146 Ladies in dresses men in suits and hats the boy selling the paper about the New Deal Crowds walking over the tracks wait and peer, wires gridding, faces in the windows. Photography always includes the face—the three windows and the little nose, the button in the middle. From a recording with Harry Aitken, a retired volunteer at the Western Railway Museum in Suisun City. He gets out a binder of photographs labeled Broadway Ave. We both hover over it. His voice wavers, but not his facts. He corrects me when I refer to the streetcars as trains. Plastic holders softly crackling. Each photograph arranged by street. Some wealthy people had their own cars, 1912. I usually respond with a noise, lips closed. Everybody just walked every which way. It didn’t matter. I laugh. A parade. Here they’re changing the tracks again—cable car to electric. Plastic shifting. Flipping, flipping There’s always some little boy trying to get into the picture. Especially when there’s a wreck. Look at the crowds here. We can usually tell the time period by the length of the ladies’ skirts. Can I bookmark this picture? I said. Sure, he said. What drew you to that one? I think because it’s from above. These guys are waiting for the San Francisco train. This car’s going to Alameda. Harry realizes one of the volunteers has reordered the binder: These are all mixed up. I’m going to have to talk to that guy. Here we have the crowd scenes. This is San Pablo and that’s Telegraph. Here’s the old post office on Broadway. Long gone.