Two weeks ago I drove up to Woodside to attend a tribute to my grandfather, who helped start and perpetuate in the early 1900s the Family Club in San Francisco, a group of men dedicated to making social changes and business exchanges.
The affair was held at a cabin-laden outpost beneath the redwoods in Portola Valley. While there, I thought of the following: The Damndest Thing 2007.
Several weeks ago, I was looking at the list of films being presented at this year’s San Luis Obispo International Film Festival when the title of one of them really caught my attention — “The Damnedest, Finest Ruins,” by James Dalessandro.
The film is a much-heralded documentary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. “The Damndest Finest Ruins” is also the title of a very famous and widely published poem written about the disaster back then by my grandfather, Lawrence W. Harris.
I was curious as to how Delassandro came to choose the same title? Perusing the Internet, I discovered that the talented author, screenwriter, and filmmaker did indeed pick the title from the poem. But I had to know for sure, so I called him up, and he told me something I’d never heard before, that the mayor at the time might have used the phrase.
“It’s kind of a strange quirk that this would happen,” he said. “I had no idea that your grandfather had any living relatives or descendents. After the 1906 Earthquake, it’s difficult to say which came first. Either your grandfather wrote this marvelous poem, “The Damndest Finest Ruins,” because San Francisco was such a majestic city. Even in its destruction you could see the hills and the San Francisco Bay.
“The mayor of the city at the time, Eugene Schmitz, was also quoted as saying a similar phrase. Someone asked him how he felt about the fact his city was completely destroyed, and he said our fair city lies in ruins but those are the damndest, finest ruins the world has ever seen. After doing some research, it’s highly likely that your grandfather coined that phrase and that Eugene Schmitz picked it up from him.” I concur.
My grandfather wrote his poem right after the quake and had it first published by A.P. Pierson in September 1906. He even wrote a poetic sequel of sorts, called “Rebuildin’.”
And since the history of the famous quake and fire had been such a part of my family’s life, I asked Dalessandro why he decided to make it his? He told me he couldn’t have asked for a better story for a screenwriter.
“It’s the denial of disaster, the greatest disaster and the most dramatic event in American history outside of war,” he said. “All of Northern California along a 300-mile stretch was destroyed from Point Arena to San Jose. It also was the object of the biggest cover up and lies in American history.”
Dalessandro says the death count was much greater than reported, that the Army helped burn the city instead of save it, and no earthquake warnings, which were highly prevalent, were ever heeded.
“It’s absolutely an amazing story,” he believes. Dalessandro spent 10 years on the project, eventually writing a book and then producing his documentary, which he released last year. He said his film offers new, rare and incredible footage before, during, and after the infamous event, an event witnessed and recorded as only my grandfather could have described it:
“The Damndest Finest Ruins”
“Put me somewhere west of East Street, where there’s nothing left but dust
And the boys are all abustling, and everything’s gone bust
And where the buildings that are standing sort of blink and blindly stare
At the damndest finest ruins every gazed on anywhere
Bully ruins, brick and wall, through the night I’ve heard you call
Sort of sorry for each other, cause you had to burn and fall
From the Ferry to Van Ness, you’re a God-forsaken mess
But you’re the damndest finest ruins, nothing more or nothing less
And the rubes who come a rubbering and hunting souvenirs
And the fools who try to tell us it’ll take a hundred years
Before we’ve even started and why don’t we come and live
And build our homes in Oakland, on the land they’ve got to give
Got to give? Why believe me! On my soul, I would rather bore a hole
And live right in those ashes than go to the Oakland mole
And if they’d all give me my pick of their buildings fine and slick
In those damndest, finest ruins, I would rather be a brick”
I met Dalessandro during the fest where it became clear that he wasn’t going to change his narrative any, but at
least the Family Club can rest assured that he’s been informed of the truth.
