A local photographer recently retraced that route, capturing Market Street as it looks today heading into 2026. The contrast is striking — and not always in the direction you'd expect.

In 1906, Market Street was a commercial powerhouse, the undisputed spine of a booming city. It was messy, sure, but it pulsed with economic activity. Today? The street that San Francisco has spent billions redesigning, restricting, and reimagining over the past decade still struggles to find its identity. Stretches of it remain pockmarked with vacant storefronts. The grand Better Market Street project, which began planning in 2011 and still isn't fully complete, has delivered new pavement and bus lanes but hasn't exactly delivered a renaissance.

Here's what's worth reflecting on: the 1906 version of Market Street wasn't the product of a master plan. It wasn't designed by committee or workshopped through seventeen rounds of community input. It was organic, messy, and driven by people and businesses actually using the space. The city didn't need to incentivize anyone to be on Market Street — people just showed up because there was a reason to be there.

The lesson isn't that we should return to horse-drawn carriages. It's that no amount of streetscape investment can substitute for the basics: safe sidewalks, clean streets, thriving businesses, and a government that makes it easy — not excruciating — to open a shop and keep it running.

Market Street survived a literal apocalypse in 1906 and rebuilt itself in record time. The question for 2026 is whether it can survive the bureaucracy that's supposedly trying to save it.