Many San Franciscans would be surprised to learn that the beautiful and iconic Palace of Fine Arts in the City's Marina District is actually a 1965 replica of the original from the 1915 Exposition.

Us kids, roaming around San Francisco in the early '60s, often played at the old Palace. It was in terrible shape, actually rotting away with the poor quality burlap and plaster finish falling off the wood lath beneath. It had never been intended to last longer than the expo and wasn't permanent.

Fortunately, San Francisco couldn't let it go and so they completely rebuilt the Palace on site in permanent materials.

Here's a photo by Kevin Cole:

I am very interested in menswear, especially business wear, and it is fascinating to me how contemporary the fellow in this photo looks. The cut of the suit, the shoes, the haircut - all could as easily be 2015, even though this picture is 86 years old. You can place the woman and the car in period, but not him.

Part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, sort of a world's fair for the City, the only remaining buildings. Lovely part of the City!

It was a Hudson Super Six that starred as the Joads' decrepit jalopy in John Steinbeck's signature 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath." After ten appalling years of the Great Depression, it must have been hard to know which were more worn out: 1920s autos or the hapless Americans who were still driving them.

Hudsons were well constructed and solidly middle-class cars. That sedan probably weighs as much as four of today's Formula 1 racers and thanks to its torque-rich, long stroke engine, could probably accelerate smoothly from a walking pace to 45 MPH in ... oh, I don't know -- how much time have you got?

[Curb weight of this five-passenger sedan was about 3,700 pounds, or two and a half Formula 1 cars. -Dave]