The Youtube artist/film technician named NASS specializes in restoring, colorizing and adding ambient sound to film of cities from the past. The results are extraordinary. (See yesterday’s post for his amazing work on old L.A. footage). Here’s a little under ten minutes of old San Francisco circa early-to-mid 1940s (the ‘no cameras’ sign at the pier is a clue–protecting the Pacific from espionage was a serious thing at the time). As always with NASS, the restoration is so perfect–the results so real–that it doesn’t look like the period that we picture in our heads, which is usually in black and white or sadly murky color. This is what it was to be there. We’ll never get closer to a time machine…