FoundSF - User contributions [en]

Talks: 2026 Videos

2026-03-27T05:16:45Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Primary Source '''

'''Shaping San Francisco hosts Public Talks on a variety of topics, usually on Wednesday nights, a dozen times a year. Our topic themes vary, but we've grouped them over time into these categories: Art & Politics, Ecology, Historical Perspectives, Literary, and Social Movements.'''

<hr>

March 25, 2026 

Re-Imagining Serra

Chris Cuadrado's artist activation uses multimedia technology to create an alternative statue emerging from the rubble of what has been torn down. Chris investigates the act of reappropriation to rebuild the memory of Junipero Serra. Based on collected ephemera, photographs, video footage, and sourced miniature replicas related to the statue, a screening and sound sculpture is a meditation on the figure of Padre Junipero Serra. Attendees will be invited to reflect on monuments, legacy, and public space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission, with Adriana Camarena, Kim Shuck, and Chris Cuadrado. Thanks to Association of Ramaytush Ohlone for guidance throughout the year.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/re-imagining-serra-march-25-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

March 11, 2026 

City of Redwood

James Michael Buckley’s 2024 ''City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry'' reconnects us to the built environment from San Francisco all the way up to Eureka in the far north of California, past and present. David Schmidt’s brand new majesterial ''San Francisco Bay Area: An Environmental History'' contains a close look at the historic forests of the Bay Area and how they were cut down to help build the region. Together these speakers will help us see how profoundly the iconic trees of the west coast literally undergird our everyday lives even today.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/city-of-redwood-march-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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February 25, 2026 

Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives

Shaping San Francisco’s year-long case study of the Padre Junípero Serra statue included a folklife-based, community-led research process centered on memory-keeping practices. Indigenous community researchers explored everyday practices from their own cultures that carry collective knowledge. The researchers included members of Urban Native communities, Indigenous migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and urban youth. Their research invites reflection on how genocide, relocation, and migration continue to erode Indigenous ways of knowing, and how communities continue to protect and hold on to them. The process was facilitated by storyteller Adriana Camarena. Several community researchers will share their findings. The discussion will be presented in Spanish and English.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission 

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/memory-keeping-from-indigenous-perspectives-feb-25-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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February 11, 2026 

The Priest, the Imperialist, and the Sculptor

We close a year-long case study of the Padre Junipero Serra statue. Jonathan Cordero (Association of Ramaytush Ohlone) critically examines the romantic myth that supports the veneration of Serra and reveals the actual calamitous impact of the mission system. Chris Carlsson explains how an unlikely series of events led to the so-called “Mission Revival”, the commissioning of the statue by James Phelan, and giving Serra an undeserved new role in a manufactured public memory. He reveals that the statue's placement in Golden Gate Park in 1907 in fact bolstered a white supremacist agenda at the dawn of the 20th century. LisaRuth Elliott explores Douglas Tilden, the cosmopolitan sculptor revered in the deaf community, and his many other contributions to the SF civic art collection and beyond. This evening is a chance to talk about the reanimation of a man through a monument, the fraught relationship between a patron of the arts and his protegé, and how these honorific likenesses and what they are supposed to signify become part of our urban space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/priest-imperialist-sculptor-feb-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

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[[category:1776-1823]] [[category:1823-1846]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:Indigenous]] [[category:racism]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:architecture]] [[category:Public Art]] [[category:Filipino]] [[category:Talks]] [[category:Mexican]] [[category:Food]] [[category:Habitat]] [[category:Ecology]] [[category:Churches]] [[category:Famous characters]]

Category:Talks

2026-03-27T05:15:35Z

Ccarlsson: /* Art & Politics */

Shaping San Francisco hosts Public Talks on a variety of topics on Wednesday nights, 10–18 times a year. Our topic themes vary, but we've grouped them over time into the categories listed below. These Public Talks have been archived in audio and since 2014 in video. Browse our offerings, and catch up on almost two decades of public discussions. Find them also at the Shaping San Francisco collection on the [https://archive.org/details/shaping_sf Internet Archive], and embedded in archival pages at [http://shapingsf.org/public-talks/index.html shapingsf.org].

''Unlinked Talks mean there is no audio or video available.''

<ul>
<li>[[#art|Art & Politics]]</li>
<li>[[#ecology|Ecology]]</li>
<li>[[#history|Historical Perspectives]]</li>
<li>[[#lit|Literary]]</li>
<li>[[#social|Social Movements]]</li>
</ul>

<hr>

==Art & Politics==

Public Talks: Art & Politics / 2024- 

:[[Talks: 2026 Videos#v_mar25-26|March 25, 2026: Chris "L7" Cuadrado—Re-Imagining Serra]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_oct1-25|October 1, 2025: Eric Drooker—''Naked City'']]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_sep25-24|September 25, 2024: Will Maynez Interprets Diego Rivera]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_may8-24|May 8, 2024: Hughen/Starkweather]]

[[Talks:_Art_%26_Politics_/_2015-2020|Public Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020]] 

:[[Talks: Art & Politics_/_2015-2020-#feb26-20|February 26, 2020: Miranda Bergman]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics_/_2015-2020#sep11-19|September 11, 2019: San Francisco Poster Syndicate]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-20209#apr3-19|April 3, 2019: Chris "L7" Cuadrado]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#feb13-19|February 13, 2019: Seth Eisen/OUT of Site]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#nov28-18|November 28, 2018: Public Art and Murals: Controversy, Neglect, Restoration]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#may2-18|May 2, 2018: Kal Spelletich--Do Androids Dream of Surplus Value?]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#apr4-18|April 4, 2018: Insurgent Country Music and its Roots in the Golden State]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#mar14-18|March 14, 2018: Ilana Crispi: Tenderloin and Mission Dirt]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#feb28-18|February 28, 2018: Lou Dematteis]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#nov8-17|November 8, 2017: Seth Eisen "OUT of Site"]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#jun7-17|June 7, 2017: Kent Minault's "Diggerly-Do's"]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#jan25-17|January 25, 2017: Packard Jennings]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#sep28-16|September 28, 2016: Jenny Odell, Art as Archiving, Archiving as Art]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#feb24-16|February 24, 2016: Mauro Ffortissimo with Dean Mermell]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#nov4-15|November 4, 2015: Guillermo Gomez-Peña]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#sep30-15|September 30, 2015: Nato Green]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#mar4-15|March 4, 2015: Sirron Norris]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2015-2020#feb11-15|February 11, 2015: Rene Yañez]]

[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014|Public Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#nov12-14|November 12, 2014: Janet Delaney]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#apr30-14|April 30, 2014: Yolanda Lopez]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#mar26-14|March 26, 2014: Norman Nawrocki — Cazzarola!]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#jan22-14|January 22, 2014: Songs of Freedom celebration]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#apr24-13|April 24, 2013: Rebar]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#nov7-12|November 7, 2012: Clarion Alley Mural Project]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#may16-12|May 16, 2012: Amy Franceschini]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#may9-12|May 9, 2012: Rock, Posters, and Politics!]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#apr18-12|April 18, 2012: "Reel Hood Heroes": Conscious Youth Media Crew]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#mar21-12|March 21, 2012: Jess Curtis: Body of Work]]

:October 19, 2011: An Open Rehearsal of Trial of Lucullus

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#may25-11|May 25, 2011: Lost Murals, Political Posters, Underground Comix: Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2011-2014#feb9-11|February 9, 2011: Eric Drooker and HOWL]]

[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010|Public Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#oct27-10|October 27, 2010: A Staged Reading of Money, a WPA Comedy from 1937]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#sep22-10|September 22, 2010: RIGO]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#may19-10|May 19, 2010: History of San Francisco's Carnaval]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#mar10-10|March 10, 2010: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#feb17-10|February 17, 2010: Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#jan20-10|January 20, 2010: Patricia Rodriguez]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#dec9-09|December 9, 2009: Keith Hennessy]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#nov18-09|November 18, 2009: Philippines: Immigration Politics and the Body]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#sep23-09|September 23, 2009: From India to the Bay Area: Culture and Economy]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#sep16-09|September 16, 2009: Conscious Youth Media Crew]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#may27-09|May 27, 2009: Susan Greene]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#apr15-09|April 15, 2009: Russell Howze]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#mar18-09|March 18, 2009: Jet Martinez]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#feb18-09|February 18, 2009: Doug Minkler]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#oct8-08|October 8, 2008: San Francisco Print Collective]]

:September 10, 2008: Art as Intervention

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#mar19-08|March 19, 2008: Favianna Rodriguez]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#feb20-08|February 20, 2008: Eric Drooker]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#jan16-08|January 16, 2008: Andrew Schoultz]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#oct17-07|October 17, 2007: Hugh D’Andrade]]

:[[Talks: Art & Politics / 2007-2010#sep19-07|September 19, 2007: Mona Caron]]

:September 12, 2007: Grant Funding for the Arts in San Francisco: A Discussion

<hr>

==Ecology==

Public Talks: Ecology / 2026

:[[Talks: 2026 Videos#v_mar11-26|March 11, 2026: City of Redwood]]

Public Talks: Ecology / 2024-2025

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_mar26-25|March 26, 2025: Biospheric Dialogue]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_mar26-24|March 26, 2024: Cultivating Food Resilience and Combating Global Challenges]]

Public Talks: Ecology / 2020-2023

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_dec2-23|December 2, 2023: Thinkwalk—1862 Flood]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_sep30-23|September 30, 2023: Natural Areas II Bike Tour: Golden Gate Park to Lobos Valley]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_sep23-23|September 23, 2023: Frisco Bay Mussel Group: A Look Back]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_sep22-23|September 22, 2023: San Francisco Natural History with Greg Gaar]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_apr23-23|April 23, 2023: Special Anniversary Bike Tour: Natural Areas and Native Plants]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_mar18-23|March 18, 2023: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Journey to the Highest Peak: Mt. Davidson]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_nov5-22|November 5, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—China Beach to Mountain Lake]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_oct15-22|October 15, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Tunnel Tops to Francisco Park]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_sep24-22|September 24, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Chain of Lakes, Golden Gate Park]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_apr9-22|April 9, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—San Bruno Mountain]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_mar26-22|March 26, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Fort Funston to Pine Lake]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_jan29-22|January 29, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Visitacion Valley and Little Hollywood]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_nov6-21|November 6, 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Glen Canyon and Sutro Forest]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_oct9-21|October 9, 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Bayview Hill and Candlestick Point State Recreation Area]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_aug28-21|August 28, 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Grandview Peak and Golden Gate Heights]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_jun26-21|June 26, 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Dogpatch, Warm Water Cove, Shipyards and Crane Cove Park]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_apr10-21|April 10, 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Presidio: Crissy Field to El Polín Spring]]

:[[Talks: 2020 Videos#v_dec13-20|December 13, 2020: King Tide/Sea Level Rise Mission Bay Virtual Walking Tour]]

:[[Talks: 2020 Videos#v_sep19-20|September 19, 2020: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—India Basin and Heron's Head Park]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019|Public Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#sep25-19|September 25, 2019: Neighborhood Corridors: Memory and Ecology]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#may22-19|May 22, 2019: Local Ecological Justice and Urbanity]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#mar27-19|March 27, 2019: Sea Level Rise: Pacific Ocean and the Bay Area]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#mar28-18|March 28, 2018: Saving the Bay from the "Future"]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#mar7-18|March 7, 2018: Resilient by Design: The Language of Water]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2018-2019#feb7-18|February 7, 2018: Building a Deep Map--Beyond Buildings and Views]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017|Public Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#sep27-17|September 27, 2017: Other Food Systems Are Possible]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#may10-17|May 10, 2017: From the Delta to the Bayshore: Adaptation Infrastructure and Rising Seas]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#feb8-17|February 8, 2017: Citizen Science/Extinction Culture]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#nov30-16|November 30, 2016: Unseen City]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#may11-16|May 11, 2016: What’s Going Right with the Global Environment!]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#apr27-16|April 27, 2016: Oil, Soil, and (Climate) Turmoil]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#apr13-16|April 13, 2016: Synthetic Biology: DIY Tinkering Meets Big Capital]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#dec2-15|December 2, 2015: Tending the Urban Wild]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#may13-15|May 13, 2015: Plumbing California: Past, Present, and Future]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#may6-15|May 6, 2015: Rewilding and the Anthropocene]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#apr22-15|April 22, 2015: Telling Stories with Bricks]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2015-2017#feb4-15|February 4, 2015: San Francisco’s Wild Menu: Flora, Fauna, Feast]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014|Public Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#nov5-14|November 5, 2014: Trees and History]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#sep10-14|September 10, 2014: The Evolving Eastern Shoreline]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#may14-14|May 14, 2014: Political Economy of Bees]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#may7-14|May 7, 2014: Dogs, Density, and Natural Areas]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#apr9-14|April 9, 2014: Urban Farming and Urban Nature: Are We Competing or Cooperating?]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#mar12-14|March 12, 2014: Saltworks and Shorelines: a Visual and Social History of the San Francisco Bay]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#feb26-14|February 26, 2014: Design Radicals: Berkeley 1960s and Today]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#feb5-14|February 5, 2014: Becoming a Biodiversity City]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#oct30-13|October 30, 2013: Liberation Biology]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#may22-13|May 22, 2013: Talking About Ecology and Science in Public]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#mar27-13|March 27, 2013: Designing Resilient Landscapes: What history teaches us about San Francisco and the Bay-Delta Estuary]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#jan16-13|January 16, 2013: The Tigers of Market Street: Butterfly Habitat along a Busy Urban Corridor]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#dec5-12|December 5, 2012: Planning 4th Street: Remaking a San Francisco Corridor]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#aug28-12|August 28, 2012: The Next Step in Sustainability]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2012-2014#may23-12|May 23, 2012: What Are Our Streets For?]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011|Public Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#nov9-11|November 9, 2011: In Search of San Francisco's Eradicated Landscapes]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#oct26-11|October 26, 2011: Urban Homesteading]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#sep28-11|September 28, 2011: Did Laguna Dolores Exist?]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#sep14-11|September 14, 2011: Endangered Species Campaigning]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#jun8-11|June 8, 2011: Ecology and Food of the 1970s: Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#mar30-11|March 30, 2011: Reciprocal Bio-Regional Culture from the Bay Area to the Sierras]]

:February 23, 2011: Underground Food Politics

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#feb16-11|February 16, 2011: Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco's Mission Bay]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#jan26-11|January 26, 2011: Environmental History of Golden Gate Park]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#nov17-10|November 17, 2010: Watersheds from California to Mexico]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#nov10-10|November 10, 2010: Eco-Politics, a Strategic Roundtable]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#may26-10|May 26, 2010: Twin Peaks Bioregional Park: A Conservation Strategy for the Heart of San Francisco]]

:May 12, 2010: Circle the Food Wagons!—Local Food Economies

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#feb24-10|February 24, 2010: San Francisco Golf Courses, Parks, Natural Areas]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2010-2011#jan27-10|January 27, 2010: Urban Forest]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009|Public Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009]]

:October 28, 2009: Climate Change/Climate Justice

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#sep30-09|September 30, 2009: Ecology and Redevelopment in Bayview/Hunter's Point ]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#may13-09|May 13, 2009: Can Capitalism really “Go Green?”]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#apr29-09|April 29, 2009: Permacultural Transformation for the Urban Dweller]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#mar25-09|March 25, 2009: Toxic San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#feb25-09|February 25, 2009: Bees in the City]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#jan29-09|January 28, 2009: Lake Merced Natural Area's Future]]

:November 19, 2008: Green Streets: Redesigning San Francisco One Block at a Time

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#oct29-08|October 29, 2008: Candlestick Point: State Park for the People]]

:February 27, 2008: San Francisco's Imperiled and Surviving Birds

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2008-2009#jan30-08|January 30, 2008: Endangered Species Big Year]]

[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007|Public Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#nov28-07|November 28, 2007: Food Security & Urban Agriculture]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#oct24-07|October 24, 2007: New Politics for Green Cities]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#sep26-07|September 26, 2007: San Francisco Water Sources]]

:May 30, 2007: San Francisco Ecology: Butterflies in the City

:May 2, 2007: Immigration, Work, and Agriculture: From Enclosures to Fast-Food

:April 25, 2007: The National Park Where We Live

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#feb28-07|February 28, 2007: Laying a Foundation for a Green City (3 podcasts) ]]

:January 31, 2007: Grassroots Activism to Save San Bruno Mountain

:November 29, 2006: Native Habitat Restoration: Frogs in San Francisco

:October 25, 2006: Recycling Activism: Trash and Toxics

:September 27, 2006: Activism in and for the San Francisco Bay Ecosystem

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#may31-06|May 31, 2006 : Can San Francisco Feed Itself? (3 podcasts)]]

:May 10, 2006: San Francisco's Food Revolt

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#apr26-06|April 26, 2006: Reclaiming Bay Area Military Bases (2 podcasts)]]

:[[Talks: Ecology / 2006-2007#mar29-06|March 29, 2006: Natural Disasters and Community Response (4 podcasts)]]

:February 22, 2006: Nature in the Urban Environment

:January 25, 2006: Natural Areas of San Francisco: a Pre-Urban View

<hr>

==Historical Perspectives==

Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2026-

:[[Talks: 2026 Videos#v_feb25-26|February 25, 2026: Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives]]

:[[Talks: 2026 Videos#v_feb11-26|February 11, 2026: The Priest, the Imperialist, and the Sculptor]]

Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2021-2025

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_dec10-25|December 10, 2025: Radiation in our Midst]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_nov19-25|November 19, 2025: Logistics, Containers, Seafarers]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_nov5-25|November 5, 2025: Auto Row to Robo-cars: A Century of Protesting Carmageddon]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_may14-25|May 14, 2025: HUAC and the New McCarthyism]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_apr16-25|April 16, 2025: Explosivity: Port Chicago & Beyond]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_oct16-24|October 16, 2024: Rebel Airwaves: Looking back at 75 years of KPFA]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_oct9-24|October 9, 2024: The First Post-Pandemic Political Era: After WWI]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_sep25-24|September 25, 2024: Will Maynez Interprets Diego Rivera]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_sep11-24|September 11, 2024: Muni Labor, Muni Love]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_apr24-24|April 24, 2024: History of Monopoly (the game)]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_apr10-24|April 10, 2024: Life and Death in a Great American City]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_dec5-23|December 15, 2023: Talking History with Gary Kamiya]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_nov15-23|November 15, 2023: Living in the Archives]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_nov8-23|November 8, 2023: Peoples History of SFO]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_oct28-23|October 28, 2023: Lone Mountain Cemeteries]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_oct24-23|October 24, 2023: Mountain View Cemetery]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_sep27-23|September 27, 2023: Trains into the Outside Lands]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_aug26-23|August 26, 2023: Bicycle Messenger Crackdown Commemoration Ride]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_jun14-23|June 14, 2023: San Francisco and the New Deal]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_may20-23|May 20, 2023: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Food and Baseball in SOMA and the Mission]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_mar26-23|March 26, 2023: Tour of the Oakland Tribune Tower]]

:[[Talks: 2023 Videos#v_jan28-23|January 28, 2023: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Bernal Cut to Diamond Heights]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_nov19-22|November 19, 2022: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_sep18-21|September 18 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Eureka Valley and Corbett Heights]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_mar6-21|March 6 2021: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Bernal Heights and the Bernal Cut]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020]]

:[[Talks: Spring 2020 Videos#v_nov14-20|November 14, 2020: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—McLaren Park and Philosophers' Way]]

:[[Talks: Spring 2020 Videos#v_sep26-20|September 26, 2020: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—Fort Mason and Black Point]]

:August 29, 2020: Urban Forum: Walk and Talk—SF General Hospital and Potrero Hill ''No recording available''

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#mar11-20|March 11, 2020: ''Hidden San Francisco'': Book Release and Birthday Party]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#dec11-19|December 11, 2019: Valencia Street as a Lesbian Corridor: Living Memories]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#nov13-19|November 13, 2019: Progress to Poverty: Land and Rents]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#nov6-19|November 6, 2019: Alcatraz Occupation: A Beginning]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#oct23-19|October 23, 2019: Shellmounds, Indigenous Culture, and Ecology on the San Francisco Bay]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#oct2-19|October 2, 2019: Storytelling and the Memory Keepers]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#may29-19|May 29, 2019: Americans in the Spanish Civil War]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#apr10-19|April 10, 2019: Neighborhood Newspapers of San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#feb6-19|February 6, 2019: Internment and its Aftermath]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2019-2020#jan23-19|January 23, 2019: Before San Francisco: Spanish and Mexican Peninsula]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#nov7-18|November 7, 2018: The War to End All Wars]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#oct31-18|October 31, 2018: The Jazz of Modern Basketball: Racism and Virtuosity at the Roots of the Golden State Warriors]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#oct10-18|October 10, 2018: Missing Pieces: Remembering Elements of a Gone City]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#sep26-18|September 26, 2018: Model SF: Collectively Shaping the City]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#may23-18|May 23, 2018: Archives and Memory: New Ways of Making History]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#may9-18|May 9, 2018: Platform Cooperatives]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#apr25-18|April 25, 2018: Universal Basic Income, Is It time?]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#jan24-18|January 24, 2018: Dogpatch Then and Now]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#dec6-17|December 6, 2017: Popular Front to Cold War]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#oct11-17|October 11, 2017: Speeding Through the Unseen, From Coding to Commons]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#oct4-17|October 4, 2017: Art and Architecture During the Depression]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#may3-17|May 3, 2017: Agents of Change: California Labor History]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2017-2018#feb22-17|February 22, 2017: Progressive Transgressions]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#dec7-16|December 7, 2016: Divided We Fall: Immigration and Scapegoating]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#nov9-16|November 9, 2016: The Housing Crisis and The Growth Consensus: What's Wrong with this Picture?]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#oct5-16|October 5, 2016: 19th Century California Indian Slavery and Genocide]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#may25-16|May 25, 2016: Audible Cities]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#apr20-16|April 20, 2016: San Francisco, 1960s & 70s: Cultural Ecology and Experimentation]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#mar16-16|March 16, 2016: Street Names, Streetcars, and Street Life]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#mar9-16|March 9, 2016: Rise and Fall of Third Worldism]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#feb10-16|February 10, 2016: New (Old) Paradigms in Medicine]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#jan27-16|January 27, 2016: Easter Rebellion and Irish San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#dec9-15|December 9, 2015: United Nations and New Deal]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#oct7-15|October 7, 2015: Archaeology Finds…Daily Family Life in Early SF Settlements]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#apr8-15|April 8, 2015: The Tenderloin: SF’s Most Fraught Neighborhood]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#feb24-15|February 24, 2015: Promises of Progress: Panama-Pacific International Exposition]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2015-2016#jan21-15|January 21, 2015: Washed Away—Newfound Extreme Weather History]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#dec3-14|December 3, 2014: Tunneling San Francisco Then and Now: Where's the Public Interest?]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#oct9-14|October 9, 2014: Making History by Making Maps]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#sep24-14|September 24, 2014: No Future at College?!?]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#may28-14|May 28, 2014: San Francisco's Ghadar Party Heritage]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#apr16-14|April 16, 2014: Upton Sinclair/End Poverty in California]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#mar19-14|March 19, 2014: Stop, Thief! The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#jan15-14|January 15, 2014: Latinos at the Golden Gate: Creating Community & Identity in San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#oct9-13|October 9, 2013: Bay Area Indigenous Pre-History]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#sep25-13|September 25, 2013: Radical Archiving and Cataloging as Social History]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#sep11-13|September 11, 2013: The Bay Bridge, 1936-2013]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#apr13-13|April 13, 2013: Chinese Whispers]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#feb27-13|February 27, 2013: Pier 70, Transforming 19th Century Ironworks to a 21st Century ... ?]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2013-2014#jan30-13|January 30, 2013: Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#dec12-12|December 12, 2012: Old City Hall: Corruption & Racism in 19th Century San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#jul17-12|July 17, 2012: Bristol Radical History Group “History From Below”]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#may30-12|May 30, 2012: FoundSF: Dissent]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#may2-12|May 2, 2012: Mat Callahan presents the "James Connolly--Songs of Freedom" project]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#apr25-12|April 25, 2012: Radically Gay: Harry Hay, LGBT pioneer]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#jan18-12|January 18, 2012: The Vietnam War Continues]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#dec14-11|December 14, 2011: Centennial Anniversary! Women Get the Vote!]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#nov30-11|November 30, 2011: The History of the Future]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#oct12-11|October 12, 2011: Reimagining Market Street]]

