Observed on a walk-about San Francisco, curious antique objects and their preservation, or lack of. I stumbled across this diorama-like recreation at an unused entranceway to the San Francisco Chronicle building (at least, I think that’s what this building was.) It was Herb Caen’s office frozen in time, with his old typewriter preserved under glass.
Nearby I found this old somewhat vandalized fire alarm call box and wondered if these are still active and in use, or if they’ve been taken over by the near ubiquity of mobile phones to call in emergencies.
Why do I blog this? No nonsense observations about objects that become deactivated and their continuing role as socialized intermediaries that continue to relate to distant cousins, in this case, the mobile phone as emergency callbox, and the keyboard — or, more generally, networked computer.