Sometimes Mapquest isn't enough. This coffee-table book of historical maps begins in 1776 with José de Cañizares' hand-colored plan of San Francisco Bay with the ocean and bay littorals outlined in emerald green. The many cartographic examples that follow show the evolving geographical, topographical and human environment that turned the sandy, wind-buffeted peninsula into an instant trading center, thanks to the Gold Rush, then into a beloved (unless you work for Fox News) metropolis. Detailed street plans from the 1840s and '50s reveal how much of the city's downtown was erected on bay fill. Some of the maps are illustrations as much as they are street guides. Charles B. Gifford's 1862 eagle's-eye panorama from Russian Hill depicts individual houses, commercial buildings and a bay full of three-masted scooners; even the smoke from factories is visible. The colored lithograph of 1878 by Currier & Ives looks from across the bay to the burgeoning city, with the great diagonal of Market Street running like an arrow to the west. An overhead view features the buildings of the 1893-94 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park, including an Eiffel Tower replica. Most intriguing are the urban-improvement plans drawn up in 1904-05 by architect Daniel Burnham, which called for widening streets and creating great avenues converging on civic plazas in the Parisian manner. Ironically, the plans were presented in mid-April 1906, just days before the earthquake started the demolition work. Burnham's plan was eventually abandoned, because civic leaders called it too expensive and time-consuming as the city rushed to rebuild. In addition to its visual appeal, the book's text by architecture writer Sally Woodbridge provides many insights about how the city grew.

Review by Michael S. Gant

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