:May 11, 2011: A Virtual Civil Liberties Tour of San Francisco

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#jan19-11|January 19, 2011: Before (and After) the Car: San Francisco's Transit History]]

:January 12, 2011: Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of Detroit

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2010-2012#jan13-10|January 13, 2010: Prohibition in San Francisco: Then and Now]]

[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009|Public Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009]]

:December 16, 2009 : Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of the East Bay

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#nov11-09|November 11, 2009: Alcatraz: 40th Anniversary of Indigenous Occupation]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#sep9-09|September 9, 2009: Final Tap: An Unofficial History of Beer]]

:February 11, 2009: Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes III: Film Fragments of San Francisco

:January 21, 2009: FoundSF: San Francisco History Wiki Workshop

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#nov12-08|November 12, 2008: The Invisible Public Legacy of the Great Depression]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#sep17-08|September 17, 2008: SF State Strike 40th Anniversary]]

:December 19, 2007: Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes: Film Fragments of San Francisco

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#apr11-07|April 11, 2007: Lowriders: When the Mission was Low and Slow]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#feb14-07|February 14, 2007: A History of Land Grabs in San Francisco and Some Counter-efforts]]

:December 6, 2006: Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes: Film Fragments of San Francisco

:November 8, 2006: Sexual and Reproductive Freedom Since the 1960s

:June 14, 2006: Films by Calvin Roberts: A San Franciscan’s Lost History

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#apr12-06|April 12, 2006: Black Exodus and Black Eviction in San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Historical Perspectives / 2006-2009#feb8-06|February 8, 2006: Philippines & San Francisco: Connected Through History]]

:January 18, 2006: Labor strength: Historic Bay Area General Strikes

==Literary==

[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017|Public Talks: Literary / 2010-2017]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#mar11-20|March 11, 2020: ''Hidden San Francisco": Book Release and Birthday Party]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#mar8-17|March 8, 2017: Local History in Your Ear]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#nov11-15|November 11, 2015: Literary Liberalism and the Western Voice]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#nov13-13|November 13, 2013: Literary Treasures of the North Mission]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#oct16-13|October 16, 2013: Unsettlers: El Cabe]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#may8-13|May 8, 2013: Unsettlers: Migrants, Homies, and Mammas in the Mission]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#apr13-11|April 13, 2011: History of the Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co.]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#mar23-11|March 23, 2011: The Radical Futures Of The Book]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#oct20-10|October 20, 2010: Hard Boiled for Hard Times—Crime Authors in the City]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#oct13-10|October 13, 2010: Outspoken Authors Speak Out]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#mar24-10|March 24, 2010: Science Fiction and the Struggle for Justice]]

:[[Talks: Literary / 2010-2017#mar17-10|March 17, 2010: Crime/Noir Writers Describe Their Crimes in the City]]

<hr>

==Social Movements==

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2020|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2020-2025]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_oct22-25|October 22, 2025: Social Housing: Challenging YIMBYs and NIMBYs]]

:[[Talks: 2025 Videos#v_feb26-25|February 26, 2025: New Luddites vs. Biopiracy and AI]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_dec4-24|December 4, 2024: Refusing Silicon Valley]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_jul5-24|July 5, 2024: 1934 Big Strike 90th Anniversary]]

:[[Talks: 2024 Videos#v_may22-24|May 22, 2024: Rainbow Grocery Cooperative]]

:[[Talks: 2022 Videos#v_may28-22|May 28, 2022: Urban Forum Walk n Talk: CCSF to SFSU]]

:[[Talks: 2021 Videos#v_nov18-21|November 18, 2021: An Irish Catholic Liberal: Bishop Mark J. Hurley and the 1968-69 Strike at State]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2020#jan29-20|January 29, 2020: Enola Gay Faggot Affinity Group]]

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#dec4-19|December 4, 2019: Seattle/WTO Shutdown: 20th Anniversary]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#oct15-19|October 15, 2019: For the Record: Eyewitness Testimonies of the police murder of Luis Góngora Pat]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#oct9-19|October 9, 2019: Expanding San Francisco’s Common Wealth]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#may8-19|May 8, 2019: The Women of Los Siete de la Raza]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#mar13-19|March 13, 2019: Dockworker Power in the Bay Area and South Africa]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#dec5-18|December 5, 2018: Movements of Movements]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#oct24-18|October 24, 2018: Rethinking 1968: What Happened, How Has It Shaped Us?]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2018-2019#oct3-18|October 3, 2018: Women, Power, and the Vote: 1911 Suffrage to the 2018 Midterms]]

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#dec13-17|December 13, 2017: San Francisco's Freeway Revolt]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#oct18-17|October 18, 2017: 50th Anniversary of the Stop the Draft Week Protests]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#may31-17|May 31, 2017: Summer of Love or Vietnam Summer?]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#mar22-17|March 22, 2017: We've Done This Before: 1980s Movements]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#oct26-16|October 26, 2016: Death of Money: Diggers 50 Years Later]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#oct12-16|October 12, 2016: Compton's Cafeteria 50th Anniversary—The Transformation of Trans Politics and Identity]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#sep14-16|September 14, 2016: Hunter's Point Rebellion, 50 Years Later]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#oct14-15|October 14, 2015: Housing is a Human Right!]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#sep23-15|September 23, 2015: Prisoners and Politics: from the San Quentin Six to Pelican Bay]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#apr29-15|April 29, 2015: Union Demise and New Workers’ Movements]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#apr1-15|April 1, 2015: Vietnam War, Dissent, and the U.S. Military]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2015-2017#jan14-15|January 14, 2015: Home on the Grange]]

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#dec10-14|December 10, 2014: Latin American Social Movements]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#oct29-14|October 29, 2014: San Francisco’s Housing Wars 2014 ]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#oct1-14|October 1, 2014: A History of LGBTQ Spaces . . .Where you Least Expect Them]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#dec4-13|December 4, 2013: Remembering Los Siete]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#nov6-13|November 6, 2013: Confronting Cultural Genocide]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#oct2-13|October 2, 2013: The Red Army Faction—Dancing With Imperialism]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#may20-13|May 20, 2013: "We are not machines!" The Situation and Struggles of the iSlaves in China]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#mar13-13|March 13, 2013: Asia's Unknown Uprisings]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#feb20-13|February 20, 2013: The Revolution of Everyday Life]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#oct17-12|October 17, 2012: Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#oct10-12|October 10, 2012: Ohlone Profiles Project]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#sep12-12|September 12, 2012: Mexico Today: Dinosaurs, Popular Refusal, and Hashtags!]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#apr11-12|April 11, 2012: West of Eden: Communes and Utopia in Northern California]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#mar28-12|March 28, 2012: Selma James and George Katsiaficas]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#mar14-12|March 14, 2012: Rebooting the Rainbow]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#feb22-12|February 22, 2012: Policing San Francisco: 1930s-1960s]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#feb15-12|February 15, 2012: Corporate Personhood?!?]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2012-2014#jan25-12|January 25, 2012: Occupy Everything! An Open Discussion]]

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#nov16-11|November 16, 2011: The Good, The Bad, and the Alternatives to Mass Education]]

:September 21, 2011: Dublin Community Activism Against Drug Addiction

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#may18-11|May 18, 2011: Mission Politics in the 1970s: Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr27-11|April 27, 2011: Overcoming Work and Sacrifice]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr20-11|April 20, 2011: Radical Approaches to Organizing Work]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#mar16-11|March 16, 2011: Movements and Political Generations]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#mar9-11|March 9, 2011: The Struggles of the Balkans and Romani in Fact and Fiction]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#dec15-10|December 15, 2010: Navigating the Criminal Courts: A Guide for Activists]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#dec8-10|December 8, 2010: Haiti: Gender and Continuity in the Midst of Disaster]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#sep29-10|September 29, 2010: Education Crisis/Radical Responses]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#sep15-10|September 15, 2010: Imprisoned But Unbowed: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr21-10|April 21, 2010: Ten Years That Shook the City -- Sneak Preview]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr14-10|April 14, 2010: U.S. Social Forum, Detroit]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#mar31-10|March 31, 2010: Songs To Enemies And Deserts, A Film Screening About Rebellion In Darfur]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#feb10-10|February 10, 2010: Queer workers: Class, Gentrification and Struggle in San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#oct21-09|October 21, 2009: Bicycling in San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#oct14-09|October 14, 2009: The Politics of ‘Third Space’ in Global Videos and Installations]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#may20-09|May 20, 2009: Anti-systemic Knowledge: Learning from the South]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr22-09|April 22, 2009: Global Commons/Global Enclosures]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#apr8-09|April 8, 2009: Anti-War Then and Now]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#mar11-09|March 11, 2009: Local Remanufacturing Our Way out of the Depression]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2009-2011#jan14-09|January 14, 2009: Hearing the City: Radio in San Francisco]]

[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008|Public Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#dec17-08|December 17, 2008: Lessons and Advice on How to Survive an Economic Meltdown]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#dec10-08|December 10, 2008: Neighborhood Newspapers: Community Journalism in San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#oct22-08|October 22, 2008: Worker Cooperative Alternatives to Precariousness]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#sep24-08|September 24, 2008: Global Africa: Liberation, Decolonialization, and Diaspora]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#mar12-08|March 12, 2008: Arab San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#feb13-08|February 13, 2008: Community Art Spaces Survive Urban Pressures]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#jan9-08|January 9, 2008: Class and Power in Queer San Francisco]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#dec12-07|December 12, 2007: News and the Future of Journalism]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#nov14-07|November 14, 2007: Public Commons vs. Corporate Privatization]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#oct10-07|October 10, 2007: Voting Perspectives]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#mar7-07|March 7, 2007: Learnin’ + Teachin’: The Future of Education (4 podcasts)]]

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#jan17-07|January 17, 2007: The Public Health Epidemic in a Therapy Society (3 podcasts)]]

:December 13, 2006: Tactical Evolution: Protest Culture, Dissent, and Radical Change

:October 11, 2006: Bolivar, Zapata and Sandino Ghosts and Revolution in South America

:[[Talks: Social Movements / 2006-2008#mar8-06|March 8, 2006: Infrastructure Wars: Sustainable Movements (3 podcasts)]]

<hr>

[[category:Theme]]

Talks: 2026 Videos

2026-03-27T05:13:34Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Primary Source '''

'''Shaping San Francisco hosts Public Talks on a variety of topics, usually on Wednesday nights, a dozen times a year. Our topic themes vary, but we've grouped them over time into these categories: Art & Politics, Ecology, Historical Perspectives, Literary, and Social Movements.'''

<hr>

March 25, 2026 

Re-Imagining Serra

Chris Cuadrado's artist activation uses multimedia technology to create an alternative statue emerging from the rubble of what has been torn down. Chris investigates the act of reappropriation to rebuild the memory of Junipero Serra. Based on collected ephemera, photographs, video footage, and sourced miniature replicas related to the statue, a screening and sound sculpture is a meditation on the figure of Padre Junipero Serra. Attendees will be invited to reflect on monuments, legacy, and public space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission, with Adriana Camarena, Kim Shuck, and Chris Cuadrado. Thanks to Association of Ramaytush Ohlone for guidance throughout the year.

<hr>

March 11, 2026 

City of Redwood

James Michael Buckley’s 2024 ''City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry'' reconnects us to the built environment from San Francisco all the way up to Eureka in the far north of California, past and present. David Schmidt’s brand new majesterial ''San Francisco Bay Area: An Environmental History'' contains a close look at the historic forests of the Bay Area and how they were cut down to help build the region. Together these speakers will help us see how profoundly the iconic trees of the west coast literally undergird our everyday lives even today.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/city-of-redwood-march-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

February 25, 2026 

Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives

Shaping San Francisco’s year-long case study of the Padre Junípero Serra statue included a folklife-based, community-led research process centered on memory-keeping practices. Indigenous community researchers explored everyday practices from their own cultures that carry collective knowledge. The researchers included members of Urban Native communities, Indigenous migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and urban youth. Their research invites reflection on how genocide, relocation, and migration continue to erode Indigenous ways of knowing, and how communities continue to protect and hold on to them. The process was facilitated by storyteller Adriana Camarena. Several community researchers will share their findings. The discussion will be presented in Spanish and English.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission 

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/memory-keeping-from-indigenous-perspectives-feb-25-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

February 11, 2026 

The Priest, the Imperialist, and the Sculptor

We close a year-long case study of the Padre Junipero Serra statue. Jonathan Cordero (Association of Ramaytush Ohlone) critically examines the romantic myth that supports the veneration of Serra and reveals the actual calamitous impact of the mission system. Chris Carlsson explains how an unlikely series of events led to the so-called “Mission Revival”, the commissioning of the statue by James Phelan, and giving Serra an undeserved new role in a manufactured public memory. He reveals that the statue's placement in Golden Gate Park in 1907 in fact bolstered a white supremacist agenda at the dawn of the 20th century. LisaRuth Elliott explores Douglas Tilden, the cosmopolitan sculptor revered in the deaf community, and his many other contributions to the SF civic art collection and beyond. This evening is a chance to talk about the reanimation of a man through a monument, the fraught relationship between a patron of the arts and his protegé, and how these honorific likenesses and what they are supposed to signify become part of our urban space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/priest-imperialist-sculptor-feb-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

[[category:1776-1823]] [[category:1823-1846]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:Indigenous]] [[category:racism]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:architecture]] [[category:Public Art]] [[category:Filipino]] [[category:Talks]] [[category:Mexican]] [[category:Food]] [[category:Habitat]] [[category:Ecology]] [[category:Churches]] [[category:Famous characters]]

Fleishhacker Pool 1925-84

2026-03-25T05:58:25Z

Ccarlsson: added new photo

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Ocean Beach Aerial Nov 16, 1924 wnp27.3347.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker Pool, aerial view, Nov. 16, 1924.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp27.3347''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool circa 1928 wnp14.3822.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker Pool aerial view c 1928.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.3822''

The area between the zoo, the ocean, and Fort Funston was once Fleishhacker Pool, a thousand-foot-long swimming pool; it was so big that lifeguards had to patrol the pool in boats. The 116,000 square feet of surface held 6.3 million gallons of chilly ocean water. Built in 1924, the pool gradually fell into disuse; in 1984, it was covered with earth.

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool c 1930 Aerial view of Fleishhacker pool and playground looking southeast. Mothers Building at far left. Breakers on Ocean Beach in foreground. Lake Merced upper right. wnp70.0495.jpg]]

'''Circa 1930 view over Ocean Beach, Fleishhacker Pool and playground looking southeast, with [[Lake Merced 100 years ago|Lake Merced]] in upper right background, Mother's Building at far left.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp70.0495''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool 1928 wnp4.1631.jpg|800px]]

'''A part of the 116,000 square foot Fleishhacker Pool, 1928.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp4.1631''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool Jun 22, 1929 wnp14.4433.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker Pool, June 22, 1929.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.4433''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool Jun 22, 1929 wnp14.4434.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker Pool, June 22, 1929.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.4434''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Pool Aug 1960 wnp25.4787.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker Pool, August 1960.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.4787''

[[Image:View north across the length of Fleishhacker Pool Oct 1966 sfm005-10667.jpg|800px]]

'''View north across the length of Fleishhacker Pool, October, 1966.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm005-10667''

[[Image:Fleishhacker Playground circa 1934 Mothers Bldg and wading pool wnp14.11465.jpg|800px]]

'''Fleishhacker playground, c. 1934, wading pool in front of [[Forgotten Murals Empowered Women during the 20th Century|Mothers' Building]].'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.11465''

[[Fort Funston |Prev. Document]] [[Southern Boundary of San Francisco |Next Document]]

[[category:OMI/Ingleside]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Landmarks]] [[category:Water]]

File:View north across the length of Fleishhacker Pool Oct 1966 sfm005-10667.jpg

2026-03-25T05:56:56Z

Ccarlsson:

San Francisco Airport

2026-03-25T05:54:54Z

Ccarlsson: added new photo

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Chris Carlsson''

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/sf-airport-1941-and-clipper-cove-from-lost-landscapes-no-1" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Footage from SFO in 1941, followed by images of the PanAm Clipper circling around in Clipper Cove off Treasure Island.'''

''Video: from "Lost Landscapes #1, 2007" courtesy Prelinger Archives''

[[Image:outofsf$china-clipper.jpg]]

'''China Clipper at Treasure island in 1939. '''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

In 1915, San Franciscans were thrilled and then horrified by the aerial acrobatics of Lincoln Beachey as he did stunts over the bay as part of the [[PPIE: A Festival of Empire Wrapped in Technological Hubris|Panama-Pacific International Exposition]]—until plunging to his death during a failed trick. Just west of the Exposition grounds was the city’s first airfield, a military post on Crissy Field in the Presidio.

[[Image:Crissy-field-1920s.jpg]]

'''Crissy Field in the 1920s.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

Commercial air traffic was still a couple of decades away. For a brief time it was projected that Treasure Island, built originally for the [[Treasure Island Fair: Golden Gate International Exposition|Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939-40]], would be converted to an airport after the World’s Fair. [[The China Clipper|The ''China Clipper'']] was based on newly built [[TI 1938|Treasure Island]] in 1939. But when WWII interceded, Treasure Island became a naval base with navy taking over the original terminal building and the hangars.

Plans were floated in the 1920s to build an airfield in India Basin over the [[Islais Creek Remembered|Islais Creek marshes]].

[[Image:1928-birds-eye-vie-of-proposed-China-Basin-airport-by-JR-Miller-and-TL-Pflueger SFMOMA.jpg]]

'''1928 view of proposed China Basin airport by J.R. Miller and Timothy Pflueger.'''

''Image: courtesy SF Museum of Modern Art''

Eventually, the city of San Francisco purchased the tidelands at the eastern edge of the Darius Ogden Mills estate (which was eventually subdivided and became the town of Millbrae) in San Mateo county, and there opened the airport as [[Mills Field|Mills Field]] in the late 1920s. On June 9, 1931, the name was changed to San Francisco airport and was soon added to the purview of the City’s Public Utilities Commission.

[[Image:Mills Field 1928 pub 2011.032.0077 0.jpg]]

'''Mills Field, 1928.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Mills Field Municipal Airport of San Francisco pub 2011.032.0028 0.jpg]]

'''Mills Field Municipal Airport of San Francisco, c. 1929.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

In the early 1930s, 350 acres of tidelands was “reclaimed” and by 1935, the airport had extended its runway C from 1,900 feet to 3,000 feet.

[[Image:San Francisco Airport 1935 pub 2011.032.0172 0.jpg]]

'''San Francisco Airport, 1935.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Passengers board United Air Lines Douglas DC-3 at San Francisco Airport 1938 pub 1997.52.050.002b 0.jpg]]

'''Passengers board a United Airlines Douglas DC-3, 1938.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

The airport construction also created a basin for the amphibious planes that were still a common part of early air travel. Pan American chose the San Francisco Airport as its location to do the first regularly scheduled trans-oceanic air service. The flight took off from the San Francisco airport and 59 hours later, after four stops, it landed in Manila, Philippines. The plane was so heavy that when it took off from the airport it had to fly under the cables of the East Bay Bridge that had not been completed yet. The plane, [[The China Clipper|China Clipper]], became instantly famous and set off a rage of new toys, beer and food all with the name China Clipper.

[[Image:San Francisco Airport 1939 9000 foot seawall defined a seaplane harbor and 315 acre extension of airfield pub 2009.104.037 0.jpg]]

'''San Francisco Airport, 1939. A 9000-foot seawall defined the new seaplane harbor and provided a 315 acre extension of the airport.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boats moored at San Francisco Airport 1946 pub 2000.058.1407 0.jpg]]

'''Pan American Airways Boeing 314 flying boats moored at SF Airport, 1946.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

After WWII, the rechristened San Francisco International Airport (SFO) began its inexorable expansion, with a new terminal building, a new control tower, and expanded runways all taking shape.

[[Image:San Francisco Airport curbside entrance 1948 pub 2011.032.0213 0.jpg]]

'''San Francisco Airport curbside entrance, 1948.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Lobby and ticket counters at San Francisco Airport 1948 pub 2011.032.0210 0.jpg]]

'''Lobby and ticket counter at SF Airport, 1948.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Nearly completed new terminal at San Francisco International Airport 1954 pub 1997.52.045.008 0.jpg]]

'''Nearly completed new terminal at SF International Airport, 1954.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:Passenger lobby at San Francisco International Airport 1954 pub 2011.032.0406 0.jpg]]

'''Passenger lobby at San Francisco International Airport, 1954.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

[[Image:SF Airport Aug 28, 1954 wnp010.10117.jpg|800px]]

'''Open house at the San Francisco Airport, August 28, 1954.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10117''

[[Image:San Francisco International Airport 1959 pub 2011.032.0502 copy.jpg]]

'''San Francisco International Airport, 1959.'''

''Photo: courtesy San Francisco Airport Museums''

In the late 1990s during the first Dotcom tech boom, SFO became the nation’s 9th busiest airport. SFO found itself confronted with chronic delays, which were blamed on the old mid-century runways, no longer separated enough to accommodate a higher flow of airline traffic. [[Mayor Willie Brown|Mayor Willie Brown]], the consummate deal-maker, embarked on a campaign to build new runways into San Francisco Bay in order to allow expansion of the airport. But strong opposition by Supervisor Aaron Peskin and a panoply of local environmental groups, plus the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, ultimately derailed the plans. Air traffic has fallen considerably since those booming times, and SFO now ranks 21st in airport business. Oakland and San Jose airports have also taken up some of the pressure on SFO.

[[Image:Map of existing SFO runways.jpg]]

'''Existing runway configuration at SFO.'''

[[Image:Map of sfo runway plans.jpg]]

'''Expansion plans as laid out by Mayor Willie Brown in the 1990s, defeated by environmental and political opposition.'''

In the early 2000s the city-owned facility completed its most recent expansion, adding a dedicated International Terminal, as well as building a 6-mile automated shuttle train system, and running an [[BART to SFO, Caltrain to Downtown: How One Happened and the Other Didn’t|extension of the BART train system]] directly to the airport.

San Francisco International Airport is a bastion of union labor in the Bay Area. Nearly everyone working there belongs to one of over a dozen unions associated with the airline business, from machinists and pilots to flight attendants and custodial workers at the airport. Still, in 1981 the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike at the beginning of the Reagan Administration, and threw up a picket line at SFO. They were all fired by the government which sought to make an example of them to intimidate organized labor more generally. Their union was destroyed after a few months and a lack of solidarity from other airport unions.

After the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington DC a radically ramped up security system was put in at SFO as at all airports nationwide. It was no longer enough to pass through the metal detectors that had existed for years. Now a whole theater of police state “security” had to be performed, from taking off shoes, hats, belts, and jackets, to removing everything from pockets, prohibiting all containers of liquid, and so on, all while standing in long, slow-moving lines. (Since 2017 the government has begun offering frequent travelers a way to get pre-checked and avoid some of the worst of the humiliating and pointless Transportation Security Administration rituals.) The absurd system of color-coded warnings implemented by the ominously named “Department of Homeland Security” quickly became a meaningless joke. Repeated breaches of the security system at most airports underscores the reality that the whole system is designed to teach-and-test docility and obedience to the average traveler and has very little to do with anything that might be called “public safety.”

In January 2017, the incoming Trump administration promulgated draconian new rules to prevent immigration by Muslims, even banning green-card holders and people already holding valid visas and en route to U.S. airports. Thousands of people quickly besieged airports around the country, including SFO. For several days prior to a federal court judge reversing the ban (something that would happen twice more in the year), thousands of Bay Area residents marched, sang, chanted, and occupied the lobby of the International Terminal in a stirring rebuke to the xenophobia and racism that had taken over the government.

[[Image:Jan-29-2017-sfo-protest-P1090282.jpg]]

'''Protests against the Trump Muslim ban rocked SFO in January 2017.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Jan-29-2017-sfo-protest-P1090267.jpg]]

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:SFO.JPG]]

'''SF International Airport 2009.'''

