From the top of The Hamilton, O'Farrell St.

 One of the ladies with us was old enough to remember that in the old days ladies wore dresses, hats and gloves--'white gloves'--when they went downtown, and the men wore suits and ties. "You wouldn't go anywhere near downtown without being well-dressed," the older lady said, who remembered always wearing white gloves as a child when she went downtown.

Our host, a resident of The Hamilton on O'Farrell Street in The Tenderloin, said that Bette Davis once lived in the penthouse and had an affair there. Clark Gable stayed in the building when it was a hotel, as did Louis Armstrong.

Standing on the 11th floor patio at The Hamilton on an early spring afternoon in 2012, one can look in all directions and see how San Francisco is now and imagine how it once was.