00:00:01.340 - 00:00:39.600

Yeah, yeah. No. A Cron. Channel four special. Okay. All right. We've got 70,000 nuclear weapons. 100 them would destroy either country. The eighties had to do more with AIDS than anything else. All kinds of displays of wealth. I remember in the eighties. Where did all of

00:00:39.600 - 00:01:00.340

these folks come from Who were looking for a place to stay? Oh, my God. We're having an earthquake. Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. 49 we had a blast. I think everybody in the Bay Area had a good time. Was a great ride. Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:05.440 - 00:01:21.870

San Francisco in the 19 eighties, it was a great ride along a sometimes bumpy road. Our city by the bay entered the decade under a dark shadow of assassinations and mass suicides that ripped the city to its core at the end of the 19 seventies, both

00:01:21.870 - 00:01:45.090

Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed. It was a shattered city. Uh, still, the aftermath of the twin assassinations. Uh, Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Jonestown. 900 San Franciscans went to their death in Guyana following the white knight riot. There

00:01:45.090 - 00:02:06.260

were real divisions within the city, a city. We had done a lot of self questioning, uh, already when the early eighties came around and I remember feeling a certain sense of expectation. What is this decade going to be about? From a dark shadow to the bright

00:02:06.260 - 00:02:29.100

light of a nuclear mushroom, the 19 eighties ushered in a renewed fear of all things nuclear. Gone was a naive to a of the 19 fifties duck and cover exercises. Suddenly, we were seeing real scenarios of what a nuclear attack would look like In San Francisco

00:02:29.160 - 00:02:50.900

was ground zero, a single explosion, an air burst at 7000 ft over downtown San Francisco. Let's say today, now, at this moment, when a group of doctors calling themselves Physicians for Social Responsibility held their first conference in San Francisco in 1980 they dropped the bomb on

00:02:50.910 - 00:03:08.670

us. Of the three million people in San Francisco metropolitan area, 780,000 would be killed outright. Their gruesome account of how the Bay Area would suffer in a nuclear attack was documented in The Last Epidemic, a film that was shown thousands of times and churches, schools even

00:03:08.670 - 00:03:24.270

in Congress and was pivotal to the anti nuclear movement that would take hold in the eighties. It epitomized our fears and caused us literally to be galvanized. You felt I am in such a hot seat. I'll do one of two things. I will close my eyes

00:03:24.270 - 00:03:40.200

and completely forget it. Pretend to stop there or my God, I've got to do something. You are requested to leave. If you do not leave the property, you will be arrested. Bay Area activists Focus their fears on the central California coast The nuclear power plant at

00:03:40.200 - 00:04:03.520

Diablo Canyon had been under construction for 12 years. In September of 1981 it was ready to go online. Protesters rallied their forces for one last attempt to stop it with the largest act of civil disobedience in California's history. Yes, yeah, we had wave after wave after

00:04:03.520 - 00:04:26.970

wave of people that block that front gate. There were so many people. We what if filled the jail many times over, so they actually put us into Jim's. Thousands were arrested. It was costing the state $50,000 a day, but not having much effect on the plans

00:04:26.970 - 00:04:43.990

to fire up Diablo. They will have absolutely no impact on fuel loading and Diablo Canyon Unit one. Then came the drama that couldn't have been scripted better in Hollywood. Just one day before the plant was to begin. Fuel loading, a PG and E engineer revealed that

00:04:43.990 - 00:05:03.830

the plant had major design flaws. A company engineer was rechecking blueprints. He noticed that seismic safety supports, designed for unit number two had actually been installed in unit number one. We felt elated that our courage to go down and get our arms twisted by the police

00:05:03.840 - 00:05:20.760

sit in front of trucks had somehow given some courage to at least one of the workers at the level of canyon to tell the truth. But the reprieve was only temporary. It took three more years to correct the mistakes, but Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant went

00:05:20.770 - 00:05:43.830

online in 1984. Mhm. They are the focus of evil in the modern world. The Soviet Union had been declared the enemy by President Reagan, and the anti nuclear sentiment was not registering. In Washington, the president launched the biggest peacetime defense build up in history, and nuclear

00:05:43.830 - 00:06:04.580

arsenals topped the list. Concern was mounting as Californians passed a statewide nuclear freeze initiative but President Reagan pushed on. In 1983 he called for a strategic defense initiative more commonly known as Star Wars. Its development would get underway right here in the Bay Area. At the

00:06:04.580 - 00:06:23.480

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, protesters clogged the gates, deliver more week after week, calling for an end of weapons development. You're all under. We're blocking the roadway. The work did not stop. By the end of the decade, more than $30 billion had been poured into the program.