''Photo: LisaRuth Elliott''

[[Image:SFO-from-air 20150402 133601.jpg]]

'''SFO, 2015.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:PSA stewardesses c 1970s via Kim Lee FB.jpg]]

'''PSA stewardesses in the 1970s during the height of sexist advertising campaigns of the era, before the gender integration of the field and the renaming of the job "flight attendant.."'''

''Image via Kim Lee, Facebook''

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/peoples-history-of-sfo-eric-porter-nov-8-2023" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Eric Porter, author of the recent ''A People’s History of SFO'', gives a deep look at SFO—San Francisco International Airport—'''which has come a long way from its muddy beginnings as Mills Field in the 1920s. Functioning as the center of the Bay Area’s modernizing transportation networks, SFO’s evolution illuminates fraught questions of access and employment discrimination, while becoming an “infrastructural manifestation of a succession of regional colonial presents, layered on top of sinking concrete, steel, and landfill upon mud.” And today’s airport, with rising bay waters lapping at its shores, confronts us with the implacable role of air travel in climate change, which no amount of
berms and protective seawalls will solve.

''Video: Shaping San Francisco''

[[Image:SFO-early-1960s sfm001-01221.jpg]]

'''SFO, early 1960s.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org''

[[Image:Butler-Aviation-Operations-1950s sfm005-10861.jpg]]

'''Butler Aviation Operations, 1960s.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org''

[[Image:SFO-PAA-sfm001-01222.jpg]]

'''SFO, early 1960s.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org''

[[Image:SFO Jan 1966 Radar, Control Tower men with binoculars sfm005-10834.jpg|800px]]

'''SFO, January 1966, Air Traffic Control before computers!'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm005-10834''

[[A UFO Blimp-napping over Daly City? August 16th, 1942 |Prev. Document]] [[Mills Field |Next Document]]

[[category:Transit]] [[category:San Francisco outside the city]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:2010s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:dissent]] [[category:South Bay and Peninsula]]

File:SFO Jan 1966 Radar, Control Tower men with binoculars sfm005-10834.jpg

2026-03-25T05:53:41Z

Ccarlsson:

3rd St Bridge Then and Now

2026-03-25T05:49:28Z

Ccarlsson: added new photo

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:3rd-Street-Bridge- -March-30-1933 U13900.jpg]]

'''3rd Street Bridge over [[Mission Creek 1938 aerial | Mission Creek]] before its official opening, March 30, 1933.'''

''Photo: [http://www.sfmta.com/photo SFMTA Photo Archive U13900]''

[[Image:3rd St bridge opening May 12, 1933.gif]]

'''3rd Street Bridge opening May 12, 1933''' ''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''

[[Image:3rd-Street-Bridge-Open-with-the-Ship-SS-Talamanca-Going-Out-Under-the-Bridge-with-Tug-Boat- May-13-1933 U13900B.jpg]]

'''3rd Street Bridge open with the ''SS Talamanca'' going out with a tugboat.'''

''Photo: [http://www.sfmta.com/photo SFMTA Photo Archive U13900B]''

[[Image:3rd-Street-Bridge-with-Bridge-Closed May-13-1933- U13900A.jpg]]

'''The day after official opening, May 13, 1933.'''

''Photo: [http://www.sfmta.com/photo SFMTA Photo Archive U13900A]''

[[Image:soma1$3rd-st-bridge.jpg]]

'''"[[Lefty O'Doul | Lefty O'Doul]]" Bridge where 3rd Street crosses [[MISSION BAY |Mission Creek]]. This classic draw bridge of the early 20th century was designed by the same engineer who later designed the [[A Suicide Barrier? |Golden Gate Bridge.]]'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Odoul before park4.jpg]]

'''[[McCovey Cove|McCovey Cove]] when it was still China Basin, 1996.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Thrid-Street-bridge-at-high-tide 20161015 115821.jpg]]

'''3rd Street Bridge at high tide, new condominiums under construction on southwest corner of crossing, 2016.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:3rd St Bridge 2023.sharpened.jpg]]

'''3rd Street Bridge, 2023.'''

''Photo: Eihway Su''

[[Image:3rd-Street-south-from-Townsend-towards-3rd-St-Bridge 20260315 001306133.jpg]]

'''View of 3rd Street bridge looking south from Townsend Street, March 2026.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Pacific Mail Docks |Prev. Document]] [[Baker and Hamilton |Next Document]]

[[category:SOMA]] [[category:Mission Bay]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:2010s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:Bridges]] [[category:transit]]

File:3rd-Street-south-from-Townsend-towards-3rd-St-Bridge 20260315 001306133.jpg

2026-03-25T05:48:17Z

Ccarlsson:

Baseball Teens-20s

2026-03-25T05:47:09Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Recreation PaRK 15th and Valencia 1908 wnp37.04178.jpg|800px]]

'''Recreation Park at 15th and Valencia, 1908.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp37.04178''

[[Image:Seals-play-at-Recreation-Park-15th-and-Valencia-1920s.jpg]]

'''Big Rec at 15th & Valencia, c. 1924'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

'''1906'''— After the Great Earthquake a new ball park, Recreation Park was built in the [[Valencia's Story | Mission]] on Valencia between 14th and 15th streets. A section of the bleachers, roped off with chicken wire became known as the "booze cage." Admission price entitled the patron to a choice of either a sandwich or a shot of whiskey. Spectators who frequented the "cage" were said to be knowledgeable, loud and abusive. The team name was changed to the [[Seals Are Born|San Francisco Seals]]. The Seals featured a "reversed battery" of Nick Williams and Orval Overall--one would pitch, the other catch, then the roles would reverse for the following game. Overall eventually became a 20-game winner in the National League.

'''1909'''— San Francisco Seals win their first pennant.

[[Image:Recreation Park circa 1910 15th and Valencia unknown player wnp15.1341.jpg|800px]]

'''At Big Rec, 1910, player unknown.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp15.1341''

[[Image:Oakland Oak at Big Rec c 1913 sfm019-00087.jpg|500px]]

'''Oakland Oaks player at Big Rec, c. 1913.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm019-00087''

'''1910'''— Seal's player Ping Bodie hits 30 home runs to lead all of baseball.

'''1914'''— [[Ewing Field|Ewing Field]] becomes the new home of the San Francisco Seals, intended to be the finest minor league park to date, located one block south of Geary at Masonic. ''San Francisco Chronicle'' said, "The only possible drawback is the possibility of meeting bad weather conditions." Indeed, the new park was a fiasco. The club returned to Old Rec Park in 1915.

[[Image:Recreation Park Seals vs. Oaks, 1915 sfm019-00088.jpg|800px]]

'''San Francisco Seals vs. Oakland Oaks, 1915, at Big Rec.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm019-00088''

'''1915'''— The Seals win pennants in 1915 and 1917 with the help of Harry Heilmann, who would later become a Hall of Famer with the Detroit Tigers. He is the only Bay Area player to hit .400 in the Major Leagues.

[[Image:Venice v Oakland Oaks on Chron bldg Market and Geary c 1912 sfm019-00133.jpg|800px]]

'''Venice Tigers vs. Oakland Oaks game is being displayed on manual scoreboard on the outside of the San Francisco Chronicle building at Geary and Market, c. 1913.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm019-00133''

[[Image:Foundsf-1923-2007-recreation-park-15th-and-valencia.jpg]]

'''Big Rec at corner of 15th and Valencia, 1923, and the same corner in 2009.'''

''Courtesy [http://burritojustice.com/2010/02/10/yesterdays-baseball-is-tomorrows-safeway/ Burrito Justice]

'''1924'''— Former Seals player Jimmy O'Connell is banned from the Major Leagues for attempting to fix a (New York) Giants game. American League President Ban Johnson accuses the Pacific Coast League of rampant corruption, which is hotly denied by PCL President Harry Williams.

''by [http://www.dscrafts.net/ Daniel Steven Crafts]''

<iframe width="100%" height="100" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/318483843&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true"></iframe>

'''East Bay Yesterday podcast on the history of east bay baseball before the Oakland A's.'''

''Courtesy: [https://eastbayyesterday.com/ East Bay Yesterday'']

[[Image:Recreation-park-1910s.jpg]]

'''Baseball at Recreation Park, 15th and Valencia, c. 1910.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library''

[[Casey at the Bat | Prev. Document]] [[Baseball 1926-29 | Next Document]]

[[category:baseball]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:Mission]] [[category:Western Addition]] [[category:Newspapers]]

File:Recreation Park Seals vs. Oaks, 1915 sfm019-00088.jpg

2026-03-25T05:45:45Z

Ccarlsson:

Civic Beautification

2026-03-25T05:44:46Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by William Issel and Robert Cherny''

[[Anti-Vice Campaigns in Early 20th Century San Francisco|continued from part three]]

[[Image:tendrnob$civic-center-1930.jpg]]

'''New City Hall, shown here around 1930, with the Civic Auditorium at left and Main Library lower right.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA ''

[[Image:Elevated view over sfpl and uo bldg, 1966 sfm005-10627.jpg|800px]]

'''Elevated view over the Civic Center, showing the former Main Library (now Asian Art Museum) at left and the USO building at lower right, with rest of property now holding the new(er) Main Library filled with parked cars at the height of car culture in 1966.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm005-10627''

San Francisco was no exception. The force of the “City Beautiful” movement struck San Francisco between the late 1890s and 1910 when [[Mayor James Phelan|James Phelan]] and the Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco worked to implement their belief that the redesign of the city's physical environment would increase social harmony and enhance San Francisco’s prosperity and growth. Phelan believed that San Francisco needed statues, monuments, parks, parkways, great plazas at the focal points of grand boulevards, and stately public buildings in the Beaux Arts style in order to dramatize its potential as “the capital of an empire.”(32) Phelan’s convictions grew out of his experiences as president of the Bohemian Club and the San Francisco Art Association, his vice-presidency of the California World’s Fair Commission in 1893, and his service as the manager of the California exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair. He also helped inaugurate the [[The 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park|Midwinter Fair in San Francisco (1894)]].

In 1899 Phelan unsuccessfully put his influence as mayor behind a proposal to extend the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park downtown to the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Market Street. Five years later, no longer mayor, Phelan and the presidents of the Bohemian Club, the Pacific Union Club, and the Art Association organized the Adornment Association, which published a list of planning objectives for the city. The formation of the association coincided with Reuben Hale’s proposal that San Francisco host a world’s fair and with growing public discussion within the business community about San Francisco’s need to maintain its attractiveness to tourists and prospective investors in the face of competition from southern California. Even before Phelan began his term as first president of the association, he asked Daniel H. Burnham, the nation’s leading city planner, to provide a comprehensive design as the basis for a campaign to secure public support for an “imperial” San Francisco along the lines of Athens, Paris, and Washington, D.C.(33) Judd Kahn has shown that “founders of the association, by and large, were longtime San Franciscans and members of the city’s social and economic upper crust.” The [[Burnham Plan 1905|Burnham plan]] that they commissioned included measures to reduce traffic congestion, increase commercial efficiency, and enhance aesthetic pleasure. In addition, elements in the plan provided citizens, in the view of the architect himself, “a lesson of order and system, and its influence on the masses cannot be overestimated.”(34)

[[Image:Burnham-Plan-arterials.jpg]]

'''A version of the Burnham Plan's reorganization of urban arterials and street patterns.'''

Burnham’s belief in the uplifting potential of his proposals never received a test. Neither the strongest supporters of the plan nor its staunchest opponents would agree that city government ought to exercise the sweeping powers over private property necessary for the implementation of a comprehensive city plan. Unwilling to trust the electoral process because they could not control the outcome, Phelan and his fellow reformers probably decided “to leave the Burnham plan as an inspiring ideal at which to aim [rather] than to try to enact it by a political process that might weaken the very basis of social stability.”(35)

Although the Burnham plan had come and gone by 1910, well-to-do San Franciscans continued to support policies designed to provide cultural uplift by contributing to the establishment and the support of public museums, art institutes, libraries, and concert orchestras. Like Phelan and the Adornment Association, and like their counterparts in New York, Boston, and Chicago, San Francisco’s leading cultural philanthropists turned to cultural policy primarily for social purposes. As Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz has put it in describing the Chicago case: “Disturbed by social forces they could not control and filled with idealistic notions of culture, these businessmen saw in the museum, the library, the symphony orchestra, and the university a way to purify their city and to generate a civic renaissance.”(36)

In San Francisco, as elsewhere, only a small proportion of individuals carried out the bulk of the cultural philanthropy. In San Francisco, as elsewhere, philanthropists exuded self-confidence as they assumed leadership roles that they regarded as properly their own. They turned to cultural policy with certainty in their conviction that the best people should shape the city’s culture rather than with anxiety about their status as arbiters of taste.(37) San Francisco did depart from the norm in the relatively large proportion of Roman Catholics and Jews who played key roles in the development of major cultural institutions. Chinese, Japanese, and black San Franciscans, however, played no more active a role in shaping the city’s cultural policies than they did in other American cities, and racial exclusion remained the norm throughout the period in this as in other aspects of public policy formation.(38)

<hr>

[[Image:San-Francisco-1865-1932 cover.jpg|220px|left]] Excerpted from ''San Francisco 1865-1932'', Chapter 5 “Culture and Moral Order”

[[Museums and Public Art at the Turn of the 20th Century|continue reading]]

[[category:1900s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Architecture]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:Downtown]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:San Francisco 1865-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development]]

Civic Beautification

2026-03-25T05:42:33Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by William Issel and Robert Cherny''

[[Anti-Vice Campaigns in Early 20th Century San Francisco|continued from part three]]

[[Image:tendrnob$civic-center-1930.jpg]]

'''New City Hall, shown here around 1930, with the Civic Auditorium at left and Main Library lower right.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA ''

[[Image:Elevated view over sfpl and uo bldg, 1966 sfm005-10627.jpg|800px]]

'''Elevated view over the Civic Center, showing the former SF Public Library (now Asian Art Museum) and the USO building at lower right. This 1966 image shows the height of car culture with the civic center turned into a parking lot.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm005-10627''

San Francisco was no exception. The force of the “City Beautiful” movement struck San Francisco between the late 1890s and 1910 when [[Mayor James Phelan|James Phelan]] and the Association for the Improvement and Adornment of San Francisco worked to implement their belief that the redesign of the city's physical environment would increase social harmony and enhance San Francisco’s prosperity and growth. Phelan believed that San Francisco needed statues, monuments, parks, parkways, great plazas at the focal points of grand boulevards, and stately public buildings in the Beaux Arts style in order to dramatize its potential as “the capital of an empire.”(32) Phelan’s convictions grew out of his experiences as president of the Bohemian Club and the San Francisco Art Association, his vice-presidency of the California World’s Fair Commission in 1893, and his service as the manager of the California exhibition at the Chicago World’s Fair. He also helped inaugurate the [[The 1894 Midwinter Fair in Golden Gate Park|Midwinter Fair in San Francisco (1894)]].

In 1899 Phelan unsuccessfully put his influence as mayor behind a proposal to extend the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park downtown to the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Market Street. Five years later, no longer mayor, Phelan and the presidents of the Bohemian Club, the Pacific Union Club, and the Art Association organized the Adornment Association, which published a list of planning objectives for the city. The formation of the association coincided with Reuben Hale’s proposal that San Francisco host a world’s fair and with growing public discussion within the business community about San Francisco’s need to maintain its attractiveness to tourists and prospective investors in the face of competition from southern California. Even before Phelan began his term as first president of the association, he asked Daniel H. Burnham, the nation’s leading city planner, to provide a comprehensive design as the basis for a campaign to secure public support for an “imperial” San Francisco along the lines of Athens, Paris, and Washington, D.C.(33) Judd Kahn has shown that “founders of the association, by and large, were longtime San Franciscans and members of the city’s social and economic upper crust.” The [[Burnham Plan 1905|Burnham plan]] that they commissioned included measures to reduce traffic congestion, increase commercial efficiency, and enhance aesthetic pleasure. In addition, elements in the plan provided citizens, in the view of the architect himself, “a lesson of order and system, and its influence on the masses cannot be overestimated.”(34)

[[Image:Burnham-Plan-arterials.jpg]]

'''A version of the Burnham Plan's reorganization of urban arterials and street patterns.'''

Burnham’s belief in the uplifting potential of his proposals never received a test. Neither the strongest supporters of the plan nor its staunchest opponents would agree that city government ought to exercise the sweeping powers over private property necessary for the implementation of a comprehensive city plan. Unwilling to trust the electoral process because they could not control the outcome, Phelan and his fellow reformers probably decided “to leave the Burnham plan as an inspiring ideal at which to aim [rather] than to try to enact it by a political process that might weaken the very basis of social stability.”(35)

Although the Burnham plan had come and gone by 1910, well-to-do San Franciscans continued to support policies designed to provide cultural uplift by contributing to the establishment and the support of public museums, art institutes, libraries, and concert orchestras. Like Phelan and the Adornment Association, and like their counterparts in New York, Boston, and Chicago, San Francisco’s leading cultural philanthropists turned to cultural policy primarily for social purposes. As Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz has put it in describing the Chicago case: “Disturbed by social forces they could not control and filled with idealistic notions of culture, these businessmen saw in the museum, the library, the symphony orchestra, and the university a way to purify their city and to generate a civic renaissance.”(36)

In San Francisco, as elsewhere, only a small proportion of individuals carried out the bulk of the cultural philanthropy. In San Francisco, as elsewhere, philanthropists exuded self-confidence as they assumed leadership roles that they regarded as properly their own. They turned to cultural policy with certainty in their conviction that the best people should shape the city’s culture rather than with anxiety about their status as arbiters of taste.(37) San Francisco did depart from the norm in the relatively large proportion of Roman Catholics and Jews who played key roles in the development of major cultural institutions. Chinese, Japanese, and black San Franciscans, however, played no more active a role in shaping the city’s cultural policies than they did in other American cities, and racial exclusion remained the norm throughout the period in this as in other aspects of public policy formation.(38)

<hr>

[[Image:San-Francisco-1865-1932 cover.jpg|220px|left]] Excerpted from ''San Francisco 1865-1932'', Chapter 5 “Culture and Moral Order”

[[Museums and Public Art at the Turn of the 20th Century|continue reading]]

[[category:1900s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:Architecture]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:Downtown]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:San Francisco 1865-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development]]

File:Elevated view over sfpl and uo bldg, 1966 sfm005-10627.jpg

2026-03-25T05:40:40Z

Ccarlsson:

Dueling Ballots: The Central Freeway’s Fate

2026-03-25T05:39:05Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Jason Henderson''

[[Image:Aerial view east over the Central Freeway, newly constructed Opera Plaza, War Memorial , Opera House, and City Hall at right 1983 sfm002-00239.jpg|800px]]

'''Aerial view east over the Central Freeway, 1983.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm002-00239''

Second Freeway Revolt (Part 3)

In March 1997 the San Francisco Neighbors Association placed one thousand pro-freeway signs on major roads throughout the city. The signs proclaimed, “Open Central Freeway” and displayed a telephone number, which, when called, was answered by a service that asked for the caller’s name and phone number. That spring and summer the association collected this information and organized a petition drive to put the question of rebuilding the freeway on the ballot. Joined by the Sunset Merchants Group, made up of white business owners, the association gathered over twenty-eight thousand signatures and qualified Proposition H to be on the ballot in November. The question was simple: “Shall the City authorize Caltrans to rebuild portions of the Central Freeway, and shall the City end the ban on construction of new above-ground Freeway ramps north of Fell Street?”(48)

[[Image:End-of-fwy duboce.jpg]]

'''Demolition of Central Freeway at Duboce and Valencia, 2003.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

The Yes on Prop H campaign was run by the Committee to Save the Central Freeway, and paid arguments in favor of the proposition included a range of conservative-leaning political organizations such as merchants’ groups, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, a conservative umbrella neighborhood organization, the Republican Party, building and construction trades unions, the association of realtors, and an array of local politicians with conservative positions vis-à-vis automobility. Freeway proponents used data from the environmental impact assessment of 1996 to argue that rebuilding the freeway was “safest for pedestrians and bicyclists,” would be “least disruptive to public transportation,” and would “end eight years of gridlock.”(49) The logic was the same as that deployed decades earlier, that is, elevated freeways would minimize high-speed automobile interaction with surface streets and thereby improve conditions on them. The Prop H camp also noted that Los Angeles rebuilt its earthquake-damaged freeways in one year and that Oakland had already rebuilt the Cypress Freeway.

ASTAC fell into the lead in organizing against Prop H and created a political action committee called the Committee for Sensible Transportation Solutions, No on H. ASTAC built an extensive phone list too, and the organization used a phone tree to lobby against Prop H. A core group of ASTAC members did much of the groundwork and fundraising, soliciting citywide progressives and some neoliberals, including SPUR and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner recommended a no vote on H, calling the ballot box approach a folly, premature, sloppy, and expensive.(50) Mayor Brown wrote an op-ed with Supervisor Bierman arguing against it.51 The city’s Democratic Party opposed Prop H and put out a “No on H” mailer calling it a quick fix that was costly and unsafe and would lead to gridlock because it would take longer to build and thus prolong traffic conditions. The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, which counted key female politicians among its ranks, mailed a pamphlet calling the Prop H proposal expensive, disruptive, and unsafe. The Committee for Sensible Transportation Solutions mailed a flier with excerpts from Chronicle and Examiner editorials opposing Prop H, highlighted that the Chamber of Commerce was opposed to Prop H, and called it a quick fix. The progressive–neoliberal rapprochement was epitomized in a campaign sign that read, “Chamber of Commerce and Sierra Club Agree: No on H, Costly, Unsafe, Gridlock.” On the eve of the election it looked like Prop H would be defeated by a loose progressive and neoliberal political consensus.

On November 4, 1997, Prop H passed with 53 percent of voters in favor of rebuilding the Central Freeway. The passage of the proposition shocked not only the anti-freeway advocates and Hayes Valley residents but also the political establishment of the city. But in context it should not have been that surprising. It was an unexciting election year, with little enthusiasm in the political press. Progressives, beyond the sustainable transportation advocates and Hayes Valley organizers, were generally disorganized, and many were not attentive to the implications of Prop H. There was no major attraction on the ballot such as a high-profile mayor’s race or national candidacy to draw more progressive voters.

An illustration of the political geography of all four of the freeway ballots, including Prop H in 1997 and the ballots of 1998 and 1999 (see below), is revealing (map 2 below). Citywide, voter turnout in 1997 was very low, at 28 percent; in most of the more progressive inner precincts voter turnout ranged from around 20 to 25 percent, while on the west side it ranged above 25 percent to as high as 35 percent in the Sunset and almost 40 percent in the precincts of West of Twin Peaks.(52) These are the most conservative, pro-automobile precincts in the city. Prop H was defeated in the Western Addition, Cole Valley, the Haight-Ashbury, Lower Haight, Downtown, and the Mission, but the turnout was too low in the Victorian Belt to counter the conservative pro-freeway vote on the west side. All of the progressive precincts proximate to the freeway voted no, and immediately adjacent to the freeway the opposition ranged from 60 to 70 percent. These numbers were obviously too small compared to the voter turnout on the west side.

Prop H was about more than rebuilding the Central Freeway. It was the springboard for organizing the new, politically conservative Chinese American and other Asian constituencies that were asserting themselves in San Francisco.(53) By 1998, some 35 percent of the city was Asian, and 18 percent of San Francisco voters were Asian, the majority of that subgroup being Chinese. The most prominent Chinese American political figures, such as Leland Yee on the Board of Supervisors, championed Prop H. Chinese American political activists used this campaign as a launching pad for possible campaigns for the Board of Supervisors and sought citywide name recognition. They would continue to organize around the freeway question in two subsequent rounds of ballot-box planning because progressives were not ready to concede their goal of removing the freeway.

