Flashback Friday: That Dapper Swagger on Pine Street, By Fred Lyon

Nob Hill, Pine Street, San Francisco, 1954

I didn’t know who Fred Lyon was when I first saw this photo, I just knew it hit me. It’s one of those black-and-white masterpieces—Nob Hill, Pine Street—with a dapper Joe mid-step, hat at the right, The swagger is undeniable. The backdrop? Cars parked at an impossible angle, clinging to the hillside like they might slide off into oblivion at any moment. (If you know the stress of getting in our out, parked at than angle, you know!) .I just knew it hit me. The City’s hills, the parked cars hanging on for dear life, that guy striding down the stairs like he owns the block—it all felt so familiar, like a memory I never actually lived but somehow still knew.

So I looked the photographer up. I saw the rest of his photos. And suddenly, it all made sense.

Fred Lyon saw San Francisco the way some of us do—not just as a place, but as a feeling. His photos don’t just show The City, they get it. The way the fog rolls in, the way the streets pull you up and drop you into unexpected views, the way people move through it, shaped by its hills, its grit, its magic.

That’s the connection some of us have. You either feel it or you don’t.

And the second I saw that photo, I knew Fred Lyon did too.

Fred Lyon got it.

He saw The City the way some of us do—not just as a place, but as a living, breathing thing with character, history, and attitude. The hills, the fog, the parked cars defying gravity, the way people moved through the streets—it all felt alive in his images. And somehow, decades later, that same feeling jumps right off the page (or screen) and smacks you in the soul.

That instant connection you felt? That’s what makes a photographer like him legendary.

Basically, SF has always had people who don’t just exist here, but belong to it. Fred Lyon was one of them. Herb Caen was one of them. Tony Bennet was one of them. I’m one of them. And if you feel that pull, that unshakable connection to The City? Well, maybe you are too.