00:06:23.490 - 00:06:46.440

But Star Wars was never realized. Mhm. Mhm. While high tech weapons were being developed, the United States was sending more conventional weapons to Central America to fight President Reagan's war on communism. Again, the Bay Area was involved. Weekly shipments of munitions headed for Central America were

00:06:46.440 - 00:07:07.310

coming out of the Concord Naval Weapons Station. 1987 peace activists began a vigil to block the munitions trains. Mm. Brian Wilson was among those who sat on the tracks one morning in September, fully expecting to stop the train and then be arrested. So as the train

00:07:07.310 - 00:07:30.630

started coming, I just assumed the train was going to stop, has that everybody else. But instead, it seems to be accelerating. The train did not stop. It ran over Wilson, severing both his legs. I have to say that I don't have any regrets. I'm sorry I

00:07:30.630 - 00:07:54.590

lost my legs. I'm sorry that people go through this all over the world all the time when they're when they're standing up to repression. But there's something about the deep joy of expressing one's consciousness in an honest way. Way. Yeah, the wars in Central America had

00:07:54.600 - 00:08:12.860

another impact on San Francisco. The Latino population more than doubled in the 19 eighties as people fled the violence in their countries. Though they were here illegally, San Francisco declared itself a city of refuge. Bay Area churches provided sanctuary in a defiant act against the federal

00:08:12.860 - 00:08:37.190

government. Most of those who came have since become legal residents. Many have become U. S citizens. In fact, the decade ushered in a whole new era of immigration. In San Francisco, Southeast Asians fleeing Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos transformed the tenderloin. Between five and 6000 Children have

00:08:37.190 - 00:08:51.840

moved into the most notorious 30 blocks of the city. The new immigrant families were settling in the only place they could afford by the end of the decade, they have made it their home. The Tenderloin bustled with more than 150 new businesses, as well as new

00:08:51.840 - 00:09:39.460

schools, parks and playgrounds. The Golden Gate has seen wave after wave of new immigrants over the decades. The eighties were no different as the face of our city continued to change. Yeah, mhm, sure. Mm. The gay liberation movement played itself out to the fullest

00:09:39.460 - 00:10:05.540

in the 19 seventies in San Francisco, but the party came to a screeching halt in 1978 with the assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the country's first openly gay politician. Hi, I am, Oh my. After the riots and the grief gaze reassessed and re emerged a more

00:10:05.540 - 00:10:23.130

cohesive community. I think the late seventies were really the period of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and the eighties marked the point when the gay community really blossomed. Far beyond that, honey, bring me no bad. The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus formed on the

00:10:23.130 - 00:10:39.600

steps of City Hall, the night supervisor Milk was murdered 1981. It had become a world class singing group and took its show on a cross country tour we knew we were making history we knew was the first time any of this has been done. We were

00:10:39.600 - 00:10:55.830

the first chorus with okay and our name. We were the first course to go on tour, and I remember being in the in the audience and the group of people in the Castro who were there to receive the chorus back to town. The street was packed

00:10:55.840 - 00:11:11.350

that day as the buses came back from the airport to a hero's welcome to the chorus. It was just It was a magic moment, but the magic was soon to give way to more tragedy. The day we left on tour, Chronicle had a future story on

00:11:11.350 - 00:11:32.940

the inside pages, and over in the corner on the very same page was a little story about a gay pneumonia. Well, that was a 15 or 16 When he was 15 15. He sat us down and very seriously told us that he was gay and it

00:11:32.940 - 00:11:51.940

was very traumatic for him and for us, too. So I suppose at that time we AIDS was being mentioned in the paper, and I remember we control them to be careful and of course he was invincible. It wouldn't happen to him. Michael Stone was one of

00:11:51.940 - 00:12:12.720

the earliest and youngest victims of a disease doctors knew nothing about. He became sick and uh was admitted to the hospital because his pediatrician had seen these enlarged lymph nodes in his lung. And then the lymph nodes returned to normal. And then there. After a while,

00:12:12.720 - 00:12:32.750

there wasn't even a need to watch it anymore. Michael was only 15 after those first symptoms. In 1980 the disease went into hiding, just as it had in so many gay men. In the early eighties, I had finished my training in cancer medicine at U. C

00:12:32.750 - 00:12:49.560

s F. I finished at the end of June 1981 Dr Paul Volberding was a young oncologist, leaving the research lab to take a job at San Francisco General Hospital. A doctor up at U. C. Who had been coming down here to sort of sort of take

00:12:49.560 - 00:13:04.970

care of the cancer patients before I arrived, patted me on the back and said, Paul, there's the next great disease waiting for you at G. H. There's a patient with Kaposi's sarcoma. He was joking. I mean, he didn't really think it was the next great disease.

