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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

Tiburon Tommie's: 1969

No, Tommie's not the guy with the anchor up ... well, with the anchor. That's me. Tiburon is a Marin County town on San Francisco Bay, and Tiburon Tommie's was a Chinese restaurant with a decor and cocktail selection that today would be called Tiki. Opened about 1955 by Tommie Cox and former Trader Vic's employee Johnnie Won, it closed around 1997 and today exists only in the warm nostalgic memories of older Marinites. This is the bay side of the building, which itself no longer exists. Existing was something that I didn't know this slide did until a couple days ago, when my friend who took it in 1969 and I were rooting around the spare room of his house and found a bunch of slides he'd forgotten about. This one's a 126 Ektachrome taken with a Kodak Instamatic. I recognized those aluminum sticks in the lower right corner as  legs of my tripod, so I must have been taking Super-8 movies that day. View full size.

No, Tommie's not the guy with the anchor up ... well, with the anchor. That's me. Tiburon is a Marin County town on San Francisco Bay, and Tiburon Tommie's was a Chinese restaurant with a decor and cocktail selection that today would be called Tiki. Opened about 1955 by Tommie Cox and former Trader Vic's employee Johnnie Won, it closed around 1997 and today exists only in the warm nostalgic memories of older Marinites. This is the bay side of the building, which itself no longer exists. Existing was something that I didn't know this slide did until a couple days ago, when my friend who took it in 1969 and I were rooting around the spare room of his house and found a bunch of slides he'd forgotten about. This one's a 126 Ektachrome taken with a Kodak Instamatic. I recognized those aluminum sticks in the lower right corner as legs of my tripod, so I must have been taking Super-8 movies that day. View full size.

On Shorpy:
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-tterrace

May I have the "SKIP" key for this clip?

Thank you.

[It's under the mat. -Dave]

I partly grew up in Belvedere

I graduated from high school in 1996, that tiki restaurant was never open that I can remember, for all the years while I was there. We went to Sam's a lot. I used to walk past it and look though. A friend of the family owned the little shop right across the street next to that Ark Row parking lot entrance.

I just happened to be in Tiburon this morning

And found your is anchor still there.

All the buildings in the background have indeed had major makeovers since 1969, but the anchor must have been to unwieldy to move. It sits a new base, and is ever-so-slightly turned on its axis, but otherwise it's the same.

Curiously, the telephone pole at left seems to have also survived the decades unscathed.

[Excellent, but the dog... where's the dog? The Tiburon Tommie's building was demolished in 2000, I find. -tterrace]

Same year I moved to Tiburon

Thanks for posting this one, tterrace. June 1969 (exactly 46 years ago) was when my family moved us from the foggy climate of Daly City to sun-swept Tiburon. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

I was 18 that year and spent a lot of time on Main Street, including a few underage evenings in Tiburon Tommie's. More importantly, I also got a part time job working for Tom Nell Photography, located about five doors down Main Street from Tommie's. Tom was my entree to studio portraiture, artificial light photography, and lots of darkroom time.

Belt buckle

Wearing the belt buckle off-center may or may not have been a fashion trend at the time, but guitar players did it all the time to keep from it scratching the back of the guitar. In most of the 1960's Monkees episodes, Peter Tork wore his off center because he was so proud of the new guitar Gretsch donated for the show for his use and he didn't want to hurt it. source: DVD commentaries.

Turquoise Tommie's?

I remember Tiburon Tommie's well - though only went there once. Today there is no beach there - it is all decks for the various overpriced restaurants. Anyone who hasn't been to Tiburon should be told that San Francisco is the big feature of the view to the right in this photo.

One thing about the color - the turquoise in the building roof trim (also on the street side) was bright and striking - one of the most memorable things about the place - so the faded glory in the image is the poor color retention, at least in the blue range. The reds looks great!

Wonderful nostalgia

This is a wonderful photo; you are so lucky to have discovered it!

In 1969, I had just graduated college across the continent in NY (I'm 67), and dressed very much the same way you are in your photo. Wearing the belt buckle "off center" was very much in vogue here at that time. Two reasons: if you wore your shirt tucked in with the buckle exposed, you ran the risk of scratching someone's car as you leaned over the hood to admire the engine, and if you wore your shirt outside, keeping the buckle to the side made you look just a tad thinner, and you certainly wanted the ladies to think you were slim and trim.

I too have a collection of old slides gathering dust in the attic (including hundreds from the '64-'65 NY World's fair), and you have just inspired me to get up there and find them.

Happy Memories!

Airedale!

Whose Airedale Terrier was that?!!

Least dated image on Shorpy

Apart from the colour cast of the film, there's nothing I can see in this photo that says that wasn't taken yesterday (change of urban landscape notwithstanding!) Even the colour could be someone using a filter in Instagram!

Fashion Fad

Wearing the belt buckle off center must have been some sort of fashion statement at the time ;)

[If so, I was unaware of it. Mere sloppiness or inattention on my part, no doubt. -tterrace]

Arfchival?

That Ektachrome has held up well. You must have stored it properly.

[Storage was haphazard, I'm afraid. When found it was covered with dust and musty-smelling. It had also been overexposed originally. What you see here is the result of physical and digital reclamation/restoration. -tterrace]

["Arfchival" would refer to the K9 process, yes? - Dave]

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