San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bell-ringing champ a symbol of S.F.
In the mid-1970s, the kids in Chinatown would pile onto street corners waiting for the outbound cable car on the PowellHyde line. It would pop over the hill and, if the bell was ringing in a distinct staccato rhythm, it meant that the gripman they knew as Carl was onboard to entertain them all the way to school.
They’d say, “Oh, that’s Carl, he’s cool,” recalled Lewis Fong, one of the riders, who only years later learned that Carl’s last name was Payne and that he was the most famous cable car conductor of them all.
Payne worked the cable cars for 29 years, putting his back into pulling the grip that grabbed the cable and putting his musical talent into winning the city’s annual bell-ringing competition a record 10 times. He became well known on TV talk shows and as part of the San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl entourage, and for stepping off the cable cars at age 50 to join the San Francisco Police Department as a street cop.
Always a people person, Payne retired from the Police Department in 2013, then traded his dress blue uniform for a green one, to serve as a San Francisco park ranger. He was still working and, on occasion, still ringing the brass bell at civic events.
This year, a recurrence of leukemia led to an aggressive form of lymphoma. He died Aug. 7 at his home in the Outer Sunset. He was 81.
“A cornerstone of San Francisco, Officer Payne is one of those San Franciscans who help make this city shine,” Mayor London Breed wrote in a note of condolence to his family. “He was known by his family, friends, and community to be a man of generosity, care and spirit.”
Among his many civic causes was the campaign to fund and rebuild the
decrepit cable car system, which then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein recruited him to join. By the time the refurbished system reopened, Payne was a celebrity in his own right, traveling to Hong Kong, London and Amsterdam on city business.
“Carl was an ambassador for the city,” said Fong, who became close to Payne when they served together on the police force. “He went from the Marines to Muni to the SFPD to the park rangers. He was a legend.”
Carl Allen Payne was born in Pittsburgh on July 27, 1940. His father, James Payne, worked in the steel mills, and his mother, Ella Alberta Payne, cleaned houses.
Payne played drums in his high school marching band. After school he stocked shelves at the local grocery store. When he graduated in 1958 his choices were the mill or the military, so he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Payne served in the military police in Japan, where he became fluent in the language. He’d never been to San Francisco until he was discharged from the service at the Navy base on Treasure Island in 1962.
“I thought I’d stay for a few days, look around,” he told The Chronicle in February. “But once the city gets its hooks into you, that’s it.”
He was hired by the Municipal Railway to run the cable cars, a tough, physical job. In addition to pulling on the grip to attach the car to the moving cable under the street, it had to be released at every stop and grabbed again, all while applying and releasing the brakes. At the end of the PowellHyde line, operators had to get off the car and push it around on the turntable.
Payne always worked mornings and pulled the car out of the barn at 5:32 a.m. At the end of his shift, he’d ride as a passenger to Powell and Market, where he’d start his second job as a plainclothes security guard at Woolworth’s.
His third job was a drummer in R&B bands that played bars and nightclubs. From there it was a natural move to the cable car bell. It took him seven tries to win the bell-ringing competition, a promotion put on at Union Square. Then over a 15-year period from the 1970s to the late ’80s, he won it 10 times.
“You could give him any tune and he could mimic it on the bell,” said his daughter, Cherisse Payne.
It was a talent that drew attention. After riding on the cable car with Payne, a writer from People magazine described him as “a sort of ringmaster of his own thrilling road show.” The road show included the on-field jazz combo at Candlestick Park during 49ers games. The group performed out of a bandshell with a cable mounted on the roof for Payne to ring.
Payne’s transition to the police force began with a pickpocket problem on the cable car lines, Fong said. Police began putting plainclothes officers on the cable cars. In the morning when they would board the cars at the Powell Street turnaround, Payne would brief the cops on the situation. “We’d meet him there and board the cable car and nab these guys,” Fong said.
Payne would follow through by serving as an expert witness for the prosecution. He carried his own handcuffs and made arrests when the cops weren’t available. That led him to take the Police Department entrance exam. He was on the hiring list, but by the time his name came up he was 36, one year past the age cutoff.
That rule was eventually overturned on the basis of age discrimination, and Payne was 50 when he entered the police academy in 1991, making him the oldest rookie in the history of the department at that time. He served for 23 years as a patrol officer, always with the same courtesy he brought to the cable car.
“If something happened, I would try to listen to people, to hear what they had to say ... even the crazies. I’d hear them out,” Payne told The Chronicle. When he retired he was 73. He figured he was too old to walk the streets but not too old to walk the parks, so he became a ranger. He also worked special events.
“If you’ve been to Bay to Breakers or Outside Lands or Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, chances are Carl was keeping you safe from behind the scenes with a smile on his face,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of San Francisco’s Recreation and Park Department.
Because he’d grown up in a household too poor to afford a car, Payne developed a weakness for the fancy classics. His first was a Bentley, and then he moved on to a RollsRoyce. He owned five at the time of his death. He showed them at classic car shows, winning awards, though not as many as he garnered for his bell ringing. The family will keep the fleet together as the Carl Payne Collection, eventually to tour the car show circuit. Payne was married and divorced twice. Survivors include his sons, Carl Allen Payne Jr. of Pensacola, Fla., and James Payne of Picayune, Miss.; and daughters, Kimberly Goodspeed of Pittsburg and Cherisse Payne of Richmond.
“My dad used to say there was no other city in the world like San Francisco with its character and its charm and opportunities,” Cherisse Payne said. “Through all of his talents and musical skills and his natural charisma, he gave everything he had to the city of San Francisco.”