00:13:05.440 - 00:13:22.640

But it turned out that he was right. Kaposi's sarcoma was a skin cancer, the lesions soon to be associated with AIDS. They are concerned that is attacking heavily in the gay community. And they're working on theories to explain why there was a period of intense anxiety.

00:13:22.650 - 00:13:35.890

We didn't know anything about it. We didn't know how to diagnose that. We didn't know how it was transmitted. We didn't know what the incubation period was. We didn't know that we weren't already infected. It would take another year and a half before they knew enough

00:13:35.890 - 00:13:57.320

to finally give it a name. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome AIDS In January 1983 San Francisco had 150 cases and more being discovered every day. It was that month. San Francisco General opened the first AIDS clinic. Alison Mo Ed was head nurse of what was known as

00:13:57.320 - 00:14:14.040

Ward five B. We were excited and we were expectant, and we just we're waiting for those patients to come in so we could take care of them. Yeah, I don't think we could have believed or imagined what it was really going to be like the numbers

00:14:14.040 - 00:14:34.810

that were dying the ways that people would sicken the grief of sadness. The number of AIDS cases more than tripled that first year to help them cope. Nurses in five B started a book to memorialize the men who had passed through. I don't think that we

00:14:34.810 - 00:14:55.820

thought we'd need another book. I really don't. If anyone had asked me, I would have been sure that a few years, a couple of years, this will stop. This can't go on. The first time that we knew that something serious was wrong was in one morning

00:14:55.820 - 00:15:10.500

when the phone rang and it was a doctor from Santa Cruz that was calling us. And he said, If you want to see your son alive, you better get down here real quick. Michael was now 19, going to college in Santa Cruz when he was hospitalized

00:15:10.510 - 00:15:29.020

and diagnosed with AIDS. All these people are walking around with this, you know, suits on and afraid to touch him, afraid, basically afraid of him, afraid that somehow he was going to infect them only 70 miles from San Francisco. But it seemed a world away when

00:15:29.020 - 00:15:47.560

it came to treating patients with AIDS, so it really traumatized him, and it was very disturbing to us. I mean, there was no way to treat anybody. Ralph and Judy brought their son back to San Francisco. He died four months later, one of almost 500 people

00:15:47.570 - 00:16:07.450

who had died of AIDS in San Francisco By 1984. My lover and I didn't split up, Michael said. He died of AIDS. Armistead Maupin, the author of a series of fictional books about life in San Francisco called Tales of the City, was the first to chronicle

00:16:07.450 - 00:16:24.330

the advent of AIDS in his work. In the end, I had no choice because I was watching it happen around me, and I wanted other people to feel the impact of that. In 1983 1 of Marvel's most beloved characters became the first ever to die of

00:16:24.340 - 00:16:42.250

AIDS in fiction. The sudden death of this fictional character was not unlike what was happening every day in the Castro. With no early diagnosis and no treatment, it seemed people were disappearing overnight. There were times when you didn't even know a person had it and someone

00:16:42.260 - 00:16:58.120

and you would hear that they were gone and you hadn't seen him in a few weeks and they were diagnosed and we're gone. Nothing is worse for any of us than the unknown. As the numbers of the dying grew, city officials realize they faced the biggest

00:16:58.120 - 00:17:13.540

public health crisis of our time. The early numbers were terrifying to me. Let me let me be very honest. They were very small, but they were very terrifying because three or four years into it, we began to see the death rate. There were some estimates what

00:17:13.550 - 00:17:36.970

proportion of people would find it fatal, and at one point we reached the conclusion 100%. And that was a devastating realization. I'll never forget that Mayor Dianne Feinstein was getting no help from the federal government. This was a San Francisco problem, a gay problem. We will

00:17:36.970 - 00:17:54.400

sync with the weight of this epidemic. The city and the gay community pulled together. Working with the medical establishment. They developed what would become known as the San Francisco model, an approach to dealing with AIDS that would be copied around the world. Mhm. But there was

00:17:54.400 - 00:18:15.260

one issue early on that nearly tore them apart. The city's gay bath houses commercial businesses where men went for sex. I don't believe that this city has any business permitting businesses to operate whose sole source of being is the very activity that communicates the disease? Mayor

