Burnt-out Chinatown with the Fairmont Hotel standing above it

1906

Arnold Genthe photographed Chinatown after the fire that followed the 1906 earthquake, with the shell of the Fairmont Hotel visible on Nob Hill in the distance. Genthe had spent the previous decade photographing the neighbourhood before it burned, which makes his post-fire negatives a direct record of what was lost. Held by the Library of Congress.