Here’s a look at the past. Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago. Sept. 13: Davey Rosenberg, who in 1964 put a flat-chested waitress at the Condor Club into a topless bathing suit and turned bohemian Broadway into an international peephole for voyeurs, died Thursday. He was 49. Mr. Rosenberg often weighed between 360 and 400 pounds and suffered from diabetes. He had just left his father’s newsstand-bookstore, Harold’s at Taylor and Post streets, to visit his doctor when he was stricken. The Condor hired Mr. Rosenberg as its publicist in 1964, after the tame neighborhood bar introduced go-go dancing. Mr. Rosenberg spotted an ad for Rudi Gernreich’s radical topless bathing suit, lumbered down to I Magnin’s and plunked down $25 for the skimpy outfit. then he persuaded Carol Doda to wear it. before Doda’s topless debut, Mr. Rosenberg made sure the city’s DJs knew about it. “When Carol went on,” he said, “the joint was packed.” and so it was thereafter. but Mr. Rosenberg had hardly begun. Doda was nice to look at, but a little lacking in the equipment needed for topless dancing. “She was a 34-B,” Mr. Rosenberg said in one of his rare one-on-one meetings with English syntax. Mr. Rosenberg persuaded Doda to try a new technique of breast enlargement using silicone, and the dancer’s chest expanded at about the same rate as her career and that of Mr. Rosenberg. Years later, when Doda gave up on the Condor and topless, she was an astounding 44-DD. Topless caught on, and Mr. Rosenberg, who could eat a gallon of ice cream at a sitting, came to represent 11 clubs on Broadway.
Sept. 15: A gay crowd of 8,700 jammed the Civic Auditorium Wednesday and greeted every sound from Judy Garland with tumultuous applause. Miss Garland, youthful in short skirts and elfin hairdo, sang 24 songs ranging the full spectrum of her repertoire from gallant tragedy to sheer ear-piercing volume. that she was not in good voice seemed not to bother anyone except the odd person interested in music. The Garland patrons were interested in something else, and the evening seemed to be more rewarding sociologically than musically. it must be admitted that her audience is devoted, and loved every moment of the show. they paid more than $45,000 for the privilege of hearing her scream out “San Francisco,” so loud the PA system buzzed. Hers is a faithful audience, and the applause for 24 numbers left them fagged out and limp. Is the audience hearing Judy Garland or merely worshipping an illusion?
Sept. 12: Before one of the smallest gatherings ever to watch a hanging, Bill Sam, 34-year-old Stockton Chinese, dropped through the San Quentin Prison gallows trap today in expiation of the murder of his wife two years ago. so little interest was manifested in his execution that the warden’s office had to send a hasty SOS request to the San Rafael Sheriff’s office and police station for enough witnesses to make the hanging legal. twelve witnesses are required. Until the advent of Court Smith as warden, all guards off duty were required to be present, but the new warden abolished the rule. San Rafael police rounded up volunteers, including an automobile salesman, and a man who happened to be in the police station. Sam was hanged at 10 o’clock this morning and pronounced dead 14 minutes later. The Rev. Mr. Tse Kei Yuen, rector of the San Francisco Presbyterian Church accompanied him to the gallows. Sam killed his wife in a Stockton restaurant in 1934. Pleading guilty, he said that he killed her to spare his son the stigma of having estranged parents.
Sept. 16: The “dead line” first instituted by Police Chief Biggy for the purpose of keeping the women of the underworld within the confines of Chinatown and which has from time to time been put into force and then allowed to lapse, was abolished yesterday by Police Chief D.a White. Orders to this effect were read out to the various police watches and the women who inhabit the resorts of the segregated district are now free to go in and out of that section of the city at will. The dead line had not been very rigidly enforced for some time until a week ago when Chief White took the bit between his teeth and made his spectacular change of captains. At the same time he issued orders that the dead line be enforced and as a result a large number of women of the segregated district who were residing outside its confines were arrested on vagrancy charges. According to Chief White the abolishing of the dead line followed a petition by a committee of North Beach retail merchants. The merchants claimed that enforcement prevented the women from shopping in their district, with a consequent loss of profits. {sbox}
This article appeared on page P – 46 of the San Francisco Chronicle