In early 1998 it looked as if progressive efforts to check the automobile were getting nowhere in San Francisco. Caltrans and freeway proponents moved quickly to get the rebuilding started. The state senator representing the west side quickly acquiesced to the Prop H victors and sought state funds to underwrite the rebuilding.(54) In another defeat for progressives, voters approved the building of a publicly funded parking garage in the middle of Golden Gate Park for the de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. Just as in the previous Prop H vote, the precincts in the progressive Victorian belt opposed the garage and the outer neighborhoods supported it. The Victorian Belt neighborhoods were joined by citywide progressive organizations such as the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and San Francisco Tomorrow. Progressive neighborhood groups like the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council and ASTAC also opposed the garage. But the garage had the widespread support of various groups, including the neoliberal establishment, and it revealed the weakness of the freeway removal coalition. SPUR, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, labor unions, and even Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi supported the garage, along with the Republican Party and the Chamber of Commerce. Many of these groups and politicians had either stayed silent on or opposed Prop H, but a neoliberal–progressive alliance on mobility was not solid.

[[Image:End-of-fwy market 421am.jpg]]

'''Demolition of Central Freeway at Market and Octavia, April 21, 2003.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Activists in Hayes Valley were devastated when Prop H passed. A core group met early in 1998 and sought a strategy to confront the rebuilding of the freeway. They considered a second ballot but found it difficult to recruit support so soon after the defeat. Many supporters of removing the freeway felt that the battle was lost. But in view of the low voter turnout and a close election (47 percent voted to oppose the rebuilding) the core group in Hayes Valley felt there was a chance that a second ballot could bring better results. Supervisor Bierman, the veteran of the freeway revolts in the 1960s, encouraged activists not to lose hope and stimulated enthusiasm for a second ballot sponsored by progressives. This ballot would spell out and illustrate the idea of the surface boulevard first introduced by the SFPD and Mayor Brown in early 1997.

The activists received assistance from sympathetic insiders at the SFPD who helped craft the language of a second ballot that promoted the boulevard concept. A core group pushed forward by paying for early campaign materials out of their own pockets, used their phone tree from 1997, and called on allies to circulate petitions. They targeted movie theater lines and other spaces where crowds gathered. Momentum grew in the spring of 1998, and more progressives rejoined the effort.

The reinvigorated anti-freeway campaign formed into San Franciscans for a Better Freeway, and enough signatures were gathered to put the boulevard option on the ballot. Designated as Proposition E, it asked, “Shall the city repeal 1997’s Proposition H and authorize Caltrans to replace the Central Freeway with an elevated structure to Market Street and a ground-level boulevard from Market along Octavia Street?”55 The group redoubled their efforts from the previous year and established committees such as volunteer organizing, outreach and education, media and publicity, and fundraising. Using a strategy of phone banking, they believed that spending money on slick mailers was counterproductive because voters were sick of getting bombarded with that kind of propaganda. The group held house parties instead.

San Franciscans for a Better Freeway tightened their message with three to four simple points and designated a spokesperson to speak with media. Significantly, they focused on progressive precincts where voter turnout in November 1997 had been miserably low. The idea was to make sure that the progressive base voted en masse rather than making an effort to ap-peal to the entire citywide spectrum of voter ideologies. The group made a visible presence at local events in the Victorian Belt like the [[The Castro: The Rise of a Gay Community|Castro Street Fair]], [[Gay Sexuality Goes Public|Folsom Street Fair]], the Latino Summer Fiesta in Mission, and the Jewish Festival. Learning from Prop H, the Prop E campaign was more media savvy and focused on the design of the boulevard, comparing it to Sunset Boulevard and Park Presidio Boulevard on the west side of the city. Comparing the proposed boulevard to the existing west-side boulevards was a tactic meant to suggest that all Hayes Valley was asking for was something the west side already had.

The result was that the anti-freeway campaign had a much broader coalition than in the previous year. It included all citywide environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Democratic Party, progressives on the Board of Supervisors and in the State Assembly, the city’s gay rights organizations, including the Harvey Milk Club and the Alice B. Toklas Club, architecture and historic preservation organizations, housing advocates such as the San Francisco Tenants’ Union, and, to counter the rising conservative Chinese American vote, the Chinese Progressive Association was recruited into the fold. Rounding out support for Prop E were most of the Victorian Belt neighborhood organizations, including North Beach, Telegraph Hill, and Russian Hill. As noted in the introduction, Lawrence Ferlinghetti also chimed in in favor of Prop E with his sermon on the poetry of the city.

Conversely, the west-side pro-freeway activists were less organized and less politically active leading up to the Prop E campaign, perhaps believing that the people had spoken and no one would take Prop E seriously after the vote in 1997. Prop H had been the first real flexing of conservative Chinese voter clout and was a symbolic victory to show that they could get something done, but further consolidation of this bloc had fallen short.

The west-side conservatives restarted the Save the Central Freeway organization, but they were less aggressive than before. The San Francisco Labor Council, the city’s small Republican Party, and the Richmond Review newspaper all opposed Prop E, consistent with the city’s political alignment of conservative homeowners and construction trade unions.

Caltrans and the DPT, rather than west-side activists, led the thrust of the publicity campaign against Prop E, circulating reports and pamphlets that disputed the merits of a surface boulevard. Caltrans released a “Central Freeway Fact Sheet” in October 1998 to influence absentee voters, who tended to vote early and more conservatively and who lived on the west side. Caltrans argued that the costs of the boulevard were underestimated by its proponents and that the boulevard was poorly engineered and designed.(56) The rebuilding of the freeway was actually cheaper, claimed Caltrans, and the boulevard concept would take two years longer to build than their alternative. Using data from the environmental impact assessment of 1996, Caltrans argued that the surface boulevard would create more air pollution than the freeway-rebuilding alternative. Last, Caltrans asserted that if Prop E passed, a new environmental assessment would be required, adding further delay and cost. The DPT contended that the boulevard proposal would lead to more traffic and more pollution, impede Muni, make driving riskier and walking and cycling more dangerous. The chief of DPT openly opposed Prop E during the run-up to the election in November 1998.(57)

Disputing the local highway lobby, the Board of Supervisors transportation agency, the SFCTA, again presented its version of the facts, lending strength and legitimacy to the Prop E side and questioning the credibility of Caltrans. The SFCTA pointed out that Caltrans was misrepresenting the actual boulevard proposal by estimating the costs for a road that was 25 percent wider than the one Prop E was actually proposing. In reality, Caltrans was estimating the cost of Prop E based on a very wide street with traffic islands. Moreover, SFCTA reiterated that the Caltrans alternative failed to acknowledge that the widening of the elevated freeway would take the land parcels out of play, thus decreasing available revenue for the project. The SFCTA disputed the claim that a new environmental assessment would be required for the boulevard alternative, reminding voters that the assessment in 1996 had included a boulevard alternative in its analysis.

Prop E won at the ballot box on November 3 by ten thousand votes, receiving 54 percent of citywide votes in a much higher voter turnout (55 percent) than the previous year. The geography of the vote was almost identical to the vote on Prop H. Consistent with San Francisco’s progressive voting patterns, core Prop E votes were cast in the Victorian Belt neighborhoods and northeastern San Francisco. Bayview-Hunters Point, an African American neighborhood, also supported Prop E.(58) Large mar-gins favoring Prop E were in the Western Addition (71 percent), the Mission (69 percent), the Lower Haight (76 percent), and the Upper Market area (70 percent). The core anti–Prop E areas were the Sunset (63 percent against) and Lake Merced, West of Twin Peaks, Visitacion Valley, Ingle-side, Excelsior, Chinatown, Richmond, Sea Cliff, Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, and Laurel Heights. Prop E, like Prop H, only in a more pronounced way, reflected the geography of a progressive Victorian Belt surrounded by a conservative C-shaped arc (see map 2).

[[Image:HENDERSON map-2-figure-4.jpg]]

In December 1998 the Board of Supervisors, not wanting to lose its momentum, requested that Caltrans demolish the remaining Central Free-way and follow through on the commitment to local control by allowing the city to build the surface boulevard spelled out in Prop E. The board established a Central Freeway Project Office in the Department of Public Works (DPW) to develop and oversee the boulevard. DPW would be the lead agency for engineering and building the boulevard, and the SF-CTA, controlled by the board, not by the mayor, would be the fiscal agent and would develop a traffic management plan. Notably, control over the boulevard was not given to the DPT, whose traffic engineers opposed it. The Central Freeway Citizens’ Advisory Committee was established to al-low citizens’ input into the boulevard project. The committee, appointed by the board, was made up of advocates from Hayes Valley and citywide groups that had supported freeway removal.

At the state level, a newly elected state senator representing the east side of San Francisco successfully passed legislation to formally exempt the boulevard from environmental review should there have been a legal challenge by Caltrans or some other pro-freeway organization.(59) The senator had previously served on the Board of Supervisors and supported freeway removal, and his legislation required that the state hand over the freeway parcels to the city and that the financing of the boulevard come from the sale of the parcels. By early 1999 the city had finally wrested control of the boulevard right of way from Caltrans. But the battle was not over.

As design issues were hammered out and the new citizens’ advisory committee began to meet regularly, the pro-freeway faction reconnoitered and circulated petitions for yet another ballot initiative to rebuild the en-tire freeway. Once again the effort was led by the Chinese American San Francisco Neighbors Association. They warned anew that removing the freeway to south of Market “would cause a total traffic nightmare.”(60) And once again they were successful in gathering enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November. The Neighbors Association put Proposition J on the ballot, which repealed Prop E and required a full rebuilding of the freeway to Fell and Oak Streets. For good measure, the ballot language stated that a two-thirds vote would be needed to repeal Prop J.(61)

The summer saw a flurry of letters to the editor in the local papers and maneuvering by west-side politicians to halt the design and planning process of the boulevard as well as, in July 1999, a vote by the Board of Supervisors to approve the concept plan for the boulevard. Enraged at the momentum building toward freeway removal, local proponents of auto-mobility held a Critical Car Mass starting at City Hall. An angry anti-bike member of the Inner Sunset Merchants Association called upon motorists to rally and clog up Polk Street. Fewer than twenty-five cars showed up, but one of the people who appeared was Supervisor Yee. As in the Prop H campaign, the politics involved more than the freeway: for conservative Chinese Americans it was an opportunity to use the publicity surrounding the freeway issue as a path to higher office.

Now, progressive anti-freeway activists had a third ballot initiative to contend with. Exhausted from signature gathering, the progressive camp convinced four allies on the Board of Supervisors to place a counterinitiative on the ballot instead. That initiative, Proposition I, expanded the political tent for freeway removal even further, and there was now a fourth ballot! Prop I contained explicit provisions setting up the process for put-ting housing on the old freeway parcels in addition to reaffirming the boulevard idea. The Chamber of Commerce, frustrated with the antics of the rebuild camp, with ballot-box planning, and aware of the development potential, supported freeway replacement with a boulevard more aggressively than it had previously. Neoliberals and progressive factions revived their loose ad hoc coalition in spite of their deep differences on other transportation issues. Business-friendly, neoliberal-leaning progressives aligned through the San Francisco Environmental Organizing Committee, which formed around defending the boulevard concept and stopping Prop J and included members of SPUR and other development-oriented organizations.

The broader list of supporters of replacing the freeway with a boulevard and housing was impressive. Environmental organizations in support of I and against J included the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Golden Gate Park (which had opposed the garage in the park), the San Francisco Green Party, San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, San Francisco Tomorrow, and Urban Ecology. The more moderate San Francisco Beautiful also supported Prop I, as the boulevard came with landscaping and was, to this organization, an issue of broader aesthetics. Neighborhood organizations supporting the final vote on freeway removal and replacement with the boulevard included Alamo Square, Castro Area Planning Association, Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association, the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, Mint Hill Neighborhood (which merged with the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association [HVNA] shortly thereafter), North Beach Neighbors, North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Sunset-Parkside Education and Action Committee, Telegraph Hill Dwellers, and, of course, Hayes Valley. Supporting mer-chants’ organizations included the Haight-Divisadero and Hayes Valley Merchants Associations.

Political clubs that supported removal and replacement included the San Francisco Democratic Party, the Harvey Milk Club, the Richmond and Sunset Democratic Clubs, the Alice B. Toklas Club, and the Western Addition Political Action Coalition. Housing advocates included the Affordable Housing Alliance, the San Francisco Tenants’ Union, the San Francisco Tenants’ Network, and the Council of Community Housing Organizations. Women’s organizations were recruited, including the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Women’s Forum, and the San Francis-co Organization for Women. Preservation groups included the National Trust for Historic Preservation, San Francisco Heritage Foundation, and a small group called Friends of 1800 Market Street, defending a historic building adjacent to the freeway on Market Street. Sustainable transportation groups supporting Prop I included the SFBC, Rescue Muni, and Walk San Francisco. Local politicians who backed Prop I included former mayor Agnos, State Senator John Burton, Assemblywoman Carole Migden, Supervisors Tom Ammiano, Bierman, Amos Brown, Leslie Katz, and Mark Leno, and the newly elected BART board member Tom Radulovich.

In sum, almost every identifiable progressive organization or influential progressive figure in the city was engaged. Moreover, 1999 was an election year that really mattered in broader progressive politics. Supervisor Ammiano, a stalwart gay rights advocate, was recruited by progressives to run as a write-in candidate against the neoliberal Brown and the conservative Jordan, the two front-runners in what had been an uninspiring mayor’s race. Ammiano, representing the Mission District, was a relatively new member of the Board of Supervisors and was well to the left of Brown on housing and development issues.(62) His campaign tapped into the wider progressive movement, which had been in the doldrums but was now responding to the housing and gentrification pressures of the dot-com boom. Ammiano’s candidacy also signaled a fusion with a politically dissatisfied younger generation of voters.

The tone of progressive advocacy for freeway removal included a concern about how to keep San Francisco from morphing into a Silicon Valley bedroom community. There was an active anti-gentrification movement, particularly in the Mission District. As housing prices skyrocketed and evictions of renters increased in the city, it was apparent to many progressives that much of the city’s new wealth was linked to commuting by car to jobs in Silicon Valley. In extreme cases luxury cars parked in the Mission were targeted by vandals as symbols of gentrification. Tenants’ rights and affordable housing advocates helped steer energy to Ammiano’s brief campaign, gathering new low-income immigrant voters into the fold in the Tenderloin and South of Market. Ammiano spoke often about his sup-port for removing the freeway, and a vote for Ammiano most likely meant a vote for Prop I.

In November 1999, Prop I won with 54 percent of the vote citywide, and Prop J failed, receiving 47 percent favorable votes. Although Ammiano’s bid for mayor was defeated in a close runoff election a month later, San Francisco’s second freeway revolt was over.

[[Image:Best-temple-at-octavia-blvd 0341.jpg]]

'''David Best's Temple (a smaller version of what he built at Burning Man) in Patricia's Green on the former freeway route of Octavia Blvd., 2005.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Freeway Removed

When progressive transportation and neighborhood activists suggested removing the Central Freeway many local officials laughed at them. They were told by Caltrans, local politicians, and the agencies that managed the city’s streets that removing the freeway was impossible. The politics of possibilities about transportation futures were narrowly defined, and progressives were bumping up against the ideological supremacy of automobility. Yet activists in Hayes Valley would not accept this narrowly defined set of possibilities. They challenged the assumptions of a traffic nightmare and economic decline if the freeway was removed. They organized and built alliances citywide, engaged in a long political struggle, and remained persistent. Even their persistence did not guarantee victory, as they almost lost the struggle.

The advocates who managed the final campaign for freeway removal acknowledge that their victory was partly serendipitous. The great enthusiasm shown for a charismatic gay candidate for mayor who challenged neoliberals over the future of the city drew thousands of progressives to the polls, and the spirit of the progressives was high, despite their candidate’s loss in the runoff for mayor a month later. Ironically, progressives, with neoliberal support, had beaten pro-freeway factions and established a political foundation for future possibilities to contest automobility. In 2000 that organizing momentum led to progressives’ seizing a majority on the Board of Supervisors for the first time in San Francisco’s history. Over the next decade this enabled a more robust discourse about mobility, including very explicit new challenges to automobility.

But whatever enthusiasm one might feel over these developments should be tempered. Although progressives have promoted freeway removal as part of a broader agenda of reducing car dependency, the necessary substitute investment in public transportation, bicycle infrastructure, and pedestrian improvements has lagged. The areas in the immediate vicinity of the new terminus of the freeway continue to have major traffic problems and associated safety and quality of life concerns. Parts of the neighborhood remain saturated with cars during peak periods. The arterial one-way Fell and Oak couplet and the Franklin and Gough one-way couplet still carry more than 150,000 cars through the neighborhood every day. Residents of the area, despite having lower rates of car ownership compared to other parts of San Francisco, are shouldering the burden of other people’s automobility while, paradoxically, the cost of housing re-mains prohibitively expensive.

Further, the removal of freeways may be consistent with the progressive mobility vision, but it is complicated by the desires of neoliberals to profit from attractive new development opportunities and the broader gentrification and displacement that are occurring. After the freeway was removed, SFPD produced a land use plan called the Market and Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan (MOBNP) for the area around the freeway.(63)

The plan emulates many of the livability principles of dense, compact, mixed-use infill development that is walkable, bicycle friendly, transit oriented, and partly zoned to limit the amount of parking. Yet the plan, coupled with freeway removal, has contributed to an increase in land values in Hayes Valley, turning a once relatively affordable part of the city into an unaffordable one for many.(64)

A tacit and localized progressive–neoliberal détente over land use enables dense new housing development on former freeway parcels, but the neighborhood became inaccessible to many working-class people. This exposes rifts and remains a challenge to progressive organizing. The central location and livability of the neighborhood contribute to its desirability as a place to live, but ironically its proximity to the new rebuilt freeway segment just south of Market Street means there is tremendous pressure to build new housing that accommodates people commuting by car or private corporate commuter bus to Silicon Valley and other suburban job centers. New luxury infill housing is often marketed by realtors for both its walkability and easy access to the freeway, but it is also part of a transformation of many San Francisco neighborhoods into exclusive bedroom communities.(65)

'''Footnotes'''

48. San Francisco Department of Elections, “Prop H: Central Freeway,” ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 4, 1997'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 82–96. 
49. ''Ibid'', “Proponents’ Arguments and Paid Arguments in Favor of Proposition H,” 86. 
50. ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Editorial, Prop. H: A Freeway Folly,” October 29, 1997. 
51. Willie Brown Jr. and Sue Bierman, “Why Central Freeway Ballot Proposal Is a Dead End,” ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 3, 1997. 
52. The San Francisco Department of Elections presents historic voter turnout data at www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=1677. 
53. Edward Epstein and Ramon G. McLeod, “New S.F. Voter Bloc Shows Clout: Chinese Americans Were Key to Freeway Retrofit Ballot Victory,” ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 6, 1997; Chuck Finnie, “Central Freeway Win a West Side Story,” ''San Francisco Examiner'' November 6, 1997. 
54. Edward Epstein, “Central Freeway Work Should Start, Finish Early: Funding for Project Nearly All in Place,” February 20, 1998. The same state senator also submitted paid arguments in favor of Prop H. 
55. San Francisco Department of Elections, Proposition E: Central Freeway, ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 3, 1998'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 87. 
56. Caltrans, Central Freeway Fact Sheet (Oakland: Caltrans District 4, Office of Highway Operations), 1. 
57. Chuck Finnie, “High Road or Low Road: Prop E Will Determine if Central Freeway Is to be Rebuilt or Replaced,” ''San Francisco Examiner'', October 27, 1998. 
58. David Binder, “SF Propositions Results, Presentation to SPUR, Nov 4, 1998.” 
59. SFCTA, ''Strategic Analysis Report: Implications of Relocating the Central Freeway Touchdown Ramps'' (San Francisco: SFCTA), 1. 
60. Rachel Gordon, “One More Vote for Central Freeway?” San Francisco Examiner, June 18, 1999. 
61. San Francisco Department of Elections, Proposition J: Central Freeway Replacement, ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 2, 1999'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 175. 
62. Chester Hartman, ''City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 268. 
63. The geography of the MOBNP area expands well beyond this intersection and was delineated by planners because it reflected the potential for transit-oriented infill around Muni Metro stations as well as infill opportunities on former land parcels that were once part of the freeway. 
64. Some transportation scholars posit that gentrification and increased land values are indicators of the benefits of freeway removal. For example, see Robert Cervero, “Transport Infrastructure and Global Competitiveness: Balancing Mobility and Livability,” ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 626.1 (2009): 210–25. Cervero discusses the place-making aspects of the removal of the Embarcadero and the Central Freeway, invoking Richard Florida’s thesis of the creative class and suggesting that the gentrification of Hayes Valley was a good outcome of freeway replacement. 
65. In 2012 San Francisco had the most expensive housing in the nation, owing largely to a new tech boom. See Nancy Keates and Geoffrey Fowler, “The Hot Spot for the Rising Tech Generation,” ''Wall Street Journal'', March 16, 2012.

[[Second Freeway Revolt|Second Freeway Revolt (Part 1)]] / [[Conservative Fight to Save Central Freeway|Conservative Fight to Save Central Freeway (part 2)]]

<hr>

[[Image:Street fight 9781613762608.jpg|left|140px]] This article is excerpted, with permission, from Henderson's book [http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/street-fight "Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco"'], 2013''

[[category:Ecology]] [[category:transit]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category: 1980s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:downtown]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:Chinese]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:Book Excerpts]]

Dueling Ballots: The Central Freeway’s Fate

2026-03-25T05:38:39Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Jason Henderson''

[[Image:Aerial view east over the Central Freeway, newly constructed Opera Plaza, War Memorial , Opera House, and City Hall at right 1983 sfm002-00239.jpg|800px]]

'''Aerial view east over the Central Freeway, 1983.'''

''Photo: SFMemory.org sfm002-00239''

Second Freeway Revolt (Part 3)

In March 1997 the San Francisco Neighbors Association placed one thou-sand pro-freeway signs on major roads throughout the city. The signs proclaimed, “Open Central Freeway” and displayed a telephone number, which, when called, was answered by a service that asked for the caller’s name and phone number. That spring and summer the association collected this information and organized a petition drive to put the question of rebuilding the freeway on the ballot. Joined by the Sunset Merchants Group, made up of white business owners, the association gathered over twenty-eight thousand signatures and qualified Proposition H to be on the ballot in November. The question was simple: “Shall the City authorize Caltrans to rebuild portions of the Central Freeway, and shall the City end the ban on construction of new above-ground Freeway ramps north of Fell Street?”(48)

[[Image:End-of-fwy duboce.jpg]]

'''Demolition of Central Freeway at Duboce and Valencia, 2003.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

The Yes on Prop H campaign was run by the Committee to Save the Central Freeway, and paid arguments in favor of the proposition included a range of conservative-leaning political organizations such as merchants’ groups, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, a conservative umbrella neighborhood organization, the Republican Party, building and construction trades unions, the association of realtors, and an array of local politicians with conservative positions vis-à-vis automobility. Freeway proponents used data from the environmental impact assessment of 1996 to argue that rebuilding the freeway was “safest for pedestrians and bicyclists,” would be “least disruptive to public transportation,” and would “end eight years of gridlock.”(49) The logic was the same as that deployed decades earlier, that is, elevated freeways would minimize high-speed automobile interaction with surface streets and thereby improve conditions on them. The Prop H camp also noted that Los Angeles rebuilt its earthquake-damaged freeways in one year and that Oakland had already rebuilt the Cypress Freeway.

ASTAC fell into the lead in organizing against Prop H and created a political action committee called the Committee for Sensible Transportation Solutions, No on H. ASTAC built an extensive phone list too, and the organization used a phone tree to lobby against Prop H. A core group of ASTAC members did much of the groundwork and fundraising, soliciting citywide progressives and some neoliberals, including SPUR and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner recommended a no vote on H, calling the ballot box approach a folly, premature, sloppy, and expensive.(50) Mayor Brown wrote an op-ed with Supervisor Bierman arguing against it.51 The city’s Democratic Party opposed Prop H and put out a “No on H” mailer calling it a quick fix that was costly and unsafe and would lead to gridlock because it would take longer to build and thus prolong traffic conditions. The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, which counted key female politicians among its ranks, mailed a pamphlet calling the Prop H proposal expensive, disruptive, and unsafe. The Committee for Sensible Transportation Solutions mailed a flier with excerpts from Chronicle and Examiner editorials opposing Prop H, highlighted that the Chamber of Commerce was opposed to Prop H, and called it a quick fix. The progressive–neoliberal rapprochement was epitomized in a campaign sign that read, “Chamber of Commerce and Sierra Club Agree: No on H, Costly, Unsafe, Gridlock.” On the eve of the election it looked like Prop H would be defeated by a loose progressive and neoliberal political consensus.