00:18:15.260 - 00:18:32.620

Feinstein was unequivocal. She wanted the bath houses shut down. Dr. Mervyn Silverman was the city's health director. It would be his job to do it, but he did not agree. If people change their behavior, we could stop the spread of the disease. Today, what we want

00:18:32.620 - 00:18:52.050

to do is change activity, regardless of where it takes place. The issue played itself out in full view of the media for more than a year before a decision was finally made in 1985. Today I have ordered the closure of 14 commercial establishments, which promote and

00:18:52.050 - 00:19:05.760

profit from the spread of AIDS. For some, it was too soon for others. It was too late. If I had to do it all over again, I don't know that I would have done it any differently with the circumstances that existed then, because those bath houses,

00:19:05.760 - 00:19:23.550

at a certain point in time, were symbols. You know, that was a place before gay liberation, where people could go somewhat anonymously, and it had a lot of meaning, I think, in the community. But by now, doctors knew that this disease had no sexual preference. Here

00:19:23.550 - 00:19:40.350

at the AIDS clinic in San Francisco, as many as three women a week are coming in for AIDS screening. Women were contracting it and passing it on to their babies. Hemophiliacs were infected through tainted blood supplies. 1985. We were seeing a second epidemic, an epidemic of

00:19:40.350 - 00:20:11.860

fear and discrimination. People with AIDS were losing their jobs, their apartments. Children were being kicked out of school. Still, the federal government did nothing. President Reagan hadn't even publicly said The word AIDS is your story. Mm, Please. Five years after they returned from that jubilant tour,

00:20:12.240 - 00:20:52.710

members of the Gay men's chorus began to die. 10, 20 30 voices that would never be heard again. Even the street. It's mm hmm, yeah. Mhm. Mhm. The whole universe depends on this game. The world is falling apart. Reagan

00:20:52.710 - 00:21:15.290

as president. And it all depends on Joe Montana. Yeah, the 19 eighties could go down as one of the most exciting decades in sports will ever see. The Oakland Raiders kicked it off with a Super Bowl win in 1980 won their second championship title in four

00:21:15.290 - 00:21:36.740

years, but their last game representing the Bay Area. The next season, the team moved to Los Angeles. In college football. Who could forget what is now simply known as the play? November 1982 rival Stanford and Cal at Memorial Stadium. Everyone thought Stanford had clinched, but there

00:21:36.740 - 00:22:02.410

were four seconds left in this game. Comes losing. The Bears have to get out of bounds. Rogers along the sideline, another one still in deep trouble in midfield. They tried to do a couple of balls. Okay, Yeah, all right. 20 all Help keep now what? Five

00:22:02.410 - 00:22:25.210

lateral passes Later. Cows. Kevin Mon plows into the end zone through Spectators and band members for a touchdown as the clock expires. Have one prepares of one. Oh my God! Gary Tyrell was the Stanford trombone player who couldn't get out of the way. California What perfect

00:22:25.210 - 00:22:45.560

game. Over all the bands, folks sort of peeled away as they saw him running down. Except for me. I'm guessing that he probably wanted to spike the ball and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. Mm. But there was another play in

00:22:45.560 - 00:23:01.430

football that year that changed the whole psyche of San Francisco. This one, known as the Catch, marked a crucial turning point for the 49 ers from the losing his team in the NFL to the superpower of the decade. Just gotta be playing outside. I don't know

00:23:01.430 - 00:23:15.130

what's going to happen to him, but I do know that after only two years under coach Bill Walsh in 1981 the young team made it to the NFC playoffs to face a formidable Dallas Cowboys. No one gave them a chance until the last minute of the

00:23:15.130 - 00:23:40.540

game, when quarterback Joe Montana and receiver Dwight Clark made a connection that made history. Looking looking, throwing in the end zone. Yeah, quite Clar Dwight Clark is 64 He stands about 10 ft tall. In this crowd's estimation, I'm just very happy that the fans can hold

00:23:40.540 - 00:24:00.790

on to one thing that I did during my career. There are players that play great their whole career and they remember the player. But there's not really any defining moment for him, and I don't think there's any question that That's a defining moment for me. San

00:24:00.790 - 00:24:24.400

Francisco erupted. We were headed to our first Super Bowl Super Bowl, 16 49 has pulled out a 26 to 21 victory over Cincinnati, but the highlight was after winning the Super Bowl in 1981 early in 1982 there was to be a parade through San Francisco down

00:24:24.400 - 00:24:46.420

Market Street, and I wasn't for that. I said. Who would ever come out to a parade like that? When we turned down Market Street, I couldn't believe it. People say there were 200 people there, who knows? But everyone was there. There was just delirious excitement and

