While researching his documentary short “Smut Capital of America,” local filmmaker Michael Stabile came across (heh) the above news clip. In the words of Violet Blue, who brought it to my attention, it is “SO COOL.”

Stabile tells the Appeal he edited the above video “together from raw footage…from a KPIX news report from January 1972. The reporter is Ed Arrow, at the Garden of Eden in North Beach.”

Stabile’s film, about the birth of the modern porn industry in San Francisco in the late 60s, just premiered at the the Tribeca Film Festival this week; it’ll show in San Francisco at Frameline this June.

The Garden of Eden remains a three-Yelp-starred North Beach staple, and is, its website claims, “where the Sin Begins.”

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the author

Eve Batey is the editor and publisher of the San Francisco Appeal. She used to be the San Francisco Chronicle's Deputy Managing Editor for Online, and started at the Chronicle as their blogging and interactive editor. Before that, she was a co-founding writer and the lead editor of SFist. She's been in the city since 1997, presently living in the Outer Sunset with her husband, cat, and dog. You can reach Eve at eve@sfappeal.com.

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