On November 4, 1997, Prop H passed with 53 percent of voters in favor of rebuilding the Central Freeway. The passage of the proposition shocked not only the anti-freeway advocates and Hayes Valley residents but also the political establishment of the city. But in context it should not have been that surprising. It was an unexciting election year, with little enthusiasm in the political press. Progressives, beyond the sustainable transportation advocates and Hayes Valley organizers, were generally disorganized, and many were not attentive to the implications of Prop H. There was no major attraction on the ballot such as a high-profile mayor’s race or national candidacy to draw more progressive voters.

An illustration of the political geography of all four of the freeway ballots, including Prop H in 1997 and the ballots of 1998 and 1999 (see below), is revealing (map 2 below). Citywide, voter turnout in 1997 was very low, at 28 percent; in most of the more progressive inner precincts voter turnout ranged from around 20 to 25 percent, while on the west side it ranged above 25 percent to as high as 35 percent in the Sunset and almost 40 percent in the precincts of West of Twin Peaks.(52) These are the most conservative, pro-automobile precincts in the city. Prop H was defeated in the Western Addition, Cole Valley, the Haight-Ashbury, Lower Haight, Downtown, and the Mission, but the turnout was too low in the Victorian Belt to counter the conservative pro-freeway vote on the west side. All of the progressive precincts proximate to the freeway voted no, and immediately adjacent to the freeway the opposition ranged from 60 to 70 percent. These numbers were obviously too small compared to the voter turnout on the west side.

Prop H was about more than rebuilding the Central Freeway. It was the springboard for organizing the new, politically conservative Chinese American and other Asian constituencies that were asserting themselves in San Francisco.(53) By 1998, some 35 percent of the city was Asian, and 18 percent of San Francisco voters were Asian, the majority of that subgroup being Chinese. The most prominent Chinese American political figures, such as Leland Yee on the Board of Supervisors, championed Prop H. Chinese American political activists used this campaign as a launching pad for possible campaigns for the Board of Supervisors and sought citywide name recognition. They would continue to organize around the freeway question in two subsequent rounds of ballot-box planning because progressives were not ready to concede their goal of removing the freeway.

In early 1998 it looked as if progressive efforts to check the automobile were getting nowhere in San Francisco. Caltrans and freeway proponents moved quickly to get the rebuilding started. The state senator representing the west side quickly acquiesced to the Prop H victors and sought state funds to underwrite the rebuilding.(54) In another defeat for progressives, voters approved the building of a publicly funded parking garage in the middle of Golden Gate Park for the de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. Just as in the previous Prop H vote, the precincts in the progressive Victorian belt opposed the garage and the outer neighborhoods supported it. The Victorian Belt neighborhoods were joined by citywide progressive organizations such as the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and San Francisco Tomorrow. Progressive neighborhood groups like the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council and ASTAC also opposed the garage. But the garage had the widespread support of various groups, including the neoliberal establishment, and it revealed the weakness of the freeway removal coalition. SPUR, the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods, labor unions, and even Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi supported the garage, along with the Republican Party and the Chamber of Commerce. Many of these groups and politicians had either stayed silent on or opposed Prop H, but a neoliberal–progressive alliance on mobility was not solid.

[[Image:End-of-fwy market 421am.jpg]]

'''Demolition of Central Freeway at Market and Octavia, April 21, 2003.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Activists in Hayes Valley were devastated when Prop H passed. A core group met early in 1998 and sought a strategy to confront the rebuilding of the freeway. They considered a second ballot but found it difficult to recruit support so soon after the defeat. Many supporters of removing the freeway felt that the battle was lost. But in view of the low voter turnout and a close election (47 percent voted to oppose the rebuilding) the core group in Hayes Valley felt there was a chance that a second ballot could bring better results. Supervisor Bierman, the veteran of the freeway revolts in the 1960s, encouraged activists not to lose hope and stimulated enthusiasm for a second ballot sponsored by progressives. This ballot would spell out and illustrate the idea of the surface boulevard first introduced by the SFPD and Mayor Brown in early 1997.

The activists received assistance from sympathetic insiders at the SFPD who helped craft the language of a second ballot that promoted the boulevard concept. A core group pushed forward by paying for early campaign materials out of their own pockets, used their phone tree from 1997, and called on allies to circulate petitions. They targeted movie theater lines and other spaces where crowds gathered. Momentum grew in the spring of 1998, and more progressives rejoined the effort.

The reinvigorated anti-freeway campaign formed into San Franciscans for a Better Freeway, and enough signatures were gathered to put the boulevard option on the ballot. Designated as Proposition E, it asked, “Shall the city repeal 1997’s Proposition H and authorize Caltrans to replace the Central Freeway with an elevated structure to Market Street and a ground-level boulevard from Market along Octavia Street?”55 The group redoubled their efforts from the previous year and established committees such as volunteer organizing, outreach and education, media and publicity, and fundraising. Using a strategy of phone banking, they believed that spending money on slick mailers was counterproductive because voters were sick of getting bombarded with that kind of propaganda. The group held house parties instead.

San Franciscans for a Better Freeway tightened their message with three to four simple points and designated a spokesperson to speak with media. Significantly, they focused on progressive precincts where voter turnout in November 1997 had been miserably low. The idea was to make sure that the progressive base voted en masse rather than making an effort to ap-peal to the entire citywide spectrum of voter ideologies. The group made a visible presence at local events in the Victorian Belt like the [[The Castro: The Rise of a Gay Community|Castro Street Fair]], [[Gay Sexuality Goes Public|Folsom Street Fair]], the Latino Summer Fiesta in Mission, and the Jewish Festival. Learning from Prop H, the Prop E campaign was more media savvy and focused on the design of the boulevard, comparing it to Sunset Boulevard and Park Presidio Boulevard on the west side of the city. Comparing the proposed boulevard to the existing west-side boulevards was a tactic meant to suggest that all Hayes Valley was asking for was something the west side already had.

The result was that the anti-freeway campaign had a much broader coalition than in the previous year. It included all citywide environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Democratic Party, progressives on the Board of Supervisors and in the State Assembly, the city’s gay rights organizations, including the Harvey Milk Club and the Alice B. Toklas Club, architecture and historic preservation organizations, housing advocates such as the San Francisco Tenants’ Union, and, to counter the rising conservative Chinese American vote, the Chinese Progressive Association was recruited into the fold. Rounding out support for Prop E were most of the Victorian Belt neighborhood organizations, including North Beach, Telegraph Hill, and Russian Hill. As noted in the introduction, Lawrence Ferlinghetti also chimed in in favor of Prop E with his sermon on the poetry of the city.

Conversely, the west-side pro-freeway activists were less organized and less politically active leading up to the Prop E campaign, perhaps believing that the people had spoken and no one would take Prop E seriously after the vote in 1997. Prop H had been the first real flexing of conservative Chinese voter clout and was a symbolic victory to show that they could get something done, but further consolidation of this bloc had fallen short.

The west-side conservatives restarted the Save the Central Freeway organization, but they were less aggressive than before. The San Francisco Labor Council, the city’s small Republican Party, and the Richmond Review newspaper all opposed Prop E, consistent with the city’s political alignment of conservative homeowners and construction trade unions.

Caltrans and the DPT, rather than west-side activists, led the thrust of the publicity campaign against Prop E, circulating reports and pamphlets that disputed the merits of a surface boulevard. Caltrans released a “Central Freeway Fact Sheet” in October 1998 to influence absentee voters, who tended to vote early and more conservatively and who lived on the west side. Caltrans argued that the costs of the boulevard were underestimated by its proponents and that the boulevard was poorly engineered and designed.(56) The rebuilding of the freeway was actually cheaper, claimed Caltrans, and the boulevard concept would take two years longer to build than their alternative. Using data from the environmental impact assessment of 1996, Caltrans argued that the surface boulevard would create more air pollution than the freeway-rebuilding alternative. Last, Caltrans asserted that if Prop E passed, a new environmental assessment would be required, adding further delay and cost. The DPT contended that the boulevard proposal would lead to more traffic and more pollution, impede Muni, make driving riskier and walking and cycling more dangerous. The chief of DPT openly opposed Prop E during the run-up to the election in November 1998.(57)

Disputing the local highway lobby, the Board of Supervisors transportation agency, the SFCTA, again presented its version of the facts, lending strength and legitimacy to the Prop E side and questioning the credibility of Caltrans. The SFCTA pointed out that Caltrans was misrepresenting the actual boulevard proposal by estimating the costs for a road that was 25 percent wider than the one Prop E was actually proposing. In reality, Caltrans was estimating the cost of Prop E based on a very wide street with traffic islands. Moreover, SFCTA reiterated that the Caltrans alternative failed to acknowledge that the widening of the elevated freeway would take the land parcels out of play, thus decreasing available revenue for the project. The SFCTA disputed the claim that a new environmental assessment would be required for the boulevard alternative, reminding voters that the assessment in 1996 had included a boulevard alternative in its analysis.

Prop E won at the ballot box on November 3 by ten thousand votes, receiving 54 percent of citywide votes in a much higher voter turnout (55 percent) than the previous year. The geography of the vote was almost identical to the vote on Prop H. Consistent with San Francisco’s progressive voting patterns, core Prop E votes were cast in the Victorian Belt neighborhoods and northeastern San Francisco. Bayview-Hunters Point, an African American neighborhood, also supported Prop E.(58) Large mar-gins favoring Prop E were in the Western Addition (71 percent), the Mission (69 percent), the Lower Haight (76 percent), and the Upper Market area (70 percent). The core anti–Prop E areas were the Sunset (63 percent against) and Lake Merced, West of Twin Peaks, Visitacion Valley, Ingle-side, Excelsior, Chinatown, Richmond, Sea Cliff, Marina, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, and Laurel Heights. Prop E, like Prop H, only in a more pronounced way, reflected the geography of a progressive Victorian Belt surrounded by a conservative C-shaped arc (see map 2).

[[Image:HENDERSON map-2-figure-4.jpg]]

In December 1998 the Board of Supervisors, not wanting to lose its momentum, requested that Caltrans demolish the remaining Central Free-way and follow through on the commitment to local control by allowing the city to build the surface boulevard spelled out in Prop E. The board established a Central Freeway Project Office in the Department of Public Works (DPW) to develop and oversee the boulevard. DPW would be the lead agency for engineering and building the boulevard, and the SF-CTA, controlled by the board, not by the mayor, would be the fiscal agent and would develop a traffic management plan. Notably, control over the boulevard was not given to the DPT, whose traffic engineers opposed it. The Central Freeway Citizens’ Advisory Committee was established to al-low citizens’ input into the boulevard project. The committee, appointed by the board, was made up of advocates from Hayes Valley and citywide groups that had supported freeway removal.

At the state level, a newly elected state senator representing the east side of San Francisco successfully passed legislation to formally exempt the boulevard from environmental review should there have been a legal challenge by Caltrans or some other pro-freeway organization.(59) The senator had previously served on the Board of Supervisors and supported freeway removal, and his legislation required that the state hand over the freeway parcels to the city and that the financing of the boulevard come from the sale of the parcels. By early 1999 the city had finally wrested control of the boulevard right of way from Caltrans. But the battle was not over.

As design issues were hammered out and the new citizens’ advisory committee began to meet regularly, the pro-freeway faction reconnoitered and circulated petitions for yet another ballot initiative to rebuild the en-tire freeway. Once again the effort was led by the Chinese American San Francisco Neighbors Association. They warned anew that removing the freeway to south of Market “would cause a total traffic nightmare.”(60) And once again they were successful in gathering enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November. The Neighbors Association put Proposition J on the ballot, which repealed Prop E and required a full rebuilding of the freeway to Fell and Oak Streets. For good measure, the ballot language stated that a two-thirds vote would be needed to repeal Prop J.(61)

The summer saw a flurry of letters to the editor in the local papers and maneuvering by west-side politicians to halt the design and planning process of the boulevard as well as, in July 1999, a vote by the Board of Supervisors to approve the concept plan for the boulevard. Enraged at the momentum building toward freeway removal, local proponents of auto-mobility held a Critical Car Mass starting at City Hall. An angry anti-bike member of the Inner Sunset Merchants Association called upon motorists to rally and clog up Polk Street. Fewer than twenty-five cars showed up, but one of the people who appeared was Supervisor Yee. As in the Prop H campaign, the politics involved more than the freeway: for conservative Chinese Americans it was an opportunity to use the publicity surrounding the freeway issue as a path to higher office.

Now, progressive anti-freeway activists had a third ballot initiative to contend with. Exhausted from signature gathering, the progressive camp convinced four allies on the Board of Supervisors to place a counterinitiative on the ballot instead. That initiative, Proposition I, expanded the political tent for freeway removal even further, and there was now a fourth ballot! Prop I contained explicit provisions setting up the process for put-ting housing on the old freeway parcels in addition to reaffirming the boulevard idea. The Chamber of Commerce, frustrated with the antics of the rebuild camp, with ballot-box planning, and aware of the development potential, supported freeway replacement with a boulevard more aggressively than it had previously. Neoliberals and progressive factions revived their loose ad hoc coalition in spite of their deep differences on other transportation issues. Business-friendly, neoliberal-leaning progressives aligned through the San Francisco Environmental Organizing Committee, which formed around defending the boulevard concept and stopping Prop J and included members of SPUR and other development-oriented organizations.

The broader list of supporters of replacing the freeway with a boulevard and housing was impressive. Environmental organizations in support of I and against J included the Sierra Club, the Alliance for Golden Gate Park (which had opposed the garage in the park), the San Francisco Green Party, San Francisco League of Conservation Voters, San Francisco Tomorrow, and Urban Ecology. The more moderate San Francisco Beautiful also supported Prop I, as the boulevard came with landscaping and was, to this organization, an issue of broader aesthetics. Neighborhood organizations supporting the final vote on freeway removal and replacement with the boulevard included Alamo Square, Castro Area Planning Association, Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association, the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, Mint Hill Neighborhood (which merged with the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association [HVNA] shortly thereafter), North Beach Neighbors, North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, Sunset-Parkside Education and Action Committee, Telegraph Hill Dwellers, and, of course, Hayes Valley. Supporting mer-chants’ organizations included the Haight-Divisadero and Hayes Valley Merchants Associations.

Political clubs that supported removal and replacement included the San Francisco Democratic Party, the Harvey Milk Club, the Richmond and Sunset Democratic Clubs, the Alice B. Toklas Club, and the Western Addition Political Action Coalition. Housing advocates included the Affordable Housing Alliance, the San Francisco Tenants’ Union, the San Francisco Tenants’ Network, and the Council of Community Housing Organizations. Women’s organizations were recruited, including the League of Women Voters, the Democratic Women’s Forum, and the San Francis-co Organization for Women. Preservation groups included the National Trust for Historic Preservation, San Francisco Heritage Foundation, and a small group called Friends of 1800 Market Street, defending a historic building adjacent to the freeway on Market Street. Sustainable transportation groups supporting Prop I included the SFBC, Rescue Muni, and Walk San Francisco. Local politicians who backed Prop I included former mayor Agnos, State Senator John Burton, Assemblywoman Carole Migden, Supervisors Tom Ammiano, Bierman, Amos Brown, Leslie Katz, and Mark Leno, and the newly elected BART board member Tom Radulovich.

In sum, almost every identifiable progressive organization or influential progressive figure in the city was engaged. Moreover, 1999 was an election year that really mattered in broader progressive politics. Supervisor Ammiano, a stalwart gay rights advocate, was recruited by progressives to run as a write-in candidate against the neoliberal Brown and the conservative Jordan, the two front-runners in what had been an uninspiring mayor’s race. Ammiano, representing the Mission District, was a relatively new member of the Board of Supervisors and was well to the left of Brown on housing and development issues.(62) His campaign tapped into the wider progressive movement, which had been in the doldrums but was now responding to the housing and gentrification pressures of the dot-com boom. Ammiano’s candidacy also signaled a fusion with a politically dissatisfied younger generation of voters.

The tone of progressive advocacy for freeway removal included a concern about how to keep San Francisco from morphing into a Silicon Valley bedroom community. There was an active anti-gentrification movement, particularly in the Mission District. As housing prices skyrocketed and evictions of renters increased in the city, it was apparent to many progressives that much of the city’s new wealth was linked to commuting by car to jobs in Silicon Valley. In extreme cases luxury cars parked in the Mission were targeted by vandals as symbols of gentrification. Tenants’ rights and affordable housing advocates helped steer energy to Ammiano’s brief campaign, gathering new low-income immigrant voters into the fold in the Tenderloin and South of Market. Ammiano spoke often about his sup-port for removing the freeway, and a vote for Ammiano most likely meant a vote for Prop I.

In November 1999, Prop I won with 54 percent of the vote citywide, and Prop J failed, receiving 47 percent favorable votes. Although Ammiano’s bid for mayor was defeated in a close runoff election a month later, San Francisco’s second freeway revolt was over.

[[Image:Best-temple-at-octavia-blvd 0341.jpg]]

'''David Best's Temple (a smaller version of what he built at Burning Man) in Patricia's Green on the former freeway route of Octavia Blvd., 2005.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

Freeway Removed

When progressive transportation and neighborhood activists suggested removing the Central Freeway many local officials laughed at them. They were told by Caltrans, local politicians, and the agencies that managed the city’s streets that removing the freeway was impossible. The politics of possibilities about transportation futures were narrowly defined, and progressives were bumping up against the ideological supremacy of automobility. Yet activists in Hayes Valley would not accept this narrowly defined set of possibilities. They challenged the assumptions of a traffic nightmare and economic decline if the freeway was removed. They organized and built alliances citywide, engaged in a long political struggle, and remained persistent. Even their persistence did not guarantee victory, as they almost lost the struggle.

The advocates who managed the final campaign for freeway removal acknowledge that their victory was partly serendipitous. The great enthusiasm shown for a charismatic gay candidate for mayor who challenged neoliberals over the future of the city drew thousands of progressives to the polls, and the spirit of the progressives was high, despite their candidate’s loss in the runoff for mayor a month later. Ironically, progressives, with neoliberal support, had beaten pro-freeway factions and established a political foundation for future possibilities to contest automobility. In 2000 that organizing momentum led to progressives’ seizing a majority on the Board of Supervisors for the first time in San Francisco’s history. Over the next decade this enabled a more robust discourse about mobility, including very explicit new challenges to automobility.

But whatever enthusiasm one might feel over these developments should be tempered. Although progressives have promoted freeway removal as part of a broader agenda of reducing car dependency, the necessary substitute investment in public transportation, bicycle infrastructure, and pedestrian improvements has lagged. The areas in the immediate vicinity of the new terminus of the freeway continue to have major traffic problems and associated safety and quality of life concerns. Parts of the neighborhood remain saturated with cars during peak periods. The arterial one-way Fell and Oak couplet and the Franklin and Gough one-way couplet still carry more than 150,000 cars through the neighborhood every day. Residents of the area, despite having lower rates of car ownership compared to other parts of San Francisco, are shouldering the burden of other people’s automobility while, paradoxically, the cost of housing re-mains prohibitively expensive.

Further, the removal of freeways may be consistent with the progressive mobility vision, but it is complicated by the desires of neoliberals to profit from attractive new development opportunities and the broader gentrification and displacement that are occurring. After the freeway was removed, SFPD produced a land use plan called the Market and Octavia Better Neighborhoods Plan (MOBNP) for the area around the freeway.(63)

The plan emulates many of the livability principles of dense, compact, mixed-use infill development that is walkable, bicycle friendly, transit oriented, and partly zoned to limit the amount of parking. Yet the plan, coupled with freeway removal, has contributed to an increase in land values in Hayes Valley, turning a once relatively affordable part of the city into an unaffordable one for many.(64)

A tacit and localized progressive–neoliberal détente over land use enables dense new housing development on former freeway parcels, but the neighborhood became inaccessible to many working-class people. This exposes rifts and remains a challenge to progressive organizing. The central location and livability of the neighborhood contribute to its desirability as a place to live, but ironically its proximity to the new rebuilt freeway segment just south of Market Street means there is tremendous pressure to build new housing that accommodates people commuting by car or private corporate commuter bus to Silicon Valley and other suburban job centers. New luxury infill housing is often marketed by realtors for both its walkability and easy access to the freeway, but it is also part of a transformation of many San Francisco neighborhoods into exclusive bedroom communities.(65)

'''Footnotes'''

48. San Francisco Department of Elections, “Prop H: Central Freeway,” ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 4, 1997'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 82–96. 
49. ''Ibid'', “Proponents’ Arguments and Paid Arguments in Favor of Proposition H,” 86. 
50. ''San Francisco Chronicle'', Editorial, Prop. H: A Freeway Folly,” October 29, 1997. 
51. Willie Brown Jr. and Sue Bierman, “Why Central Freeway Ballot Proposal Is a Dead End,” ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 3, 1997. 
52. The San Francisco Department of Elections presents historic voter turnout data at www.sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=1677. 
53. Edward Epstein and Ramon G. McLeod, “New S.F. Voter Bloc Shows Clout: Chinese Americans Were Key to Freeway Retrofit Ballot Victory,” ''San Francisco Chronicle'', November 6, 1997; Chuck Finnie, “Central Freeway Win a West Side Story,” ''San Francisco Examiner'' November 6, 1997. 
54. Edward Epstein, “Central Freeway Work Should Start, Finish Early: Funding for Project Nearly All in Place,” February 20, 1998. The same state senator also submitted paid arguments in favor of Prop H. 
55. San Francisco Department of Elections, Proposition E: Central Freeway, ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 3, 1998'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 87. 
56. Caltrans, Central Freeway Fact Sheet (Oakland: Caltrans District 4, Office of Highway Operations), 1. 
57. Chuck Finnie, “High Road or Low Road: Prop E Will Determine if Central Freeway Is to be Rebuilt or Replaced,” ''San Francisco Examiner'', October 27, 1998. 
58. David Binder, “SF Propositions Results, Presentation to SPUR, Nov 4, 1998.” 
59. SFCTA, ''Strategic Analysis Report: Implications of Relocating the Central Freeway Touchdown Ramps'' (San Francisco: SFCTA), 1. 
60. Rachel Gordon, “One More Vote for Central Freeway?” San Francisco Examiner, June 18, 1999. 
61. San Francisco Department of Elections, Proposition J: Central Freeway Replacement, ''City and County of San Francisco Voter Information Pamphlet and Sample Ballot, Consolidated Municipal Election, November 2, 1999'' (San Francisco: Department of Elections), 175. 
62. Chester Hartman, ''City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 268. 
63. The geography of the MOBNP area expands well beyond this intersection and was delineated by planners because it reflected the potential for transit-oriented infill around Muni Metro stations as well as infill opportunities on former land parcels that were once part of the freeway. 
64. Some transportation scholars posit that gentrification and increased land values are indicators of the benefits of freeway removal. For example, see Robert Cervero, “Transport Infrastructure and Global Competitiveness: Balancing Mobility and Livability,” ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 626.1 (2009): 210–25. Cervero discusses the place-making aspects of the removal of the Embarcadero and the Central Freeway, invoking Richard Florida’s thesis of the creative class and suggesting that the gentrification of Hayes Valley was a good outcome of freeway replacement. 
65. In 2012 San Francisco had the most expensive housing in the nation, owing largely to a new tech boom. See Nancy Keates and Geoffrey Fowler, “The Hot Spot for the Rising Tech Generation,” ''Wall Street Journal'', March 16, 2012.

