When S.F. celebrated the New Year … by throwing garbage out the window

“Just as the snake sheds its old skin, the Financial District shed its 1977 calendar memo pads out of whatever windows it could open and went home early yesterday,” The Chronicle reported the next day. “Lovely festoons of toilet paper and computer tape accented the appointment-pad snowstorm to trim sidewalk trees, wallpaper parked cars and clog crosswalk rain puddles.”

That was near the peak of one of San Francisco’s most poorly aged lost traditions: the last workday of the year in the city, when office workers celebrated by becoming serial litterers.

The calendar pages started flying some time in the late 1920s or early 1930s, after the first wave of skyscrapers was built in the Financial District. Herb Caen was the first to write about the monsoon in the pages of The Chronicle, remarking on it Jan. 1, 1940, just a few months after his beloved column started.

“The most palpable evidence of the death of 1939 could be found Saturday afternoon in the Financial District,” Caen wrote. “For that day, torn leaves from outdated calendars came fluttering down in snowy profusion from the windows of Montgomery and Sansome — an annual custom which, I understand, is peculiar to San Francisco.”

Judging simply by photographs from the Chronicle archive, the tradition’s zenith came sometime in the 1960s, when photos show a steady downpour of paper drifting onto Montgomery Street, nearly covering the outside (but not the inside) of a garbage can that threatened a $250 fine for littering.

Around that time The Chronicle started an annual tradition of sending a reporter and photographer to sift through the calendar pages and report on some of the stranger findings. The notes ranged from curious to titillating to haunting, often saying something about the times.

Aug. 26, 1960: “George called to cancel our date and was I ever grateful!”

Aug. 5, 1964: “Had a long chat long distance with Pete. Guess that situation will finally be straitened out.”

Sept. 15, 1977: “Last night I dreamed I was a tear falling out of a green eye that belonged to a green man who had just landed in a UFO and got his first glimpse at the world. I woke up crying.”

Sept 25, 1977: “VD clinic today.”

April 4, 1978: “Tell Michael THE TRUTH this time.”

The late 1960s and 1970s brought the environmental movement to the Bay Area, but it didn’t reach the Financial District. In interviews through the 1970s, city officials responsible for cleaning the mess remained mostly supportive of the mass littering event.

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Department of Public Works Director Myron Tatarian told The Chronicle that residents should just try to enjoy all the trash falling from the skies.

“I can’t help myself. There’s something I really like about this tradition,” Tatarian said. “It’s like a fresh snowfall — it makes us look at the world around us. And at the same time it helps us see ourselves.”

The Chronicle celebrated too. With the tradition often falling during a slow news period a day or two before the New Year, the front page often featured a centerpiece photo of falling papers or children joyfully playing in the refuse like it was snow.

By the mid-1980s, when computer paper and dot matrix printers were adding to the gigantic pile, the haul reached more than 25 tons, with a $25,000 price tag for street cleanup crew overtime. But city officials didn’t openly revolt until early 1987, after a heavy rain made the cleanup particularly frustrating.

“All the calendar pages that people tossed out of their windows have gotten wet, so they’re sticking to the parapets and the ledges of buildings,” Department of Public Works Manager Dick Evans said. “It’ll be awhile before they dry off. Then they’ll blow down into the streets.”

After the 1987 mess the movement grew. Landlords of the Transamerica Pyramid sent a memo to office workers, asking them not to jimmy window locks open and add to the trash. City Hall started a media campaign, asking workers to use recycling bins.

The pleas of city officials were mostly ignored. Downtown workers continued to throw paper out their windows until at least 2003, the last time The Chronicle reported the paper downfall had dwindled to a drizzle.

The tradition apparently ended from a combination of the rise of electronic calendars, and (more importantly) tougher heating, ventilation and air conditioning rules in tall buildings. Many owners of older structures sealed their windows to save on heating bills, and new skyscrapers like Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont St. didn’t give workers the option to open windows.

In most San Francisco office high-rises in 2022, the only way to throw a year’s worth of recyclables into the street is to put them in a bin and walk down a flight of stairs.

Peter Hartlaub (he/him) is The San Francisco Chronicle’s culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub