Dominican College of San Rafael - Firebrand Yearbook (San Rafael, CA)

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affectionately, by another name. These are the every- day shoppes with Avhich you deal. They fill your needs and you ask for nothing more. Yet a closer look into San Rafael ' s surroundings as an object of beauty and interest, even in a town whose buildings have no need for elevators, may prove fruitful. Have you ever wandered over the hills beyond the Convent and lived the view that is there for you? Standing at one point you can look east over San Pablo Bay and the Marin Islands and Red Rock and, of course, north to the San Francisco Bay and the do- mains behind it. A few feet farther from this point and San Rafael itself crawls lazily at your feet. Or have you ever walked around the homes near the Convent (this is close to home— take the road behind the g} ' m, the one over vhich the locust trees form a stained-glass cathedral arch) and noticed, just for in- stance, the huge lath greenhouse that nurses thou- sands and thousands of flame, yellow, white and pink tuberous begonias? Those beautiful flowers started as a hobby; now the owner ' s hobby is managing the Call Bulletin, and the flowers are the career. Or have you paid particular attention to the new homes and gardens growing in Sun Valley or Picnic Valley near California Park? Not intriguing? Cali- fornia Park was once the site of a movie studio which 94

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- -h J Pi s Sai f 1 fn| pi 4 ' i SAN RAFAEL PERHAPS to you, San Rafael is only 4th Street, and consists of just Borden ' s, the Greyhound Ter- minal, Joe ' s Taxi, Corey ' s, Albert ' s, El Camino The- ater, and the Rafael Theater, known, perhaps not 93

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produced one or two pictures filmed there; something about horses and bad men. The studio contracted local talent and Edward I. Butler, now Judge of the Superior Court, took a judicial part in The Unwritten Law, one of the films. Henry Greer, Superintendent of Schools, also played a part in the trigger-fast-Black- Jack production. At that time, studios depended upon sunlight for their shots, and as camera work was slowed by cloudy days, the company thought it best to move to a more suitable climate than San Rafael ' s. But Hollywood almost happened here and, but for the weather in Marin, you might have gone down to the Brown Derby or the Copacoke Bar for your rocky road ice cream, instead of Borden ' s. All that is past now, but California Park (you go over it as you pass down the bridge coming into town from San Fran- cisco) , is the site planned for an oiudoor theater by Mr. Blumenfeld, and movies will be sho vn where they once were made. San Rafael has very little crime, perhaps because the first hangman ' s galloTvs in the state were once just about where Albert ' s is now. I don ' t know what hap- pened to Gordon ' s Opera House with its elegant and commodious auditorium but the Rafael Hotel burned down almost twenty years ago. The hotel was Marin County Journal, October, 1887. 95