[[Second Freeway Revolt|Second Freeway Revolt (Part 1)]] / [[Conservative Fight to Save Central Freeway|Conservative Fight to Save Central Freeway (part 2)]]

<hr>

[[Image:Street fight 9781613762608.jpg|left|140px]] This article is excerpted, with permission, from Henderson's book [http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/street-fight "Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco"'], 2013''

[[category:Ecology]] [[category:transit]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category: 1980s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:downtown]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:Chinese]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:Book Excerpts]]

File:Aerial view east over the Central Freeway, newly constructed Opera Plaza, War Memorial , Opera House, and City Hall at right 1983 sfm002-00239.jpg

2026-03-25T05:37:39Z

Ccarlsson:

Francisco Reservoir

2026-03-25T05:35:15Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Catherine Accardi''

''Originally published in ''The Semaphore'' #207, the publication of the [http://www.thd.org Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association]''

[[Image:Francisco-Reservior,-June-1904.jpg]]

'''Francisco Reservoir as it looked in 1904.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

[[Image:Francisco St. Reservoir Jun 20, 1904 opensfhistory wnp36.10056.jpg|800px]]

'''June 20, 1904, might be same image as PUC version above.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.10056''

[[Image:Francisco-reservoir-2014 1010069.jpg]]

'''Francisco reservoir in 2014.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

It took more than 60 years to achieve the once in a lifetime opportunity of turning the defunct Francisco Reservoir into a city park. The site has been a neighborhood eyesore for decades. Why did it take so long? Read on to find out.

[[Image:Reservior-as-it-appeared-in-1930.jpg]]

'''Reservoir as it appeared in 1930.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

[[Image:Francisco-Park 20250205 220756095.jpg]]

'''After the new park has been open for more than a year, February 2025.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

On July 22, 2014, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Agenda Item No. 34 to transfer the defunct Francisco Reservoir from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), to the Recreation and Park Department (RPD) in order to create a new public park for San Francisco. San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell’s proposal called for RPD to take over jurisdiction of the entire 4.25 acre Francisco Reservoir property for the purpose of creating the park.The appraised market value of $9.9 million will be paid over 12 years to the Public Utilities Commission from the San Francisco Open Space Acquisition Fund. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will document the transfer should be executed by the end of September 2014.

Four surrounding neighborhood associations had partnered together to form the Francisco Park Working Group, the lead organization that coordinated all community efforts. The group was made up of members from the Russian Hill Improvement Association, Aquatic Park Neighbors, North Beach Neighbors, and Russian Hill Neighbors. Their persistent, extraordinary effort will benefit San Francisco residents and visitors for decades with this once in a lifetime opportunity to create a park from “surplus” land. The parcel is even flanked by the Hyde Street cable car line, and this, along with the magnificent sloping site, makes for the quintessential San Francisco experience. The sounds of sea gulls, parrots, clanging cable cars will mix together perfectly. It is expected the next step will begin with a second phase of community-driven proposals leading to the final design of the new park.

The story actually began over 160 years ago, in the mid 1800s, when the population of San Francisco was growing exponentially, due in part to the fact that San Francisco was the main port of entry during the Gold Rush. A wooden flume from Baker Beach travelled along the coast near the Presidio, past Fort Point and Fort Mason to the pumping station at the foot of Van Ness Avenue.

[[Image:norbeach$black-point-1870.jpg]]

'''Black Point (now Fort Mason), 1870. Spring Valley Water Co. brought water through the flume that skirts the cliffs. Small farms run down to the shore. Alcatraz is in the distance.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

It was in 1861, during the Civil War, that the San Francisco Water Works built Francisco Reservoir, constructed to hold 2.5 million gallons of water. And so it went until the 1930s when the city acquired property through the purchase of the [[Spring Valley Water Company|Spring Valley Water Company]] which allowed for construction of a second reservoir. By the 1940s, the Francisco reservoir became obsolete with the construction of the new Lombard Reservoir, just up the hill, now covered by tennis courts.

In May of 1958, the water department officially declared Francisco Reservoir surplus and prepared to sell the parcel to developers. The developers’ plans were for two 20 story apartment buildings taking up most of the original site. During the 1960s, debate over development plans continued although local and vocal opposition was growing.

[[Image:Looking-down-on-the--reservoir-and-Bay-Street-in-1962.jpg]]

'''Looking down at the reservoir and Bay Street in 1962.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

On Sept. 25, 1958, the Parks and Recreation Department sent a letter to [[Mayor George Christopher|Mayor George Christopher]] outlining why the entire property is necessary to “provide adequate recreation and park services for this densely populated district”. On Sept. 30, 1958, the PUC declared the property no longer surplus due to overwhelming resistance to commercial development at the site. And so it went, literally for decades, as citizens fought against developers for control of this grand parcel of urban land. To the horror of many, in 2006, the PUC decided, once again, to declare the property surplus and prepared it for sale.

The Francisco Reservoir Working Group was formed in June of 2011, and all was about to change for the better. From 2011 to 2014, the group worked tirelessly. The community effort finally paid off this year when the Board of Supervisors voted to approve the jurisdictional transfer of the Francisco Reservoir from the PUC to the Recreation and Park Department.

[[Image:Francisco-Reservoir-keeper's-house.jpg|720px]]

'''Reservoir keeper’s house at the corner of Hyde and Bay Streets, demolished in 1950 to make way for the current park.'''

''Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division''

Over the years, as a San Francisco native and life-time resident, I have visited the site many times. I have a secret parking space halfway up the hill, adjacent to the reservoir that always seems to be available when I need it. For many years the southwest corner of Hyde and Bay streets was the location of the reservoir keeper’s house. Historic records indicate the house was constructed between 1860 and 1865. It was demolished in the early 1950s to make way for the current park. The dwelling was one story with a small gable over the center and a glassed-in porch on the right side of a veranda. Although the reservoir keeper’s house is long gone, I am still greeted by a lovely view of the city by the bay when I exit my vehicle in the space magically reserved for me. Quite breathtaking this vista. Although I may lose the use of my secret parking space, in the next few years we all will gain a magnificent park.

[[category:North Beach]] [[category:1860s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:2010s]] [[category:parks]] [[category:Russian Hill]] [[category:water]]

File:Francisco-Park 20250205 220756095.jpg

2026-03-25T05:33:54Z

Ccarlsson:

Francisco Reservoir

2026-03-25T05:29:23Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Catherine Accardi''

''Originally published in ''The Semaphore'' #207, the publication of the [http://www.thd.org Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association]''

[[Image:Francisco-Reservior,-June-1904.jpg]]

'''Francisco Reservoir as it looked in 1904.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

[[Image:Francisco St. Reservoir Jun 20, 1904 opensfhistory wnp36.10056.jpg|800px]]

'''June 20, 1904, might be same image as PUC version above.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.10056''

[[Image:Francisco-reservoir-2014 1010069.jpg]]

'''Francisco reservoir in 2014.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

It took more than 60 years to achieve the once in a lifetime opportunity of turning the defunct Francisco Reservoir into a city park. The site has been a neighborhood eyesore for decades. Why did it take so long? Read on to find out.

[[Image:Reservior-as-it-appeared-in-1930.jpg]]

'''Reservoir as it appeared in 1930.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

On July 22, 2014, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Agenda Item No. 34 to transfer the defunct Francisco Reservoir from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC), to the Recreation and Park Department (RPD) in order to create a new public park for San Francisco. San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell’s proposal called for RPD to take over jurisdiction of the entire 4.25 acre Francisco Reservoir property for the purpose of creating the park.The appraised market value of $9.9 million will be paid over 12 years to the Public Utilities Commission from the San Francisco Open Space Acquisition Fund. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will document the transfer should be executed by the end of September 2014.

Four surrounding neighborhood associations had partnered together to form the Francisco Park Working Group, the lead organization that coordinated all community efforts. The group was made up of members from the Russian Hill Improvement Association, Aquatic Park Neighbors, North Beach Neighbors, and Russian Hill Neighbors. Their persistent, extraordinary effort will benefit San Francisco residents and visitors for decades with this once in a lifetime opportunity to create a park from “surplus” land. The parcel is even flanked by the Hyde Street cable car line, and this, along with the magnificent sloping site, makes for the quintessential San Francisco experience. The sounds of sea gulls, parrots, clanging cable cars will mix together perfectly. It is expected the next step will begin with a second phase of community-driven proposals leading to the final design of the new park.

The story actually began over 160 years ago, in the mid 1800s, when the population of San Francisco was growing exponentially, due in part to the fact that San Francisco was the main port of entry during the Gold Rush. A wooden flume from Baker Beach travelled along the coast near the Presidio, past Fort Point and Fort Mason to the pumping station at the foot of Van Ness Avenue.

[[Image:norbeach$black-point-1870.jpg]]

'''Black Point (now Fort Mason), 1870. Spring Valley Water Co. brought water through the flume that skirts the cliffs. Small farms run down to the shore. Alcatraz is in the distance.'''

''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA''

It was in 1861, during the Civil War, that the San Francisco Water Works built Francisco Reservoir, constructed to hold 2.5 million gallons of water. And so it went until the 1930s when the city acquired property through the purchase of the [[Spring Valley Water Company|Spring Valley Water Company]] which allowed for construction of a second reservoir. By the 1940s, the Francisco reservoir became obsolete with the construction of the new Lombard Reservoir, just up the hill, now covered by tennis courts.

In May of 1958, the water department officially declared Francisco Reservoir surplus and prepared to sell the parcel to developers. The developers’ plans were for two 20 story apartment buildings taking up most of the original site. During the 1960s, debate over development plans continued although local and vocal opposition was growing.

[[Image:Looking-down-on-the--reservoir-and-Bay-Street-in-1962.jpg]]

'''Looking down at the reservoir and Bay Street in 1962.'''

''Photo: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Archive''

On Sept. 25, 1958, the Parks and Recreation Department sent a letter to [[Mayor George Christopher|Mayor George Christopher]] outlining why the entire property is necessary to “provide adequate recreation and park services for this densely populated district”. On Sept. 30, 1958, the PUC declared the property no longer surplus due to overwhelming resistance to commercial development at the site. And so it went, literally for decades, as citizens fought against developers for control of this grand parcel of urban land. To the horror of many, in 2006, the PUC decided, once again, to declare the property surplus and prepared it for sale.

The Francisco Reservoir Working Group was formed in June of 2011, and all was about to change for the better. From 2011 to 2014, the group worked tirelessly. The community effort finally paid off this year when the Board of Supervisors voted to approve the jurisdictional transfer of the Francisco Reservoir from the PUC to the Recreation and Park Department.

[[Image:Francisco-Reservoir-keeper's-house.jpg|720px]]

'''Reservoir keeper’s house at the corner of Hyde and Bay Streets, demolished in 1950 to make way for the current park.'''

''Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division''

Over the years, as a San Francisco native and life-time resident, I have visited the site many times. I have a secret parking space halfway up the hill, adjacent to the reservoir that always seems to be available when I need it. For many years the southwest corner of Hyde and Bay streets was the location of the reservoir keeper’s house. Historic records indicate the house was constructed between 1860 and 1865. It was demolished in the early 1950s to make way for the current park. The dwelling was one story with a small gable over the center and a glassed-in porch on the right side of a veranda. Although the reservoir keeper’s house is long gone, I am still greeted by a lovely view of the city by the bay when I exit my vehicle in the space magically reserved for me. Quite breathtaking this vista. Although I may lose the use of my secret parking space, in the next few years we all will gain a magnificent park.

[[category:North Beach]] [[category:1860s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:2010s]] [[category:parks]] [[category:Russian Hill]] [[category:water]]

File:Francisco St. Reservoir Jun 20, 1904 opensfhistory wnp36.10056.jpg

2026-03-25T05:28:04Z

Ccarlsson:

Mayor Jack Shelley

2026-03-25T05:25:06Z

Ccarlsson: added new photo

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:City Hall Feb 1966 Mayor Jack Shelley photo by James Martin sfm005-10302.jpg|800px]]

'''Mayor John F. Shelley, January 8, 1964 — January 8, 1968, seen here at his desk in City Hall, February 1966.'''

''Photo: James Martin, courtesy SFMemory.org sfm005-10302''

[[Image:John Shelley with 7 Miss Chinatown contenders 1965 AAB-7038.jpg]]

'''Mayor Shelley with seven "Miss Chinatown" contenders, 1965.'''

''Photos: [http://sflib1.sfpl.org:82/search San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library]''

A Democratic U.S. congressman and former trade unionist, he supported massive freeway construction throughout the city but was unable to prevent the defeat of the Panhandle/ Golden Gate Park [[The Freeway Revolt|Freeway and Tunnel]]. He called in 1200 National Guard troops to quell [[The Hunters Point Riot|riots]] in Hunter's Point-Bayview September 28 -- October 1, 1966. Martial law and 8 p.m. curfew was imposed on Hunters Point-Bayview, Fillmore and Haight Ashbury neighborhoods. Most of the 362 arrests were for curfew violations.

[[Image:Rulclas1%24freeway-victory-sign.jpg]]

'''Freeway Revolt Victory Sign'''

''Photo: San Francisco Historical Society, San Francisco, CA''

In 1963, John Shelley, a former AFL-CIO member was elected over the conservative Harold Dobbs, owner of the famous Mel's chain. Shelley's term in office was plagued by the racial conflict that was breaking out on the west coast and around the nation. The most salient issue at this time was the [[Fillmore Redevelopment|Western Addition Renewal Project ]]—the controversial city project to widen Geary boulevard and relocate some 4,000 families, the majority of which were African-American. The Western Addition project became a hot-button issue for civil rights groups, which began a series of protests and sit-ins. John Shelley, boasting a number of leftist credentials, initially opposed this drastic restructuring of the urban landscape. Then, under pressure from powerful Redevelopment Agency, Shelley changed his position and started backing the Western Addition proposal.

The Redevelopment Agency under Justin Herman proved to be a thorn in Shelley's side throughout his term. The Agency also pushed for the construction of the [[LABOR & YERBA BUENA CENTER|Yerba Buena Center]]. Shelly vacillated on this issue, effectively alienating groups on both sides of the political spectrum. San Francisco's ruling elite eventually initiated an informal "Dump Shelley" movement, geared to get someone more amenable to business interests in office. The end of Shelley's term was marred by a suspicious series of events that smelled of power brokerage.

On September 8, 1967, two months before the upcoming mayoral race, Shelley withdrew, citing poor health as the reason. Not two hours later, [[Mayor Joe Alioto|Joseph Alioto]], a local lawyer with many business clients, and former director of the Redevelopment Agency, declared his intention to run for office. An inside source told the ''Examiner'' that Alioto, Shelley and former mayor [[Mayor Elmer Robinson|Elmer Robinson]] had met three days earlier to discuss the upcoming race. Shelley received a cushy appointment to Sacramento as the City's chief lobbyist upon his departure from office.

<hr>

[[Image:Tours-redev.gif|link=THE DESTRUCTION OF NIHONMACHI]] [[THE DESTRUCTION OF NIHONMACHI| Continue Redevelopment Tour]]

[[Mayor George Christopher|Prev. Document]] [[Mayor Joe Alioto|Next Document]]

[[category:Mayors]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:redevelopment]] [[category:Civic Center]] [[category:SOMA]] [[category:Golden Gate Park]] [[category:Haight-Ashbury]] [[category:Western Addition]]

File:City Hall Feb 1966 Mayor Jack Shelley photo by James Martin sfm005-10302.jpg

2026-03-25T05:23:34Z

Ccarlsson:

Rise and Fall of the Statue of Franciscan Padre Junípero Serra in Golden Gate Park

2026-03-19T05:26:29Z

Ccarlsson: moved pointy finger guy here and also video of our Talk

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Chris Carlsson, 2025''

[[Image:Serra statue 1920s w limousine opensfhistory wnp15.564.jpg|800px]]

Statue of Junípero Serra, 1920s, with limousine.'''

''Photo: OpensSFHistory, wnp15.564''

<blockquote>Of the thousands of Catholic missionaries who preached throughout the Americas, only a handful are today remembered by name and deed… Serra would likely have remained just one more obscure friar, except for the remarkable events of the late nineteenth century, when Californians spun for themselves a romanticized “fantasy heritage” that glorified the Spanish missions and lionized their Founding Father. 
—David Hurst Thomas(1) </blockquote>

[[Image:VSolis Fallen-Serra-longer June-19-2020.jpg]]

'''The fallen Serra statue, June 19, 2020.'''

''Photo: Veronica Solis''

I arrived in California in time to start the 5th grade in 1967. As a result, I was not subjected to the standard 4th grade curriculum that taught kids in our state for decades about the history of the Missions, which for most children involved building some kind of a diorama of a mission. [https://www.csus.edu/college/education/engagement/repeal-replace-reframe.html Efforts to “repeal, replace, and reframe” native California history] finally have ended the false and simplistic histories once taught, but many Californians over 40 still harbor those ideas that were standard curriculum for decades. We know a lot more in light of widespread scholarship showing that the generally accepted history of the Missions is largely a myth. Most of the actual missions were rebuilt in the early 20th century to embody that myth, including bucolic gardens in an Anglo-Germanic style full of flowering plants in the center of well-kept buildings constructed with a “mission revival” façade.(2) As David Hurst Thomas says, “there were no pleasure gardens of any kind at the original California missions… only hardscrabble reality.”(3)

And the myth itself, strangely, began with an extraordinarily popular novel written in the 1880s, ''Ramona'', by Helen Hunt Jackson, a book that sold over 300,000 copies in its first year. Why was it so popular and how did it not only shape the story that Californians have told about themselves ever since, but how did that mythologized “history” lead directly to the canonization of Father Serra in 2015? And why do we remember and honor Father Serra at all? To understand, we must look at how history was written and shaped to meet specific needs when it was written, which turns out to be mostly between the appearance of ''Ramona'' in 1884 and the 1920s.

Our specific query begins with the Serra statue that stood in Golden Gate Park and was toppled during the anti-racism protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd during midsummer 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. Why did we have a bronze statue of this particular Franciscan friar and why was it built in 1907 in San Francisco? Who decided and who financed it?

[[Image:Serra statue nd opensfhistory wnp15.1148.jpg|450px]]

'''Serra statue in Golden Gate Park, n.d.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp15.1148''

To answer the last question first, it was former [[Mayor James Phelan|Mayor James Duval Phelan]] who paid for it. To understand why Phelan sponsored the Serra statue, it is important to note that he shared the deep racism and imperial ambitions of his ruling elite contemporaries in the first decades of the 20th century. Earlier in his political life, he served on the committee that chose architect Arthur Brown to build the California pavilion building at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a building that launched the “Mission Revival” style that embodied the developing mythic past of the missions. From 1897 to 1901 he served as San Francisco’s Mayor and it was during the first decade of the 20th century, after he was voted out of office for sending San Francisco police to support shipowners against a [[1901 General Strike on San Francisco's Waterfront|powerful 1901 waterfront strike]], that Phelan financed a number of prominent statues, many of which still dot our municipal landscape today. Later in life, Phelan was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1914 and when he unsuccessfully ran for re-election in 1920 his campaign slogan was “Keep California White” with a series of outlandish claims about how Japanese immigrants were taking over the state. But Phelan’s imperialist world view spurred his enthusiastic support for the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii in the 1890s. By 1907 it led him to embrace the mythological story of the missions and an extremely romanticized version of Junípero Serra because it served to whitewash the settler-colonial project that he avidly supported.

<big>'''Sanitizing War and Empire'''</big>

Standing at today’s Montgomery and Market is “The Native Son,” which Phelan paid sculptor Douglas Tilden to create (it was originally located at the corner of Market and Mason Streets). A couple of blocks further east is the Tilden-sculpted “Mechanics Monument” honoring the Donohue brothers who founded the original Union Ironworks at First and Mission. Historian Gray Brechin describes what likely influenced Phelan in his monumental philanthropy:

<blockquote>The fortune amassed by his father had given [James Phelan] a triumphal view of history that came with a classical education and a secure position in society. The Jesuits at St. Ignatius College and the grand tour of Europe fired him with the ambition to give his city a mythology appropriate to its place. He accordingly endowed it with statues meant to teach citizens their role in the westward march of the master race… As mayor between 1897 and 1901, he chaired committees and commissioned monuments designed to ''heroize the past, ennoble the present, and enrich his future''.(4) [Italics added]</blockquote>

In the wake of the U.S. victory in the so-called Spanish-American War, James Phelan financed two war memorials, both originally planned for Union Square. One was built there, the [[Remember the Filipinos! International Hotel & the Dewey Monument|Dewey Monument]], to commemorate the U.S. Navy’s destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila (Philippines) harbor in 1898 at the outset of the conflict. The other, the “California Volunteers” monument was dedicated to the U.S. Army’s ongoing occupation and suppression of the Philippine Independence movement. But it wasn’t placed in Union Square. Instead, a few months after the 1906 earthquake and fire, amidst the ruins of the city, James Phelan dedicated it at the corner of Market and Van Ness (it was later moved to the corner of Market and Dolores). Standing by his side at the dedication were two generals recently returned from the Philippines where each had become well known for their heartless belligerence.

[[Image:Van Ness and Market northerly 1908 opensfhistory wnp14.1143.jpg|800px]]

'''The "California Volunteers" Monument at Market and Van Ness in 1908.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.1143''

[[Image:California Volunteers monument inaugural aug 12 1906 opensfhistory wnp27.2615.jpg|800px]]

'''Inauguration of the "California Volunteers" Monument at Market and Van Ness, August 12, 1906, just a few months after the earthquake and fire had devastated this part of the city.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp27.2615''

There is much to be said about the [[SAN FRANCISCO'S ROLE IN THE WAR IN THE PHILIPPINES|U.S.-Philippine War]], which stretched from 1898 (while Phelan was mayor) until the U.S. declared it officially over on July 4, 1902, though hostilities continued for over a decade more. (The Philippines did not get full independence until after WWII in 1946.) For one, few Americans have heard of this war because it is hidden under the “Spanish-American War” name. Fewer still know how long and brutal the war was. A couple of months after Admiral Dewey steamed into Manila harbor in 1898, eventually buying the Philippines for $20 million, U.S. troops occupied Spain’s former colonial possession AND continued its brutal war against Philippine independence. In the following years different generals rose to prominence. One was

<blockquote>General William Shafter who told the ''Chicago News'' that “it may be necessary to kill half the Filipinos in order that the remaining half of the population may be advanced to a higher plane of life than their present semi-barbarous state affords.” With the initiation of a scorched-earth policy dubbed “protective retribution,” it appeared that the unlucky half might die of starvation and disease. General “Howlin’ Jake” Smith earned his nickname when he instructed his men to turn the island of Samar into a “howling wilderness” where “even the birds could not live.” His instructions to “kill and burn, kill and burn. The more you kill and burn, the more you please me” did not enter folklore… When asked to define the age limit for killing, Smith retorted, “Everything over ten.” Smith and Shafter flanked Phelan at the dedication of the California Volunteers’ Monument in 1906.(5)</blockquote>

San Francisco elites were anxious about their city’s reputation among easterners as a corrupt and un-American place, especially as a municipal graft investigation became a public scandal after the 1906 disaster.(6) So Phelan was in good company as he continued his monument-building boomlet. But monumentalizing war and warriors was not enough.

Fortunately for the insecure City leaders, there was a recently minted set of historical figures ready for adoption. In the wake of ''Ramona'' and the twenty years of avid promotion that followed, by the early 20th century San Francisco’s business class was ready to jump on the Mission revival bandwagon too. James Phelan had already promoted the architectural style for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair California Pavilion. A practicing Catholic, he had begun attending the Mission’s parish church in the 1890s, an [[Mission Dolores|Anglo-Gothic revival structure]] that towered over the dilapidated Mission much like the post-quake Mission Revival-style church continues to. Historian Ocean Howell describes the changing attitude in the early 20th century:

<blockquote>Even though [Bret] Harte had already written the Mission’s eulogy in the 1890s, by the time of his death in 1902, a new generation of San Franciscans had begun to breathe new life into the structure. Prominent citizens seemed to feel it was safe to memorialize the neighborhood’s Spanish heritage. Perhaps this was because there was now more than half a century between the present and the city’s Mexican and Spanish periods, with the United States having recently vanquished the Spanish military in the Philippines. Add to all this the fact that there were no Latinos living in the area, and the anxiety about the Spanish past might itself have seemed quaint.(7)</blockquote>

The Irish-dominated Mission Promotion Association sponsored Mission Revival buildings around the neighborhood and took the lead in promoting a romanticized Spanish past in 1909 when they created the first-ever Mission Carnival, following the downtown-sponsored Portola Festival of the same year.