00:24:46.420 - 00:25:11.590

pride that they begin to take in their team and in their city. Ladies and gentlemen, will the San Francisco 49 ers please stand? I'll never forget it. Millions of people were on the streets. I mean, the parade was something I couldn't believe. It was very important

00:25:11.600 - 00:25:29.620

in the psyche of the city at the time, because once again we became the city that knows how coach Bill Walsh was now being called. The genius Joe Montana named MVP, was proving his greatness, and everyone was having a good time. The personalities are different back

00:25:29.620 - 00:25:41.680

then and they fit together. And we did have a lot of fun. We worked hard, and I think in the process of knowing that we had to work hard, that we we got some things accomplished that I don't think a lot of people felt we could

00:25:41.680 - 00:26:04.830

do. Yeah, 1984 Walsh had built the team into a machine. It ripped through its opponents for an 18 and one record. The most successful season in NFL history changed dramatically from being. There's a youthful, effervescent, impulsive, impetuous team to later becoming more of a machine like

00:26:04.840 - 00:26:24.200

precision like organization to remain on the top Super Bowl. 19. They were on top again, facing the Miami Dolphins game was on home turf. Stanford Stadium and fans were doing just about anything to get their, including paying $1000 or more for tickets. Coach Bill Walsh and

00:26:24.200 - 00:26:41.760

the remainder of San Francisco. It definitely felt like a home game and then I think the thing that really made everybody well, this is gonna This is our game is the fact that the fog came in. It was like this is everyday San Francisco weather. Look

00:26:41.760 - 00:27:01.940

out, this is This is an omen for us. The 49 ers soundly beat Miami, 38 to 16, and Joe Montana secured his place as the NFL's top quarterback with a second MVP title. Two more years of getting hit and Montana's injuries were taking their toll. In

00:27:01.940 - 00:27:13.690

1987 he was in and out of the game. It's kind of a Catch 22 if you don't play when you're hurt. Oh, he can't play when he's hurt. If you play when you're hurt, well, why'd you play when you were hurt? So isn't there. You don't

00:27:13.690 - 00:27:30.080

know what to do. Even after back surgery, he continued to play, but his performance was lackluster. The big question going into the 88 season was would he be replaced with Steve Young? Both quarterbacks played in what started out a dismal season. But things turned around as

00:27:30.080 - 00:27:44.630

the playoffs near Joe came back was 100% healthy right at the end of the year and we came back into two of the greatest playoff games in our history against Minnesota and the Bears went on to win the Super Bowl and Joe again demonstrated that he

00:27:44.630 - 00:28:08.710

was the great one. The 49 ers won their third Super Bowl with an amazing 90 yard drive in the final minutes of the game. He's in motion Montana Touchdown Taylor, and there seems to be a little football less than Mr Montana. It was a bittersweet day

00:28:08.710 - 00:28:27.890

for the powerhouse team. Montana was back on top, but his future was still uncertain. And Bill Walsh, the man who had built this dynasty, had decided to retire. Was this the final game on the sideline for a great coach, Bill Walsh? I was emotionally fatigued and

00:28:27.900 - 00:28:45.330

decided that that should be enough. Should I have stayed? Probably. But at the time, it seemed the thing I sort of had to do. After a decade on top, Walsh headed the team over to George Seifert, who took the 49 ers to a repeat Super Bowl

00:28:45.330 - 00:29:22.790

win in 1990 10 years, eight NFC appearances and four Super Bowls in San Francisco, 49 ers were indisputably the team of the decade. Mm hmm. It was the Bay Area's biggest success story, not just of the decade but of the century. A place in time, a

00:29:22.790 - 00:29:45.660

confluence of events that created the PC revolution mhm to Steve's jobs and Wozniak led the Revolution. They were the first to make a business out of putting a keyboard display and microprocessor together in a machine that people could actually use. By 1980 these two twentysomethings were

00:29:45.670 - 00:29:58.950

already multimillionaires. All of a sudden, you know, we were just kind of sitting where we were almost in a lucky place, You know, this huge market was evolving and we had one of the key products. But competition was on the way, and more than just one

00:29:58.950 - 00:30:18.250

company, an entire industry was about to be born. In 1980 IBM, the corporate computer giant, decided to tap this new consumer market. A little known semiconductor company in Santa Clara named Intel was chosen to make the microprocessors to power an IBM PC. IBM's decision to use

00:30:18.250 - 00:30:40.700

Intel's microprocessor was very important for us because it really was the critical decision that has been the foundation of our business ever since the IBM PC made its debut and started cutting into Apple's exclusive market. Others soon followed. Dozens of computer makers started producing PCs and

