Time-travel to 1971 San Francisco, Berkeley with tech pioneer's incredible street photos

Tech pioneer Nick DeWolf visited San Francisco and the East Bay in 1971 and took hundreds of street-scene photos. He took this couple's picture in Berkeley's Civic Center Park. Tech pioneer Nick DeWolf visited San Francisco and the East Bay in 1971 and took hundreds of street-scene photos. He took this couple's picture in Berkeley's Civic Center Park. Photo: Nick DeWolf/Flickr Photo: Nick DeWolf/Flickr Image 1 of / 43 Caption Close Time-travel to 1971 San Francisco, Berkeley with tech pioneer's incredible street photos 1 / 43 Back to Gallery

Tech pioneer Nick DeWolf is best known for co-founding Teradyne, a Boston-based manufacturer of automatic test equipment for the semiconductor industry. But he was also an avid and accomplished photographer, taking thousands of pictures of the many places he visited and people he encountered.

After 11 years as CEO, DeWolf left Teradyne in 1971. That year he traveled to San Francisco, with his 35mm camera firmly in his grasp.

Photo: Nick DeWolf/Flickr Nick DeWolf, co-founder of Teradyne, photographed the street life...

He took scores of street photos. The result was a visual time capsule of 1971 San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. His lens caught the era's wild hairstyles and fashions, which hadn't quite thrown off the trappings of Summer of Love hippiedom, yet were still a few years away from leisure suits and high-rise platform heels.

While DeWolf did shoot tourist destinations like the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf, he also documented the seedier side of the Bay Area — strip clubs, Victorian buildings in decay and salvage yards piled with junked cars.

Some of his photos — like a view of Telegraph Hill from the long-gone Embarcadero Freeway — can never be duplicated.

A selection of Nick DeWolf's photographs are reproduced in the above slideshow with the permission of his archivist and son-in-law Steve Lundeen. Lundeen is compiling a comprehensive archive of DeWolf's photos on Flickr. More photos can be found there.