[[Image:Native Daughters of the Golden West Float Portola Festival 1909 opensfhistory wnp37.01959.jpg|800px]]

'''Native Daughters of the Golden West float at the 1909 Portola Festival.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp37.01959''

<big>'''Fake History Overtakes the Missions'''</big>

Ironically, it was the east coast journalist Helen Hunt Jackson, raised by strict Calvinists, whose novel ''Ramona'' had begun the process of turning Spain’s colonization of California into a rosy-hued fantasy, “of mingled myth and memory, free of fanaticism and injustice, their cruelty and pain forgotten.”(8) Jackson traveled to California in the early 1880s to sympathetically report on the plight of California Indians a decade after their slaughter by white settlers had finally subsided. Imagining that the mission ruins she encountered had once been thriving, and that the Franciscan fathers had been welcomed and appreciated, she spun a tale that had little to do with the reality of what happened. As famous California journalist and historian Carey McWilliams noted in his 1946 book about Southern California: “It was this novel,” he concluded, “which firmly established the Mission legend in southern California,” and which, in the hands of grasping and tawdry tourism boosters, instigated “a ''Ramona'' promotion of fantastic proportions.”(9) With the book’s enormous popularity, an enterprising businessman named Frank Miller, a Protestant Republican, began a years-long effort to promote a made-up, almost Disneyesque version of the original colonization years.

<blockquote>… the Mission Inn was basically Frank Miller’s creation, an imagined palace of Spanish dreams, giving spatial expression to a California that never really existed….it was as if the Midwest Protestant American imagination, disordered with suppressed longing for the luxuriant bosom of the repudiated Mother Church, now indulged itself in an orgy of aesthetic hyperdulia. Riverside, California, which had not even had a mission in the days of the padres, now became the Southern Californian center of the mission cult. In 1907 Miller had a cross erected in honor of Junípero Serra atop [nearby] Mount Rubidoux.(10)</blockquote>

1907 was the same year the Serra monument was placed in Golden Gate Park. (And it’s worth noting, both monuments were defaced by protesters in 2020.) This early 20th century date awkwardly corresponds in time to the erection of monuments to Confederate generals across the Jim Crow South. Like the Daughters of the Confederacy who built those monuments to glorify their “lost cause” of slavery, the Serra monument ceremony was presided over by California’s Native Sons of the Golden West. (This group was dedicated to falsifying and glorifying the Gold Rush and promoting a burnished history of “great white men.” The actual gold rush was a half-decade rampage following the seizure of California from Mexico when American “settlers” began the 25-years-long genocide carried out on California’s First Peoples.) (11)

It was also at the turn of the 20th century that the eventual celebrity of Junípero Serra began to take shape. He would most likely have been forgotten, but men with financial interests (if not corresponding religious ideas) saw in him and the mission myth a way to make money, forge an imperial history that glossed over the [[The Gold Rush: Behind the Hype|barbaric Gold Rush]] and genocide that launched modern California, and to anchor their own oceanic imperialist ambitions in an earlier empire whose disappearance lent them an air of inevitability.

As James Sandos wrote in 2015, “Serra would have been an obscure missionary working on the very fringe of Spain's New World Empire had he not had the luck to die in territory that was conquered by the United States.”(12) What drove his re-emergent notoriety were

<blockquote>“rootless Anglo immigrants [who] began to identify with the region’s earliest European settlers, deriving from them a sense of continuity, tradition, pride, and regional identity.(13) … This new folklore was tailor-made for the Anglo-Protestant population that flooded … California in the late nineteenth century. The Franciscan fantasy overlaid the Protestant virtues of hard work, order, and productivity. It was a utopian vision of progress free of labor problems, sweatshops, and Anglo workaholics.”(14)</blockquote>

This process reached its peak at the 1907 dedication of the Serra Cross on Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside by then President William Howard Taft, all 310 pounds of him. During his speech at the event, President Taft described Spanish Catholic colonialism as the “White Man’s Burden” rather than a genocidal campaign of apocalyptic violence against Indigenous peoples. Taft stayed away from overt belligerent racism in favor of an ostensibly rational and ethnographic language, but ultimately his speech and the overriding logic of U.S. policy and power during that era was in service of white supremacist empire building.(15) Later in 1907 the Serra monument in Golden Gate Park was celebrated in a similar fashion, forging a false memory in permanent bronze.

<big>'''From Obscurity to Sainthood?'''</big>

It’s a separate story to understand how Serra went from being an obscure Franciscan leader of the early efforts to colonize California Indians to being declared a saint by Pope Francis in 2015. Serra was a man known for his fanaticism and sado-masochism, who oversaw the forced imposition of Spanish economic and religious practices on thousands of Californians while their population was precipitously collapsing due to the introduction of new diseases and the breakdown of their food provisioning and lifeways. His years marketing the Catholic Church in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda involved countless “floggings and, at times, soldiers were sent out at Serra’s urging to round up fugitives and return them to their missions, sometimes brutally. The formal complaints lodged in subsequent years criticizing Serra’s harsh treatment of the Indians in the Sierra Gorda presaged similar accusations of cruelty in the Alta California missions.”(16)

Serra’s religious education started on the Spanish island of Majorca where he was born. By the time he left in the 1740s, he had been fully schooled in the Catholicism of the Middle Ages. There is no evidence that he was aware that Franciscans were on Columbus’s second voyage to Hispaniola and were among the first to condemn the enslavement of the island’s natives,(17) nor that Dominican theologians like Bartolomeo de las Casas and the Spanish legal scholar Francisco de Vitoria spent decades trying to halt the violence against the people of the Americas. Nor was he schooled in their philosophical defense of the personhood of non-Christian pagans in the New World. For Serra, like most of his cohort of missionaries, there were only potential converts awaiting baptism and integration into the strict confines of his Church. Failure to conform was grounds for lashings, kidnappings, and incarceration.

Junípero Serra was also apparently delusional, as revealed by his decades-long belief in a book written a hundred years earlier by a Spanish nun María de Jesús de Ágreda (1602-1665), ''The Mystical City of God''. The book describes her supposed “bilocating” from her Spanish convent (which she never physically left) to visit the Indians of Alta California and urge them to embrace the Franciscans when they arrived. She described how “she went to America by flying on the wings of Saint Michael and Saint Francis, sometimes making multiple trips in a single day. Protected by angels and dressed as a friar, María de Ágreda spoke to the Indians in their own language, urging them to seek out a Franciscan to perform their baptisms. Serra believed in his heart that he was that Franciscan and fully expected to be greeted as such in America.”(18) It was only after the 1775 Kumeyaay rebellion, when 15 villages banded together to destroy the San Diego mission, that Serra stopped citing the nun’s book as evidence that California Indians were simply waiting to be baptized by Franciscans.(19)

Though current San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone has proclaimed—incredibly—in July 2025, “Serra as one of the first American champions of the human rights of Indigenous peoples”(20) the historic record is replete with denunciations of his behavior and the cruel physical punishments he sanctioned by political and religious leaders who lived during HIS time. Serra himself admitted to excessive violence by his followers against native Californians in a 1780 letter to the governor. And that same Governor charged that Indian labor was being forced and resisters were being put in irons at Serra’s OWN Mission San Carlos in Carmel.(21)

Thanks to meticulous research by Sherburne Cook in the 1940s, using the missions’ own records, we know specifically how many died at each mission compared to less than half as many births. Miscarriages and self-induced abortions among Native Californians were common too as the devastating childhood mortality rates in the missions made bearing children a frightening prospect. Throughout the mission system, Indians responded to the horror of watching their loved ones die in enormous numbers by running away. A sustained rate of 10% ran away during the mission years, and the highest rate was at Serra’s own mission in Carmel, over 15%. Punishment for captured runaways usually involved flogging, up to 25 lashes and sometimes more. After Serra’s death in 1784 the system he established became even more dependent on compulsory conversions, kidnappings, and violent coercion. Cook’s research also showed that the Indian populations at the Missions were fed a “suboptimal” diet, which Carey McWilliams took further and suggested it was a deliberate effort to weaken the population so they would be less likely to escape.(22)

As James Sandos aptly concludes in his examination of the historical record, “Cannot the Indian interpretation also be applied, namely, that sainthood for Serra is yet another example of white over red, of European dominance over aboriginal culture, but this time not only justified but glorified in the name of religion?”(23)

For a non-believer like myself, it is incomprehensible that Serra was declared a saint, especially that it was mysteriously fast-tracked during the papacy of Francis I. How do we explain the arduous decades-long effort by the Catholic Church from the 1940s to 2015 to manufacture a “saint” out of this delusional, cruel, single-minded, and sadomasochistic man’s life?

[[Image:Serra-fallen-2020-06-19-210037.jpg]]

'''A wider view of the toppled statue and graffiti, June 19, 2020.'''

''Photo: anonymous''

<big>'''A Monument Redefined by Recent History?'''</big>

As for his fallen and vandalized statue? I understand why it was defaced and pulled down. If we are going to retain it as a public monument it should remain defaced and laying prone, perhaps in a museum. Given the current administration’s efforts to rewrite history, maintaining this monument in its fallen state is to underscore and preserve an important history that might otherwise be lost to us. The 2020 nationwide—even global—uprisings against racism and police violence were unprecedented. They are deserving of their own memorialization, especially contrasted with the heavy-handed efforts to literally whitewash U.S. history by the Trump government. Accompanying any such display should also be a proper accounting of the role the missions and Serra played in the devastation wrought during the early colonial period on cultures, lifeways, and ecologies that had evolved over millennia. That crime cannot be reversed, but we owe it ourselves to remember it and try to properly understand it.

[[Image:outofsf$junipero-serra-statue.jpg]]

'''A large monument of Father Junipero Serra, founder of the California Missions, loomed over the I-280 Freeway and the [[Sunol and Crystal Springs|Crystal Springs reservoir]], artificial lagoons holding San Francisco's drinking water right over the San Andreas Fault. The statue was demolished by CalTrans in 2025.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

<big>'''Notes'''</big>

1. The Life and Times of Fr. Junípero Serra: A Pan-Borderlands Perspective by David Hurst Thomas, ''The Americas'', October 2014, Vol. 71, No. 2, p. 246

2. Op.cit. “The Life and Times…” p. 135

3. Ibid.

4. ''Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin'', by Gray Brechin, UC Press: 1999, p. 121-122

5. Ibid. p. 136

6. ''Making the Mission: Planning and Ethnicity in San Francisco'' by Ocean Howell, University of Chicago Press: 2015, p. 86

7. Ibid. p. 88

8. ''Inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era'', by Kevin Starr, Oxford University Press: 1985, p. 58. Kevin Starr was a 7th generation Catholic San Franciscan who served as both City and State Librarian, briefly considered running for Supervisor before settling into a long run as the unofficial historian of California, author of a half dozen books covering the state’s history.

9. “Ramona, I Love You” by Douglas Monroy, ''California History magazine'', 2002, Vol. 81, No. 2, p. 136

10. Ibid. p. 86-87

11. See ''An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe'' by Benjamin Madley, Yale University Press: 2016.

12. “Writing Missionary Biography in the Post-Colonial Turn: Junípero Serra” in 'Reviews in American History'', September 2015, Vol. 43, No. 3, p. 448

13. “Harvesting Ramona’s Garden: Life in California’s Mythical Mission Past” by David Hurst Thomas, in ''Columbian Consequences, Vol. 3: The Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Perspective'', edited by David Hurst Thomas, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 1991, p. 119

14. Ibid. p. 125

15. “Taft’s Chair, Serra Cross, and Other Props” by Stanley Orr in ''Pacific Coast Philology'', 2021, Vol. 56, No. 1 p. 113

16. The Life and Times of Fr. Junípero Serra: A Pan-Borderlands Perspective by David Hurst Thomas, ''The Americas'', October 2014, Vol. 71, No. 2, p. 191

17. Greg Grandin, ''America, América'', Penguin Press, New York: 2025, p. 36

18. The Life and Times of Fr. Junípero Serra, op.cit. p. 189

19. Ibid.

20. “We Have Much to Celebrate!” by Archibishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, in ''Catholic San Francisco'' magazine, July 2025

21. “Junípero Serra’s Canonization and the Historical Record” by James A. Sandos, in ''The American Historical Review'', December 1988, Vol. 93, No. 5, p. 1255

22. Ibid. p. 1258

23. Ibid. p. 1269

<hr>

February 11, 2026 

The Priest, the Imperialist, and the Sculptor

We close a year-long case study of the Padre Junipero Serra statue. Jonathan Cordero (Association of Ramaytush Ohlone) critically examines the romantic myth that supports the veneration of Serra and reveals the actual calamitous impact of the mission system. Chris Carlsson explains how an unlikely series of events led to the so-called “Mission Revival”, the commissioning of the statue by James Phelan, and giving Serra an undeserved new role in a manufactured public memory. He reveals that the statue's placement in Golden Gate Park in 1907 in fact bolstered a white supremacist agenda at the dawn of the 20th century. LisaRuth Elliott explores Douglas Tilden, the cosmopolitan sculptor revered in the deaf community, and his many other contributions to the SF civic art collection and beyond. This evening is a chance to talk about the reanimation of a man through a monument, the fraught relationship between a patron of the arts and his protegé, and how these honorific likenesses and what they are supposed to signify become part of our urban space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/priest-imperialist-sculptor-feb-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[[category:Famous characters]] [[category:landmarks]] [[category:Parks]] [[category:monuments]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:Churches]] [[category:1776-1823]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:racism]] [[category:Indigenous]] [[category:Power and Money]]

Talks: 2026 Videos

2026-03-19T05:25:38Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Primary Source '''

'''Shaping San Francisco hosts Public Talks on a variety of topics, usually on Wednesday nights, a dozen times a year. Our topic themes vary, but we've grouped them over time into these categories: Art & Politics, Ecology, Historical Perspectives, Literary, and Social Movements.'''

<hr>

March 11, 2026 

City of Redwood

James Michael Buckley’s 2024 ''City of Wood: San Francisco and the Architecture of the Redwood Lumber Industry'' reconnects us to the built environment from San Francisco all the way up to Eureka in the far north of California, past and present. David Schmidt’s brand new majesterial ''San Francisco Bay Area: An Environmental History'' contains a close look at the historic forests of the Bay Area and how they were cut down to help build the region. Together these speakers will help us see how profoundly the iconic trees of the west coast literally undergird our everyday lives even today.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/city-of-redwood-march-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

February 25, 2026 

Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives

Shaping San Francisco’s year-long case study of the Padre Junípero Serra statue included a folklife-based, community-led research process centered on memory-keeping practices. Indigenous community researchers explored everyday practices from their own cultures that carry collective knowledge. The researchers included members of Urban Native communities, Indigenous migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and urban youth. Their research invites reflection on how genocide, relocation, and migration continue to erode Indigenous ways of knowing, and how communities continue to protect and hold on to them. The process was facilitated by storyteller Adriana Camarena. Several community researchers will share their findings. The discussion will be presented in Spanish and English.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission 

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/memory-keeping-from-indigenous-perspectives-feb-25-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

February 11, 2026 

The Priest, the Imperialist, and the Sculptor

We close a year-long case study of the Padre Junipero Serra statue. Jonathan Cordero (Association of Ramaytush Ohlone) critically examines the romantic myth that supports the veneration of Serra and reveals the actual calamitous impact of the mission system. Chris Carlsson explains how an unlikely series of events led to the so-called “Mission Revival”, the commissioning of the statue by James Phelan, and giving Serra an undeserved new role in a manufactured public memory. He reveals that the statue's placement in Golden Gate Park in 1907 in fact bolstered a white supremacist agenda at the dawn of the 20th century. LisaRuth Elliott explores Douglas Tilden, the cosmopolitan sculptor revered in the deaf community, and his many other contributions to the SF civic art collection and beyond. This evening is a chance to talk about the reanimation of a man through a monument, the fraught relationship between a patron of the arts and his protegé, and how these honorific likenesses and what they are supposed to signify become part of our urban space.

Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/priest-imperialist-sculptor-feb-11-2026" width="560" height="384" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<hr>

[[category:1776-1823]] [[category:1823-1846]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:Indigenous]] [[category:racism]] [[category:Power and Money]] [[category:architecture]] [[category:Public Art]] [[category:Filipino]] [[category:Talks]] [[category:Mexican]] [[category:Food]] [[category:Habitat]] [[category:Ecology]]

Sunol and Crystal Springs

2026-03-19T05:24:11Z

Ccarlsson: moved pointy finger guy to Serra article

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Sunol-water-temple-close7272.jpg]]

'''San Francisco Water Department's Sunol Water Temple. '''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

This stone temple has a twin on the peninsula called Pulgas; both are dedicated to the completion of San Francisco's [[The Hetch Hetchy Story, Part I: John Muir, Preservationists vs. Conservationists|publicly owned water system]] which brings fresh water from Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite 280-odd miles to the city and [[Who Pays for Public Water? S.F. vs. Suburbs|its suburbs]].

[[Image:Sunol-water-temple-at-end-of-road7267.jpg]]

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

'''Sunol Water Temple, straddling the Hetch Hetchy system and Alameda Creek, one of the original waterways owned by the private [[Spring Valley Water Company|Spring Valley Water Company]] before municipalization. Spring Valley Water Company built this temple in 1910, as seen in the inscription on the next image.'''

[[Image:Sunol-water-pouring7285.jpg]]

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Sunol-water-temple-plaque7288.jpg]]

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Sunol-water-temple-wooden-ceiling7284.jpg]]

'''After a restoration project in 2000, the ceiling of the temple is once again graced with its original paintings.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Mills Field |Prev. Document]] [[TI 1938 |Next Document]]

[[category:San Francisco outside the city]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:2000s]] [[category:water]] [[category:South Bay and Peninsula]]

George Davidson

2026-03-17T05:02:37Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver''

[[Image:George-Davidson-c-1884 George-Daniels-Morse Getty.jpg]]

'''George Davidson (1825-1911)'''

Several weeks after the death of Professor George Davidson on December 3, 1911, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors complied with a request from the Sierra Club and changed the name of San Francisco's tallest peak to [[Mt Davidson|Mt. Davidson]]. The rustic beauty of San Francisco's highest peak truly reflected the character of its new namesake. George Davidson, born in Nottingham, England, was of Scottish descent. Perhaps his Scottish heritage gave him the vigorous physical stamina that sustained him as he surveyed the mountains, seas and coasts of the world. He exerted conscientious and brilliant attention to scientific measurements and surveys in the most adverse conditions. The results were scientific insights of inestimable importance locally and globally.

George Davidson's genius must have been apparent from the very beginning--at the age of four, young George could read the New Testament. After the family moved from England to Philadelphia in 1832, George and his brother Thomas Jr. received their early education from their mother. Her impact on his early life is testimony to the importance of parental influence on a child. Oscar Lewis, one of Davidson's biographers, said of Mrs. Davidson, "[she had] a deep interest in, and a considerable knowledge of, the principles of mechanics ... and young George ... recalled her demonstrating to him by simple experiments certain basic principles of leverage, the force of steam and similar phenomena." George's father, an inventor in his own right, also exerted an important influence regarding practical science. The family had run a lace-making factory in Nottingham, England, and maintained a lively familial involvement in production of lace. In Philadelphia, Central High School was the only formal school George ever attended. He graduated as valedictorian. While there, Davidson received special encouragement from the principal, Alexander Dallas Bache. Bache gave Davidson added assignments in scientific study. Soon Davidson was tracking meteors at the Girard College Magnetic Observatory. When Bache became physics professor at University of Pennsylvania, Davidson did large drawings for Bache's lectures, worked daily from 3 to 9 p.m., then observed from 12:30 to 8:30 a.m. These long hours might have burned out the ordinary student but a young passionate scientist like Davidson, loved it. Next, he was made supervisor of a group of astronomic observers. When Bache headed the U.S. Coastal Survey team, George went along, too. Then came a break that would steer Davidson straight into the main course of his career.

[[Image:Davidson1.jpg]]

The U.S. government needed men to draw and compute accurate charts and surveys of the California coastline. Davidson's previous coastal survey work was excellent training for such a job. Bache recommended him. George Davidson became an assistant in the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey team of California. In June of 1850 lie arrived in San Francisco Bay aboard the Tennessee. His first assignment involved two tasks: 1. fixing the longitude and latitude of prominent coastal bays and headlands 2. determining the best places for lighthouses on the California coast.

Davidson was a man of high energy and vigor. Once absorbed in a project, his devotion was indefatigable. He pursued and accomplished precise measurements even in the most difficult weather and environment. His reputation as an exact geographer made him sought after all over the world. By the end of his life he had first hand knowledge of almost every foot of the California coast. During his lifetime, he published 260 scientific papers, reports and books on a range of subjects such as: rainfall, earthquakes, geology, engineering, hieroglyphics, navigation, irrigation, land reclamation, measuring devices, volcanoes, climate, maps, astronomy, coast surveys, river routes, ocean currents etc. His early 700 page masterpiece Pacific Coast Pilot was in constant use by West Coast navigators for many years. In 1886 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors even asked him to do a study of the [[Sewerage|sewer system]] of the city. His conclusion was the city's sewers were the worst of any , except one, that he had seen in all his years of travel! Davidson studied routes and voyages of early explorers in his later years.

Scientific study and investigations in the field were Davidson's life. When he married it was no surprise he found a woman who came from a family of scientists. Ellinore Fauntelroy married George Davidson and they returned on November 14, 1858 to make San Francisco their permanent home. Her gracious, calm, controlled demeanor and quick mind made her opinions appealing to many. The George Davidsons were a fascinating couple and their home was often filled with equally fascinating people.

Throughout his life, George Davidson pursued the stars. His preoccupation during his high school years eventually became one of his life long occupations. In 1870, George Davidson, who never went to college, became professor of astronomy and geodesy at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1877, he joined the Board of Regents. Still following the stars, in 1879 George Davidson built the West Coast's first observatory in Lafayette Park, San Francisco. Bancroft noted, "Professor Davidson of San Francisco has a 6.4 inch object glass in a portable observatory at the corner of Octavia and Clay Streets." His enthusiasm for observing was so infectious that he influenced [[James Lick: Filthy Bum Turns Filthy Rich|James Lick]] to finance an observatory on Mt. Hamilton. Davidson likewise persuaded the Oakland Public School District to build the Chabot Observatory, thereby crediting Oakland with the only public school district in America with its own observatory.

How fitting, how reasonable it was to honor [[Rancho San Miguel|Rancho San Miguel]]'s highest point, closest to the stars, with the name of George Davidson, a man who spent his lifetime-observing the stars.

''—Mae Silver''

[[Miraloma (1914)|Prev. Document]]

[[category:Glen Park]] [[category:Famous characters]] [[category:hills]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1910s]]

File:George-Davidson-c-1884 George-Daniels-Morse Getty.jpg

2026-03-17T05:01:39Z

Ccarlsson:

Glide Memorial Methodist Church

2026-03-17T04:59:40Z

Ccarlsson: added photos from Tenderloin Times

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:Glide.jpg|720px]]

'''Glide Memorial Church at corner of Ellis and Taylor.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

In 1929, Methodist philanthropist Lizzie Glide founded the Glide Foundation as a memorial to her millionaire cattleman husband, H.L. Glide of Sacramento, and built the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church at the corner of Ellis and Taylor Streets. Although conservative until the 1960s, since then Glide has served as a counter-culture rallying point and has been one of the most prominently liberal churches in the United States. This downtown Methodist church with a small congregation was transformed in 1962 when the board of its endowment fund hired the Rev. Lewis Durham.

[[Image:Cecil-Williams-and-Janice-Mirikitani-Oct-1988-Lance-Woodruff-for-Tend-Times-AAT-1381.jpg|Cecil-Williams-and-Janice-Mirikitani-Oct-1988-Lance-Woodruff-for-Tend-Times-AAT-1381.jpg]]

'''Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani, October 1988'''

''Photo: Lance Woodruff for the Tenderloin Times, courtesy San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library, AAT-1381''

Durham hired three other young clergymen, Ted McIlvenna, Cecil Williams and Don Kuhn, to develop and staff programs for the Glide Urban Center. At the time, Glide had lots of money from its endowment, but no programs. This made Glide an ideal location for new programs.

[[Image:Cecil-and-Jan-early web1.jpg|left]]

'''Cecil Williams and his wife Janice Mirikitani in early 1970s'''

''courtesy Glide Memorial Church''

[[Image:Cecil-Williams.jpg]]

'''Cecil Williams at Glide Memorial Church in an iconic photo from the early 1970s.'''

