1906 has never been properly commemorated in any permanent manner, the impulse being to substitute myth for reality and to forget. San Francisco was the city that nearly destroyed itself, and is poised to do so again for most of the same reasons.

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After 1906, San Francisco loses its dominance in the West. Industry fled, and what it became was a poor imitation of itself through tourism. It takes that image of being a gay, giddy city and trades on that image.

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You can't comprehend what is happening. And then all hell breaks loose. Things drop, walls crumble, dishes fall over, people are buried, people on one side of the bed could be killed and the other hardly touched. Who got injured, killed and survived was completely random.

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