00:30:40.700 - 00:30:57.180

new businesses, making everything from circuit boards to keyboards set up shop in the Santa Clara Valley. A few years down the line, this whole area might become the home of highly paid professional. This agricultural valley was now officially Silicon Valley, a mixed blessing for the silicon

00:30:57.180 - 00:31:14.680

makers who remembered when remember 1101 was a three lane road was one stoplight between San Jose and Redwood City, where I lived. Fruit orchards gave way to high priced condos, real estate prices skyrocketed, and that three lane highway was soon choked with cars. It was no

00:31:14.680 - 00:31:40.330

longer fun to drive my Porsche to work, so I got a diesel rabbit instead. Just the whole nature of the area changed. The industry was about to see big changes as well. In 1984 Apple introduced the first Macintosh. We shall prevail the tone of the ad

00:31:40.330 - 00:31:53.720

and the tone of the company, and our philosophy is really said, you know, fight this mentality to be just like everyone else and go out and be different and live a graphical world and be creative. A computer that anyone could operate, pointing to windows with an

00:31:53.730 - 00:32:19.900

arrow navigated by a mouse. It was a whole new concept. Mhm. Mm, Mhm. By the end of the decade, personal computers were part of our everyday lives, and the new millionaires making them were household names. Silicon Valley wasn't the only place creating millionaires. The Bay Area

00:32:19.900 - 00:32:37.250

was a place to make money and, more importantly, to show everyone you were making money. There have always been 25 to 35 year olds, but never so many with so much money. I think they just have higher standards for themselves. Materially this emphasis on I gotta

00:32:37.250 - 00:32:53.480

get mine and you get yours the best way you can. And I'm gonna let you know that I have mine was considered quite cheap. People were making a killing and transitory real estate deals, banking and stock market transactions. And everyone, whether they were really making money

00:32:53.480 - 00:33:13.430

or not, wanted to emulate the lifestyle. For many, that lifestyle included cocaine, the champagne of drugs. It became the ultimate status symbol. Cocaine, the drug of choice, the drug of the eighties. It was the drug of the elite, a drug most people didn't even think was

00:33:13.430 - 00:33:33.590

addictive. And yet they were selling off fortunes to feed their habits. They say the high. The excess of the eighties meant big money for the music industry as well. Records sales skyrocketed. Musicians were selling more music than ever before. Everything got big, you know. His business

00:33:33.590 - 00:33:53.490

was big. Business was bigger. Let's do bigger, bigger business will sell more records. Bigger benefits Bigger, bigger, bigger. The image was as important as the music in the 19 eighties. The advent of music videos and MTV created rock stars overnight, like the Bay Area's Huey Lewis

00:33:53.490 - 00:34:09.270

and The News. We were absolute beneficiaries of the of the video is, there's no question about that. The news is very good about MTV, right guys, hard rock, And what they did was they helped us sell as many copies of our records. You know, our SportsCenter

00:34:09.270 - 00:34:30.070

sold nine million copies. Without video, we wouldn't have been able to reach everybody like that. Yeah, technology was key videos, and the introduction of compact discs in the mid eighties made for unprecedented record sales, and it changed the sound as well. Drum machines and synthesizers met.

00:34:30.200 - 00:34:41.670

You no longer had to have a band to sound like one. The problem, I guess, from the standpoint of the eighties, so as we gave all these youngsters these tools that made it easy for them to crank out music. But none of them had kind of

00:34:41.670 - 00:35:01.640

suffered at all. You know, none of it was like a hobby gone, going crazy. Todd Rundgren was at the forefront of integrating the new technology with music in the eighties was not a great period in music. You know, most people agree that it wasn't all of

00:35:01.640 - 00:35:24.980

the action was in computers. That was the reason why I moved out here. The technology coming out of the Silicon Valley was allowing artists like Rundgren to create sounds and images we had never seen before. Yeah, no, that's not. There was another new sound coming out

00:35:24.980 - 00:35:42.260

of the Bay Area in the eighties. The Oak Town sound rap had been around since the late seventies, but one guy from Oakland is credited with introducing it to the world in the late eighties. Here are you Water. M. C. Hammer was the first rapper to

00:35:42.270 - 00:35:57.700

be picked up by a major record label, and when he put out his please hammer, don't hurt him. Album rap was no longer underground. You can't touch this or introduced a lot of people to wrap who hadn't listened to rap, Who had, uh, no idea what

00:35:57.700 - 00:36:15.530

rap really was all about it. Please, Hammer, don't hurt him. The title is like, Okay, now I'm getting ready to do my thing. Now, don't make me have to hurt you. You know what you simply means? You know, I'm gonna fight to put my music out.

