Before the DMV, at the end of the Panhandle

A roller-skating coliseum, a long-lived laundry, and the origins of the Fell St Department of Motor Vehicles in San Francisco.

Southeast corner of Fell and Baker Streets, c.1958. (Photo from author’s private collection)

In the late 1950s, the State of California determined to move the San Francisco office of the Department of Motor Vehicles to the city block just off of the end of the Golden Gate Park panhandle, bounded by Oak, Fell, Baker, and Broderick Streets. Most of the…