Why I try to stay away from Facebook.

Mark Corbett Wilson

Sep 17, 2024 • 3 min read

From https://marriageaftergod.com/how-facebook-almost-destroyed-my-marriage/

A friend posted a beautiful picture of the pool in the Berkeley City Club, formerly the Berkeley Women’s City Club, designed by Julia Morgan in 1929. Years ago, I took a wonderful class there offered by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. It was actually two classes on Greek Culture in the same day, one taught by a philosopher and one taught by an artist. After class (or was it between classes?) we would have lunch in the Berkeley City Club restaurant, now Julia’s, and enjoy each others' company. I suggested my friend try Julia’s.

Image by Alexander Vertikoff/Chronicle Books

One of their friends commented that their high school was designed by Julia Morgan. I’m a Julia Morgan fan, so I searched for high schools designed by Julia Morgan and found Katherine Delmar Burke School at 3065 Jackson Street (1917, now University High School).
https://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Julia_Morgan

I looked it up on Google Maps and took a screenshot for my Morgan collection. The modern cars and wires and streetlights are annoying, so I spent a few minutes removing them to see how the school might have looked a century ago. Then, of course, I had to post that image as a reply in the comments on Facebook, carefully worded to not imply the friend of my friend went to high school a century ago:
“Is this it? Another beautiful, and so modern, Julia Morgan building I've never seen. I found it on Google Maps and had to erase the cars and wires and streetlight to imagine how it looked after it was built a century ago.”

When I returned to the “Notifications” panel I saw that a friend that I haven’t seen since high school, no, not a century ago, had commented on a different post.

Photographer unknown https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10152799057004596

Southern California Memories has a famous beach restaurant as its header image and my friend commented:
“I used to go there for lunch a couple of times each month… I worked at the LA TIMES at 1st/Spring”.
So, of course, I had to figure out which building he was referring to. First I checked Google Maps to make sure I was right about the beach restaurant, and read a couple articles...

Then I looked for a similar building downtown LA. It didn’t take long to figure out my friend was referring to the Herald Examiner Building, eleven blocks from the LA Times.

Image by John Bare https://socallandmarks.com/index.php/2022/03/27/herald-examiner-building/

I used my new trick in the Chrome browser: @gemini > tab to activate Google’s AI and asked:
"| was the Herald Examiner Building and Thelma Todd's restaurant designed by the same architect?" and hit enter. Voila!
“No, the Herald Examiner Building and Thelma Todd's restaurant were not designed by the same architect. The Herald Examiner Building was designed by Julia Morgan, while Thelma Todd's restaurant was designed by Mark Daniels.”

I should have made the connection myself between William Randolph Hearst’s Herald Examiner Building and Julia Morgan. Then I posted my reply:
“Back when it was locally owned.
This picture does look like the Herald Examiner Building downtown. ASU has a satellite journalism campus there now.
This picture was taken on PCH in Pacific Palisades. Maybe the same architects?
It was actress Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe. What an amazing LA story.
https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/hollywood-celebrity-restaurants-thelma-todd-sidewalk-cafe-preston-sturges-players-club”

Pasting my reply I found a typo, so I went back to Facebook to fix it. Now I have to research an architect I never heard of, Mark Daniels. This is why I try to stay off of Facebook.