Power duo of Jagger, Feinstein lent voices to save cable cars
Dianne Feinstein’s early 1980s fight to save the cable cars had no shortage of star wattage: from Tony Bennett to members of Jefferson Starship to Pac-Man.
But no one gave a bigger impression — while expending very little effort — than Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. In town on Oct. 20, 1981, for a pair of sold-out concerts at Candlestick Park, he dropped by San Francisco’s City Hall and made his pitch for the historic but aging Muni transit system.
“Mick Jagger paid a brief call on Mayor Dianne Feinstein yesterday at San Francisco City Hall, posing with her on a motorized cable car in a publicity stunt for the ‘Save the Cable Cars’ fund,” The Chronicle reported the next day. Jagger “told reporters he agreed to the photo session ‘when I heard the cable cars needed a relatively small amount of money from the private sector or they would disappear.’ ”
The photo is one of the most memorable in The Chronicle’s archive: a swank-looking Jagger in a suit, next to Feinstein looking a bit like a rock star herself, swinging away from Jagger while speaking to someone off camera.
But the reality was far less
glamorous. For one, it wasn’t a real cable car; the pair settled for a motorized fake on rubber wheels in Civic Center Plaza. Jagger stayed for less than five minutes, according to the story by Chronicle music writer Paul Liberatore. And behind the scenes was a furious Bill Graham, who was producing the band’s national tour and in a fight with the local press. (Graham had asked that newspapers not be allowed to the news conference at all; reporters were told it was canceled but saw through the ruse and arrived anyway.)
“Asked by reporters if he would be contributing to the fund, Jagger graciously said he would probably give something, but declined to say how much,” Liberatore wrote. “The questions infuriated Graham, who has been engaged in a running feud with several Bay Area writers over coverage of the Stones’ concerts.”
Graham publicist Zohn Artman added: “I’m never dealing with the press again. After this I’m going to work in a restaurant.”
The cable car effort was, in retrospect, worth all the drama.
The system was in deep disrepair and prone to accidents, with $60 million needed to fix the system. There was still a contingent of San Franciscans who thought the cable cars were inefficient relics of the past that should be removed altogether. Under a tight deadline, Feinstein very publicly passed the hat herself. Two airlines that did business at San Francisco International Airport donated $1 million each. Jefferson Starship raised $50,000 for the system with a benefit concert; guitarist Paul Kantner wrote the check in exchange for a cable car bell. Atari donated $1 million as well.
The latter donation was particularly tough for Feinstein, who was backing an initiative that would ban video game arcades in most San Francisco neighborhoods and had to pose next to a 6foot-tall Pac-Man mascot.
The money was raised, and on Sept. 22, 1982, the cable cars were closed for 21 months, before reopening for good in 1984.
The hard work needed to save the cable cars, which had faced a similar existential threat in the 1950s, is mostly forgotten in time. But the Jagger photo, taken by Chronicle photographer Steve Ringman, is famous. It has been republished at least twice in the past couple years in Chronicle historical editions and magazines.
(Ringman, a pioneer in rock concert photography, still works for the Seattle Times. Liberatore retired from the Marin Independent Journal this year. Jagger and Feinstein are both pursuing their chosen professions in 2018, she as a U.S. senator.)
Unfortunately, there is just the single image. Like much of The Chronicle’s musical archive featuring famous singers and bands, the photo negatives went missing from the newspaper’s archive at some point in the past 3½ decades.
Which brings us to a final piece of wisdom from Jagger. His other 1981 quote in The Chronicle about the cable cars sounded a bit like a Rolling Stones lyric:
“Once they’re gone,” he said, “you can’t get them back.”
Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub