Just as we celebrate the Bay Bridge's 75th anniversary, we look ahead at the modern engineering marvels that are making a new, state-of-the-art bridge a reality for 2013. The Bay Bridge is just one example of how looking to the past can influence change for the future. This year, as part of its "Seminars About Long-term Thinking" series, the Long Now Foundation is screening Lost Landscapes of San Francisco at the Castro Theatre.
Rick Prelinger, the archivist, writer, and filmmaker who co-founded the Prelinger Library with his wife, will show the sixth installment of his lost landscapes screenings. The feature-length program is made up of clips culled from home movies, amateur footage, studio outtakes, and industrial films, all of which show the splendor of San Francisco as it appeared in the 1920s and 1930s. Lose yourself in the back streets of working-class North Beach, wander through the desert-like Sunset before dunes were covered over, and imagine what it was like to have an amusement park across from Ocean Beach a la the city's long forgotten Playland.
Long Now's intention is to instigate dialogue inspired by this alluring imagery to examine the city as it was, as it is today, and what it could become in the future. Come prepared for a lively discussion.
$10; Thursday, Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m.; Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., longnow.org