00:36:15.540 - 00:36:29.450

There is what? Please, Hammer, don't hurt him. It was all about and people saw that and they can relate to it. That album sold more than 10 million copies. The 19 eighties had spawned a new form of music. The Oak Town Sound would become one of

00:36:29.450 - 00:37:07.610

the biggest money makers in the industry. Welcome. You can't touch this. They tested those enduring images of eighties excess were deceiving. There was another side to this decade story. There was phenomenal growth in the number of millionaires, phenomenal growth, unlike any other place that had ever

00:37:07.610 - 00:37:25.230

happened in the world. And simultaneously there was a phenomenal growth in poverty. Mhm. It was showing itself on the streets, in the growing lines at places like Saint Anthony's dining hall in the tenderloin. I started seeing in the eighties, and I neglected or I didn't want

00:37:25.230 - 00:37:38.230

to see it because it was such a cliche. But I noticed more of a vast difference between the haves and the have nots. It's still hard times for a lot of people. We see a lot of victims of unemployment. I've never seen so many women and

00:37:38.230 - 00:38:00.330

Children is this year. Knights were particularly hard for these new homeless. There were not many shelters. Glide Memorial Church was just a few blocks from ST Anthony's. It was awful. I remember Glide having to open up its facilities because we didn't have any facilities in to

00:38:00.340 - 00:38:18.600

keep people. But what we did, we opened up our halls and put cots in the halls, and people slept in the halls. This was in the eighties. We don't yet know exactly why. While city officials tried to figure it out, hotels, Y M. C. A s,

00:38:18.610 - 00:38:36.300

even uni buses were used to give these people shelter. The idea was that for some reason it was a temporary crisis, and if you are able to take people off the street, they could get their life back together again. But the crisis was anything but temporary.

00:38:36.350 - 00:38:55.440

By the late eighties, homeless encampments had become a regular part of our urban landscape, The biggest right next to City Hall. They were located close to where the power was. They wanted the power to see them and say, Uh huh, yeah, this is a problem. The

00:38:55.440 - 00:39:12.800

situation only got worse in 1987 when a new drug hit the streets crack cocaine. It was more addictive and more destructive than anything we had seen before. Crack, crack, crack Everywhere you go crack an inner city street drug. It took its heaviest toll on the African

00:39:12.800 - 00:39:34.020

American community. It ripped families apart. Mothers and grandmothers became addicts when those mothers began giving birth to shaking drug addicted babies. Reverend Cecil Williams feared for the future of a whole generation of African Americans. He called a national conference at Glide Church. I was hopeless. I

00:39:34.020 - 00:39:56.290

did that first conference. We called it the death of the race. I did the second conference called The Rebirth of a Race, and I was hedging on that one. Okay, I really was Yeah, that morning I will never forget it. Always sing gospel and spirituals and

00:39:56.300 - 00:40:21.610

people pray because we were going to make sure that the death of a race did not become a reality. People mhm, mhm. The same year we were dealing with a new drug epidemic. The epidemic of AIDS raged on. In 1987 President Reagan finally acknowledged the disease.

00:40:21.620 - 00:40:41.120

We've declared AIDS public health, Enemy number one. But by now, 1000 San Franciscans a year were dying. I remember that the logjam finally broken. Reagan mentioned the name AIDS. I also remember just as clearly that it didn't mean a damn thing. There were developments like the

00:40:41.120 - 00:40:58.600

HIV antibody test and a C T, the first effective AIDS treatment. But for many, progress was too slow and frustration was growing. The culture had become somewhat jaded to the notion of AIDS and had settled into the idea of it. And I think that's why we

00:40:58.600 - 00:41:16.620

saw so much serious radical gay activism at the time. The construction of a huge quilt may not have seemed radical when the first squares were pieced together in the shop on Market Street in 1987 but the names project quilt became more than just a memorial to

00:41:16.620 - 00:41:31.380

the dead. When the panels were taken to Washington, D. C. And spread out in full view of the president. The sheer magnitude of the disease could not be denied. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States could not be here today, but he will be

00:41:31.380 - 00:41:56.550

overhead. Mhm 1989 saw more radical protest by a group appropriately named Act Up. Blocking morning commuters on the Golden Gate Bridge was a desperate attempt to get attention as protesters demanded more funding faster FDA drug approval and cheaper drugs for AIDS patients. These are the best

