I have seen the original Market Street 13-minute film and was quite impressed by it documenting the daily life of a busy San Francisco street days before the great earthquake.
But Adrianne Finelli's scanning of the film for Internet Archive is simply mind-blowing. Combined with Denis Shiryaev's upscaling and colorization, which is uploaded on YouTube, and you swear you are actually on the street car watching San Fran's life burst right in front of you.
What's so fascinating about the movie is the street life unfolding and captured by the filmmakers, the four Miles brothers. There are no traffic lights at any intersection, yet the combination of electric streetcars, the newly invented automobile, horse and buggy carriages, bicyclists and pedestrians on foot are all in synch as they cut across each other and amble on their way to conduct their business. Apparently there were a handful of motorized personal cars that continuously circled around the camera to make it appear traffic was a lot more chaotic than it really was. But it's still amazing to see these early internal combustion engine vehicles dodging all the obstacles in front of them.
Sad that in a few days many of the fine buildings seen here were destroyed by the earthquake and the resulting fires of that fateful April 18th, 1906 day. Over 3,000 people perished in the early morning earthquake/fires, and quite possibly there are several captured on the Miles' film that were listed on the deceased rolls. Such a reminder makes the trip down Market Street all the more poignant.