Earthquake TALES from Coppa

Original Coppa's Restaurant was a legendary bohemian gathering place in the Montgomery (Monkey) Block where the Transamerica Building now stands. Its crowning glory were the wild murals, created by the artists and writers who made the place their second home sitting for hours at the center table in a long, narrow room with 21 tables.

The leader of the San Francisco Bohemians was Porter Garnett, a writer, editor,  designer and co-creator, with Gelett Burgess, of the 1895 literary magazine The Lark. The group also included the painters Xavier Martinez, Ernest Peixetto, Maynard Dixon, poets and writers George Sterling, James Hopper, sculptor Robert Aiken, Willis and Dan Polk were also frequently in attendance along with many others. The late evening libations were decidedly misogynistic and never included wives. Women were included on occasion if they were pretty enough, or a current girlfriend for a one time review.

Years earlier, Bohemians frequented The Bohemian Saloon* in Monterey which had walls covered by Bay Area artists, but they were painted over when the bar was sold. Maybe with this in mind, or because Burgess had started to scribble some of his characters in chalk, Papa Coppa agreed to let them create a permanent mural on the wall. They started on a Sunday in 1905, for a free lunch and all the wine they could drink. Giant lobsters, self-portraits, black cats - a nod to the Chat Noir in Paris, and cryptic quotations in many languages adorned the walls. The Oscar Wilde's quote “Something terrible is about to happen.” was prescient in that less than a year later the terrible did happen. On April 18, 1906,  the earthquake and fire spared the Monkey Block, but looters broke into the cafe and destroyed everything. The now legendary mural only lasted one year.

Coppa opened the ruined restaurant and served a last supper by candlelight for the Bohemians and their families who gathered to share earthquake memories. Here is a memory recorded by Xavier Martinez's wife Elsa Whitaker Martinez*;

   Marty was a great friend of Willis Polk, the architect, who recounted his experiences of the earthquake to a group of us at the restored Coppa’s.
  He had built the Chronicle Building, then one of the few modern steel supported buildings in San Francisco. While everyone was running about inspecting their buildings for strains, he was called to discover the source of strange sounds coming from the basement of the Chronicle Building. By the time he reached the spot the police had roped off a large area around the building, fearing it might collapse.
   He scanned the crowd while heading for the basement, found several of his workmen, called to them to follow him declaring, “This building cannot collapse if I get help!”
   They rushed after him into the basement in which were installed great jacks in case of a slight sinking or shifting, because the land all the way up to his building had been filled in land. As the men dashed about under his hectic directions spinning the wheels of the jacks, gradually the roar subsided, the building stabilized, and no sounds issued from the basement — the building was saved.
   As soon as he got out of the basement his knees began to shake and he said, with satisfaction, “A narrow escape!”, and congratulated his men on their courage to which a very large crowd applauded and declared him and his men heroes.
   Then the authorities having decided they must clear a strip of the town up to Van Ness Avenue to save the rest of the city, gave him the job of demolition. He was given a detail of soldiers to carry the dynamite, supplies and lanterns. Without anxiety or incident he demolished a scattering of old buildings and when about the tackle the last one noticed that his detail of soldiers were almost youngsters.
​   Nervously they held the lanterns while he set the dynamite chargers, then absorbed in lighting the fuses with his cigar, finished, looked about, and realized the frightened youngsters had vanished with the lantern. For a moment he watched the sinister flickering and twinkling of the fuses and told himself, “If I don’t remember where the door is I entered, I go up with the building!” He spent ten seconds in intensive concentration, recalling his route, then hurriedly crossed the basement and dashed out the entrance he figured was there. When a safe distance from the building, he was much shaken and declared it the “narrowest escape of his life” — his presence of mind and his memory had served him well and saved his life.

Monkey Block

Montgomery Street location pre-1906

At the Bar

Papa Coppa tried to recapture the magic with several reincarnations of his cafe in new locations with new murals, but it never regained the same caché. 

* Elsie Martinez is quoted from a longer transcript which includes more Coppa stories.
* The Bohemia Saloon was run by Adulpho Sanchez, brother-in-law of Robert Louis Stevenson. More on that tale soon! 
Title: San Francisco Bay Area writers and artists: oral history transcript
By: Martinez, Elsie, 1890-1984
Date: 1962-1963
Copyright: The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/