00:41:56.550 - 00:42:12.050

protection we have against AIDS. Get them. By the end of the decade, the focus was shifting from finding a cure for AIDS to living with the disease at San Francisco could be proud of how it handled one of the most insidious epidemics in history. It's really

00:42:12.050 - 00:42:50.970

impressive. It seems to me, in retrospect, that we saw an unknown epidemic almost 100% fatal virus infection come through a city in fact, 35 or 40,000 people and not induce panic. I think that we did a good job in retrospect. Mm mm. Yeah, San

00:42:50.970 - 00:43:08.750

Francisco knows how to throw a party. Where else would 700,000 people come out to celebrate a bridge as we celebrated history in our corner of the world in 1987 history was being made around the world. The Cold War ended and the nuclear threat gave way to

00:43:08.760 - 00:43:28.050

arms control. Communism began to crumble. 1989. The wall came down in Berlin and tanks were mowing people down in Beijing, New faces were in charge. Change was in the air. The Bay Area was buoyed once again by its sports teams. For the first time in history,

00:43:28.060 - 00:43:51.160

the World Series would be played by our two Bay Area baseball teams. I have my money bet on the eighth, but I'm rooting for the Giants. Game day, October 17th, 1989. By five o'clock, Candlestick Park was packed with fans waiting for the Battle of the Bay

00:43:51.170 - 00:44:20.660

to begin at second base. So the way the game would have to wait as Mother Nature had the last word on this decade. Oh my God, We're having an earthquake way. Yes. Click bracelet. Yeah, we hope the life throughout the power got. There's a gas leak.

00:44:20.670 - 00:44:48.150

Let's go. Come on! Mhm! The water! That's the Cyprus interchange. Upper level. Carol has fallen in parts onto the level below it. 15 seconds of shaking changed our world, and the people of the Bay Area responded in heroic fashion. Leave the door and he's gonna try

00:44:48.150 - 00:45:10.260

to West Oakland Residents risk their lives crawling between the slabs of concrete of the Cyprus Freeway, looking for anyone who might be alive. It's terrible, It's terrible. There's a lot of people under. There is pent. Yeah, hello, hello, Marina. Residents in San Francisco search for neighbors

00:45:10.270 - 00:45:25.300

and pulled fire hoses to save their homes. San Franciscans rose to the occasion. Uh, almost every San Francisco is an accountant directing traffic at Venice in California Street because the traffic lights were out and people actually obey it. It's just the way we feel about city.

00:45:25.300 - 00:45:43.130

It's ours. Yeah, as the sun set over San Francisco that night are normally foggy, skies were filled with an eerie glow of fire and smoke. No one slept and many had nowhere to sleep. We've got the clothes that we have on. That's it. We have each

00:45:43.130 - 00:46:10.620

other, and that's the main thing. That's the main thing. There was this extraordinary moment where everything stopped and people simply became humans dealing with the world as a new day dawn, we realized the extent of the quake pegged at 7.1 on the Richter scale. It's centered

00:46:10.630 - 00:46:33.090

in the South Bay towns as far south as Santa Cruz had been ripped apart. Thousands were homeless. Mhm, The Marina District 36 block area has been declared a disaster. Yeah, In San Francisco, hundreds of Marina residents were realizing they would never go back to their damaged

00:46:33.090 - 00:46:52.750

homes, not even to collect their most precious belongings. In Oakland, the rescue efforts continued around the clock at the Cyprus Freeway, but there was no one to rescue with each passing day. We were losing hope until four days after the quake. The moon is jubilant here

00:46:52.750 - 00:47:13.200

in Oakland, now that someone in all of his wreckage, amazingly enough, has been found alive. Buck Helm, the man pulled from the collapsed freeway, died a month later, the 67th victim of the Loma Prieta quake. But his rescue had given the Bay Area of the emotional

00:47:13.200 - 00:47:31.150

lift it needed to get on with rebuilding itself. It was the first ray of hope for recovery. It said that we're gonna get out of this. We're gonna come back from this. Mhm. 11 days after the quake, the World Series was finally played. The A's won

00:47:31.150 - 00:47:48.700

it in a four game sweep. We showed not only the country but the entire world. That San Francisco, with all of its diversity, with all of what the world sees so often as kind of a cookie, kind of, uh, population. We showed the entire world how

00:47:48.700 - 00:48:37.900

to pull together. It was a dramatic end to the 19 eighties. Through it, San Francisco and the whole Bay Area formed a new sense of community. One that would take us into the decade ahead. Mm, Yes. Nice. Yeah.

00:48:43.770 - 00:48:56.280

Mhm. Yeah. Oh, Mhm. Mhm, mhm.