, well-groomed and attired in raiment that even my inexperienced eyes must have cost much. Kearney Street, at nine o'clock levels all distinctions of rank as impartially as the grave.

Kipling, who had originally traveled to San Francisco to pitch a manuscript to The Chronicle, published many novels and poems, one of the most famous 1901's children's story The Jungle Book.

–Contributed by Michael Lysaght.