RECENT RESEARCH — It appears that, in the newspaper coverage of the 30 June 1934 ceremony dedicating Emperor Norton's new grave and headstone in Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, Calif., virtually all of the coverage that included photography featured one — very occasionally both — of two specific uncredited photos. Recently, we discovered that the photographs were taken by San Francisco Examiner staff photographer George Elmer Sheldon and that Sheldon actually took 6 photographs that day — including 4 photos that apparently were never published. All 6 photographs were part of a 2006 donation of photos from the San Francisco Examiner's photo morgue, c.1930–2000, to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. We present all 6 photographs here. We believe this is the first time the four unpublished photos of the ceremony have been published outside the Berkeley database.

The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

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How to Make the "Emperor Norton Place" Street-Naming Proposal Better

If one wished to honor Emperor Norton with a street name in San Francisco, the 600 block of Commercial Street would not necessarily be the most fruitful option — notwithstanding the fact that the 600 block of Commercial is where the Emperor laid his head for the last 14 or 15 years of his life.

But, the 600 block of Commercial is what the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has put on the table. Indeed, on Tuesday 11 April, the Supes are set to vote on a resolution to add “Emperor Norton Place” as a commemorative name for this block.

Comes a couple of questions:

  • At the level of both poetry and design, is “Emperor Norton Place” really the best name? What about “Emperor Norton Way”?

  • How about adding to the Commercial Street resolution a clause (not currently included) that explicitly requests signage — as the Supervisors’ resolution for “Tony Bennett Way” did in 2017?

Here are some suggestions for how to make a good proposal much better.

Details for submitting public comment in advance of the April 11th meeting are at the bottom of this commentary.

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Stereographic Photos of Emperor Norton on a Chinatown Street (Hi-Res Edition)

Last week, a long-rumored and probably unpublished pair of stereocard photographs of Emperor Norton on a street in San Francisco’s Chinatown appeared on Facebook.

The Emperor Norton Trust is delighted to be able to publish, for the first time, large, hi-res images of the original stereocard, courtesy of the previous owner.

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