''Photo: courtesy Randy Shaw''

The fabric of U.S. life was unraveling in the early 1960s, the accepted norms under severe stress from new behaviors and expectations. Progressive clergymen took to the streets to connect their ministries with marginalized persons. The Glide Urban Center in San Francisco exemplified this new urban ministry. The pastors at Glide Foundation and the church saw themselves as missionaries, who did the work important to those in the neighborhood. This included working with [[Poverty, Social Isolation, Transsexuality|gays, sex workers, “young chickens,” youth, hippies, gangs, drug addicts]] and others. Because the pastors saw themselves as missionaries or “enablers,” as Lewis Durham called it, they listened to people to determine what the church needed to address. The unexpected focus on sex and sexual identity emerged from these consultations as the Glide missionaries realized nobody was dealing with it.

[[Image:Cecil-Williams-by-Lance-Woodruff April 1988-from-Tenderloin-Times-AAT-1312.jpg]]

'''Cecil Williams at Glide Church, April 1988.'''

''Photo: Lance Woodruff for the Tenderloin Times, courtesy San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library, AAT-1312''

By the 1970s, Glide Church was a go-to venue for all sorts of political and social organizations and campaigns. Poets from the burgeoning “Third World” political movements staged benefit readings at Glide, notably a [[The New Diversity—The Early 1970s|memorial reading]] for slain Chilean president Salvador Allende and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda. The early women’s liberation movement was given a safe haven at Glide too, where [[Sudsofloppen: Consciousness-Raising and the Small Group as Free Space|consciousness-raising meetings]] were held in all their confusing and disorganized glory. An activist from that time remembered, “You knew where the women’s movement was: it was at Glide church at 7:30.” While the San Francisco Women’s Liberation (SFWL) meetings featured widely unfocused and extraordinarily broad discussion, the very fact of their happening attests to the shared hope that women could find a unifying terrain of thought and action—if they talked long enough.

[[Image:UFW Glide-Church.jpg]]

[[Image:Glide-Church-Nicaragua-solidarity-poetry-reading-1978.jpg]]

'''Both posters produced by the [[Legacy of the Neighborhood Arts Program|Neighborhood Arts Program]], 1970s.'''

[[category:Tenderloin]] [[category:Churches]] [[category:Dissent]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:1970s]] [[category:1980s]] [[category:LGBTQI]] [[category:African-American]] [[category:Literary San Francisco]] [[category:Nicaraguan]][[category:Labor]]

File:Cecil-Williams-by-Lance-Woodruff April 1988-from-Tenderloin-Times-AAT-1312.jpg

2026-03-17T04:58:16Z

Ccarlsson:

File:Cecil-Williams-and-Janice-Mirikitani-Oct-1988-Lance-Woodruff-for-Tend-Times-AAT-1381.jpg

2026-03-17T04:56:16Z

Ccarlsson:

Mission Life 1930s-40s

2026-03-17T04:52:41Z

Ccarlsson:

''' "I was there..." '''

''by Dorothy Bryant''

[[Image:22&-Mission-1935-north.jpg]]

'''Mission Street looking north from 22nd Street, c. 1935.'''

''Photo: Private Collection''

[[Image:Streetcar-on-Mission-between-25th-and-26th-c-1930s.jpg|720px]]

'''Streetcar on Mission Street between 25th and 26th, c. 1930s.'''

''Photo: C. R. collection''

Lunch with a friend. She is researching the life of an eccentric artist who lived in the Mission District, on the northern slope of Bernal Heights, during the thirties and forties. "You grew up three blocks away during those years," she says. "What would have been the cultural surroundings influencing my artist?"

Cultural surroundings?

"You're Italian, like him. What was the Italian community like? How would they have related to my artist?"

Italian community?

First of all, I told her, you're from back east, where ethnic groups live in tighter, more homogenous neighborhoods. California has always been more integrated, at least among its Europeans. In the group of girls I hung out with, one was Southern Italian while I am Northern Italian (a vast difference in those days), one mixed Irish-German-Swedish, one Norwegian (with a Jewish boyfriend), one Greek, one Chinese (though most Asians still lived north of Market Street) and one newcomer from Oklahoma, with a history out of Steinbeck, who seemed most foreign of all to us San Franciscans. (Hispanics had barely begun to enter The Mission. African-Americans lived in The Fillmore and, as war build-up began, in Hunters Point). Those were the days when the "melting pot" philosophy opposed ethnic separatism, so that for better of for worse (a little of both) we were all anxious to act "American." When my grandparents spoke to me in Italian, I answered in English.

Furthermore. I have always wondered if the term "Italian Community" isn't an oxymoron. In my home there was only one "community" that mattered—the family. We gathered on every holiday—that's ''every'' holiday, including Labor Day, July 5th, Memorial Day, etc. and on each birthday—two or three times in some months. Our elders had a few friends, met on the job perhaps, but in some deep, unspoken way, these friends didn't really count. Only family counted, despite the undercurrents of unforgiven old slights or conflicts ever present at the obligatory, woman-labor-intensive gatherings that swallowed up the little time left over from hard work. A good family, especially in those hard times, was one that took care of its own and kept to itself.

"What about the church?" asked my friend. "Was that a center for community? Did it give a special flavor to daily life?"

To be sure, the Catholic Church so dominated The Mission, that for many of my childhood years I didn't know there ''were'' any other churches. Yet "dominated" is the wrong word. Grandmothers went to Saint Peter's or Saint Anthony's every Sunday—no one else I knew went regularly. I was never even baptized, but went to Mass along with my friends on holidays like Easter, when we all had new outfits to show off. Everyone was apparently Catholic, yet no one was ''very'' Catholic. Come to think of it, that might have been the strongest Italian influence. Italians (unlike the Irish, who ran the Church in America) take their religion as a right, a comfort, not as a guilt-tripping duty.

[[Image:16th-St-east-at-Church-1937-SFPL.jpg|720px]]

'''16th Street looking east from Church, 1937, with Mission Dolores Church one block down on right.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

[[Image:17th-St-west-at-Sanchez-1928-SFPL.jpg|720px]]

'''17th Street west at Sanchez, 1928.'''

''Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library''

"What about restaurants, coffee houses as gathering places?"

There were no coffee houses. There were bars, dark smelly caverns where some men hung out instead of bringing their wages home as any-decent-man-lucky-enough-to-have-a-job-ought-to. There were restaurants on Mission Street, but, remember, those were Depression days, and we couldn't afford to eat out. Even the fabled huge $1 dinners of the North Beach restaurants were a stretch for my family, reserved for weddings. Besides, my father, like most Italian men then and now, was a terminally fussy eater--nothing anywhere tasted as good as home-cooked. (As for trying a really cheap Chinese restaurant--you're kidding!) There were soda fountains where teenagers gathered after school, stretching a dime soda into two hours of giggling and flirting, but only during the brief high school interval before moving into marriage and family.

There were no bookstores. The public library was frequented mostly by children. Certainly there were no concert halls or performance spaces--those were all downtown and cost money. We had [[Post WWII Demise | Seals Stadium]] on Sixteenth and Bryant, where local boys like Joe Dimaggio played, and an occasional game was affordable. But there too, the crowd was young and mostly male.

The Mission was working class in every sense. The buildings now housing artists' studios were working factories, breweries, tanneries. Trains carried raw materials and finished goods up and down Potrero Avenue. People walked from home to work and back again, seldom going anywhere else. "How would a reclusive, eccentric artist have been treated by his neighbors? " With a mixture of deference and cruelty--deference toward him as employed draftsman--white collar, middle class--and cruel ridicule of any "oddness" in his behavior, starting with any artistic inclination. I suspect his reclusive eccentricities were fed by isolation imposed by the attitudes of his neighbors. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they knew nothing of his art--that he kept his paintings and writings, as well as himself, to himself, out of self-preservation. Certainly, as a child, I would have been astonished to learn that there was such a thing as an adult neighbor who painted pictures and wrote poems!

My friend gave up on me. I left her picking up a newspaper on the way home. There I found the answer for her. It was a story about plans to convert the York Theater, a run-down movie house on 24th and York Streets, to a theater performing plays with a "feminist, multicultural aesthetic." There—at 24th and York—was the center of the community of my childhood, if there was one. There was the shared experience of the whole neighborhood.

[[Image:2789 24th Street 1951 wnp58.636.jpg|800px]]

'''The Roosevelt Theater in 1951, at the corner of York and 24th.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp58.636''

[[Image:24th-and-Bryant-w-Roosevelt-1935.jpg]]

'''1935 view of 24th St. east from 24th and Florida. The Roozie (today the Brava Theater) is in the center.'''''

''Photo: Private Collection''

[[Image:24BRY994.jpg]]

'''1994 view of 24th St east from 24th and Florida; the theater's marquee shows it as the York.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

In those days it was called the Roosevelt (after Teddy) or more casually the "Roozie," as in, "Are you going to the Roozie tonight?" Usually the answer was yes. Remember, there was no TV in those days, and aside from a few shows like Jack Benny and an opera on Saturday afternoons, banal radio fare (popular music and snippets of trivial disinformation called news, like the worst a.m. radio stations today). And the Roozie was affordable. For less than a dollar a family of four like ours could purchase four hours of an aging double feature, plus cartoons, newsreels, and various other short subjects. The program changed three times a week, on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Saturday afternoon was Kiddy Matinee-- from the age of six (younger if an older sibling could take us along), we children were given a dime and sent to a safe place from eleven in the morning till nearly five, a blessing for mothers with no baby-sitter, nor money to pay even if one existed.

Ah, the thirties. Movies starring Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers, or Mickey Rooney with Judy Garland; simple comics like the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy; sweet tough guys like Jimmy Cagney and Clark Gable; dramas starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Bette Davis; screenplays directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Cecil B. DeMille, some of them even written by great writers like Faulkner, Odets, Fitzgerald. The golden age of the movies.

Well, yes and no. The legendary films now featured on cable TV or public TV, and studied by academics as well as movie buffs, appeared at the Roozie about a dozen times a year--three to five years after being released to downtown theaters. The other 300 or so movies a faithful Roozie attendee could see throughout the year have been deservedly forgotten, most probably destroyed. (They turned up on TV screens in the early days, but disappeared by the sixties.) We called them "B" movies, but on a school grading system such a film was about a D minus. It would be kind to refer to the plot as formula, and to the indistinguishable actors and sets as wooden--all of it thrown together, probably, in a few days of "writing" and shooting. One sign of the general opinion of most movies shown at the Roozie was the fact that no one bothered to check a schedule (if there was one) to find out what time a movie started. The projectors ran from six to midnight, people coming and going all the time. It didn't really matter when you walked in or out on most B movies. They were accepted with a shrug as cheap distraction for children and for their weary, worried parents.

[[Image:Leary Bros Mortiians south side of 24th between Alabama and Florida 1951 opensfhistory wnp58.856.jpg|800px]]

'''Leary Brothers morticians at left in this photo, on 24th Street between Alabama and Florida, 1951. Later this site becomes the home of China Books and Periodicals.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp58.856''

[[Image:Modern-times-on-24th-street-2013 4144.jpg]]

'''Modern Times on 24th Street, 2013.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:China-Books 20230101 224006280.jpg]]

'''Same building that once housed the mortuary, seen here in 2023 after having a variety of occupants over the years after China Books & Periodicals moved out, including Modern Times Bookstore, a health club, and various other entities.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

[[Image:SW corner of Alabama and 24th 1951 building dates to 1875 opensfhistory wnp58.772.jpg|800px]]

'''Southwest corner of Alabama and 24th in 1951. The building was originally built in 1875.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp58.772''

[[Image:SW-corner-of-Alabama-and-24th-2024 20240512 031558346.jpg]]

'''Same corner of Alabama and 24th, 2024.'''

''Photo: Chris Carlsson''

There were other incentives for going to the Roozie. Wednesday was Dish Night. Every adult woman was given a piece of pottery that, week by week, built up to a set. You could walk into any home in the neighborhood and find us all eating from the same plates. Monday night was Bingo Night. A wheel was spun, and patrons punched out numbers on their cards until someone shouted "Bingo!" My father won once a "vanity set" -- a hand mirror and six glass, gilt-lidded make-up jars that shone empty on my mother's dresser for years--she didn't use make-up. But the big night was Saturday--Bank Night. All heads of households had filled out cards months or years before. At 8 p.m. on Saturday night the manager of The Roozie wheeled a glass drum out on stage, and three volunteers from the audience joined him. One turned the crank that spun the drum, mixing up the hundreds of little cards inside. Another (always a child) drew one card from the drum. A third volunteer silently read the name on the card, then handed it to the theater manager, who read the name aloud three times, with weighty pauses between calls, while everyone waited in silence for the exclamation of the lucky winner--for the prize on bank night was cash.

The prize started at ten dollars and grew by ten dollars more each week that it went unclaimed. As the sum grew, so did excitement in the neighborhood. Twenty dollars might be a week's wages to a man lucky enough to have a job. Sixty dollars could pay the rent for three months. One hundred dollars was a small fortune. When the pot began to build toward two hundred dollars, the Roozie would be packed on Saturday night. People bought tickets just to stand in the lobby, or even outside the theater, for if a ticket holder's name were called, he could collect even if he'd never gotten through the door.

I remember the time the prize rose to $610. The sidewalk in front and around the corner of the theater was mobbed. Neighbors stood around in an air of amused, yet hopeful excitement. They talked and laughed, met new neighbors, caught up on gossip, discussed movies and news and family and work or lack of it, while we kids played tag around them. Was this community? Probably it was as close as adults came to stepping across family lines, talking, at ease and with plenty of time, to the wider mix of neighbors. Probably such gatherings don't happen in today's TV-watching neighborhoods.

We never personally knew anyone who won Bank Night, though a neighbor once told us his cousin had won thirty dollars. A few years ago a friend told me that in 1938, as a young man in another state, he had been paid ten dollars to pose as the winner of a large Bank Night pot. Perhaps my parents and all our neighbors and all movie-goers across the nation were being cheated. If so, they were nevertheless sold a cheap ticket to hope and fun and relaxed socializing. They never seemed surprised or disappointed at not winning.

I am not nostalgic for those old days at the Roozie. By the time I was thirteen, I often as not stayed home alone preferring a book to whatever double feature the family went off to. Nor do I agree with those who say the steady diet of 1928-1944 movies was much less harmful than the steady diet of TV watched by many children today. There was less violence and no gross sex or language, but equal sexism, more racism and hypocrisy, and, of course, total heterosexuality. There were the same lies, materialistic values, evasions, distortions, false promises, illusions, and sheer stupidity that so seductively attack the ability of watchers to think straight.

Today The Mission has more crowds, dirt, and danger than during my childhood. But today even the poorest, least-educated people live a wider life there. The projected reincarnation of the Roosevelt/York Theater as Brava! for Women in the Arts is only one proof of it. My friend's eccentric artist might still be a recluse if he lived there today, but only by choice. I think he would fit in pretty well now.

''Dorothy Bryant is the author of ten novels and five plays, many of them set in the Bay Area.''

[[Gold Rush 49ers Discover the Mission |Prev. Document]] [[The People |Next Document]]

[[category:Mission]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1990s]] [[category:Italian]] [[category:Irish]] [[category:2020s]]

File:24th-street-stretch-w-china-books-2013 4143.jpg

2026-03-17T04:52:11Z

Ccarlsson:

File:Modern-times-on-24th-street-2013 4144.jpg

2026-03-17T04:50:07Z

Ccarlsson:

Powell and Market Changes Through the Years

2026-03-17T04:42:57Z

Ccarlsson: added photo

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Powell-from-Market-1856.jpg]]

'''This image taken in 1866 looking north on Powell is just fifteen years after the area was [[Powell and Market 1851|still largely sand dunes]] covered in scrub. Note Temple Emanu-el in distance, a block north of Union Square.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Baldwin-Hotel-Market-and-Powell-Sts-w-cable-cars-and-pedestrians-c-1880s.jpg|720px]]

'''[[Pre-Quake Tenderloin Hotels|Baldwin Hotel]] at Market and Powell in the late 1880s.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Flood-Bldg-c-1908.jpg|720px]]

'''Flood Building at Powell and Market, 1908.'''

''Photo: C.R. collection''

[[Image:Powell-and-market-techau-tavern-c-1910s.jpg]]

'''Powell and Market, c. 1910.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Market-and-powell-techau-tavern-c-1910.jpg]]

'''Flood Building across from [[Techau Tavern|Techau Tavern]] at Powell and Market, c. 1910.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Powell-Eddy-and-Market-c-1920s.jpg|720px]]

'''Powell, Eddy, and Market Streets, c.1920s, when this corner was the entry point to the Tenderloin.'''

''Photo: C.R.collection''

[[Image:Man-gazing-at-cable-car-turnaround-Eddy-and-Powell-c-1940s.jpg]]

'''Man standing under awning of Owl Drugs on ground floor of Flood Building at Powell and Eddy and Market Streets, c. 1940s.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Cable-car-turnaround-Eddy-and-Powell-c-1940s.jpg]]

'''[[Cable Cars|Cable car]] turnaround at Eddy/Powell and Market Streets, c. 1940s.'''

''Photo: Private collection''

[[Image:Oct 10 1952 Woolworth's New Store interior - Dining Room. Flood Building opensfhistory wnp28.0488.jpg|800px]]

'''Woolworth's new store interior—dining room. Flood Building at Powell and Market Streets, Oct. 10, 1952.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp28.0488''

[[Image:Eating-at-Woolworths.jpg|800px]]

'''Eating at Woolworth's, 21st century meme.'''

''Photo: provenance unknown''

[[Image:Powell and Market circa 1957 opensfhistory wnp25.6541.jpg|800px]]

'''Powell and Market Street, c. 1957.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.6541''

[[Image:Powell and Market turntable 1958 opensfhistory wnp14.3892.jpg|800px]]

'''Cable car turnaround at Powell and Market, 1958.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp14.3892''

[[Image:Powell and Market 1963 opensfhistory wnp25.4240.jpg|800px]]

'''Powell and Market Streets, 1963.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.4240''

[[Image:Powell and Market Cable Car Turnaround.2023.sharpened twice.jpg]]

'''Cable car still ends here, but turnaround no longer in use at Powell/Eddy and Market Streets, 2023.'''

''Photo: Eihway Su''

[[Image:Flood Building 2023.sharpened.jpg]]

'''Flood Building, 2023.'''

''Photo: Eihway Su''

[[Image:Market near 5th 1963 opensfhistory wnp25.7020.jpg|800px]]

'''Market near 5th Street, 1963.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp25.7020''

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aXO3ll24334" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''Erased Landscape'''

''Video: Glenn Lym''

[[category:downtown]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1900s]][[category:1910s]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:1940s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:2020s]] [[category:roads]] [[category:Transit]]

File:Market near 5th 1963 opensfhistory wnp25.7020.jpg

2026-03-17T04:41:41Z

Ccarlsson:

Sutro Heights

2026-03-17T04:39:05Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Mae Silver''

[[Image:The-President-Mrs-Harrison-and-Party-parapets-of-Sutro-Heights-April-27-1891-w-Sutro-bw-cropped-20-in-wide-72dpi.jpg|720px|thumb]]

'''President Benjamin Harrison and his wife visit Sutro Heights with Adolph Sutro and a large party of dignitaries, April 27, 1891.'''

''Photo courtesy Gwen Sanderson''

[[Image:Sutro Heights circa 1890 opensfhistory wnp13.125.jpg|800px]]

'''[[The Mysterious Buried Statues of Sutro Park|Sutro Heights]] with its many statues lining the perimeter, circa 1890.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp13.125''

[[Image:richmond$cliff-house-and-dunes.jpg|720px|thumb]]

'''Sand dunes in the Richmond, c. 1890. Cliff House is barely visible, left of center; Sutro's Mansion is just to the right of center on the horizon.''' ''Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco''

Many know [[Adolph Sutro|Sutro]] best because of the [[Sutro Baths Eerie Ice Rink|Baths]] and [[C L I F F H O U S E|Cliff House]] he built as part of a family resort that also included the parklike grounds surrounding his home. Set on the Heights above the resort, it commanded a fantastic panorama of Pacific sea and sky. He could have built a house anyplace in town. Even on Nob Hill. But he chose to buy Tetlow's Cottage in the outside lands. He treated his cottage as a farmhouse, shaped the surrounding property into a lush park, and opened it to the public in 1885.

[[Image:Sutro Mansion circa 1950 opensfhistory wnp26.1404.jpg|800px]]

'''Sutro Mansion, c. 1950.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp26.1404''

The grounds, containing about a hundred statues, several hundred chairs and tables, were open free with restrictions only precluding food, carriages, horses, and vandalism. His great love of land, education, books and children came together when he often opened his place for kindergartners, their teachers and supporters of this new Kindergarten movement for immigrant children. Today, walking through the remnants of [[The Mysterious Buried Statues of Sutro Park|Sutro Heights]], one feels the presence of his magnificent figure on horseback. A quiet man with white, bushy sideburns, topped by a cowboy hat, tall in the saddle. Even when he was ill, his memory slipping in and out of the past, he wanted to stay on the ranch he loved. It seems he's still there today. Curiously, Sutro's remains that had mysteriously vanished years ago, were recently found in an urn lodged in a hillside on this property. They were removed and now reside with a relative.

[[Sand Dunes in the Richmond |Prev. Document]] [[Geary and 43rd 1917 |Next Document]]

[[category:Richmond District]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:Parks]] [[category:Famous characters]]

File:Sutro Mansion circa 1950 opensfhistory wnp26.1404.jpg

2026-03-17T04:35:48Z

Ccarlsson:

The Immigrants

2026-03-17T04:34:27Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Cheryl and Clark Kaplan, 1964''

[[Image:pothill$cooking-class-1912.jpg]]

'''Cooking Class, Irving Scott School, 1912'''

''Photo: [http://www.potreroarchives.com Potrero Hill Archives Project]''

Between 1850 and 1900, there appeared several groups of immigrants, who settled on Potrero Hill; the Scotch and Irish predominating.

'''THE SCOTS''' came to this area in 1865 from the Clyde River area in Scotland to work in the shipyard, and later to work in the Union Iron Works, established in 1883. The area chosen by the Scottish people to be their new homeland was on top of Potrero Hill along Mississippi, Texas, and Connecticut Streets. The name "Scotch Hill" was recognized by its residents at that time.

The Scotch built one of the first churches on the hill, the Olivet Presbyterian Church, in 1868. The structure burned in the 1870's, was rebuilt, and again burned several years later in the 1900's.

A charming gentleman by the name of Rintoul first came to "Scottish Hill" in 1893. He has lived in the same house at 522 Connecticut Street since that time and to the lucky visitor, he may expound on the subject he knows so well, the early years of Potrero: "Mostly pastureland at the time of 1893. There were a few scattered houses, several along this street and all of them belonged to Scottish families. I used to have a relative who lived over on De Haro Street at the top of the hill. Used to go visit him and we crossed Chilit Pass. That's the area of Carolina Street where there is a dip in the Hill." The small valley divided Scotch Hill and the higher hill known later as Russian Hill. The name originated from the Gold Rush, according to Mr. Rintoul.

'''THE IRISH''' settlement was also present on the hill in the 1870s. The Irish immigrants, arriving by ship from Ireland, carrying few personal belongings, settled on the hill near Twenty-Second and Illinois Streets. Many of those people came to San Francisco seeking employment at the Pacific Rolling Mills. If work could not be found there, they went to the Gashouse.

[[Irish Hill then and now |Irish Hill]], as it was called in the 1880s, seethed with excitement and brawny vigor. Irish Hill covered with hotels and boardinghouses such as the Green House, run by Mike Ferrell; the White House, run by Hans Rasmussen; Cash's Hotel, run by Jimmy Cole; and the San Quentin House, run by Jim Gately. The San Quentin House took in the parolees from San Quentin Prison, and got them jobs in rolling mills at the foot of the hill. Many a Saturday afternoon was filled with the sound of fighting in the streets. The boys from one hotel would challenge another to a fight. The fist-swinging fight would take place in a hay-rope ring outside of Gately's Hotel.

One man, Billy Carr, a retired deputy sheriff who lived in the Mission, could remember walking to the top of [[Irish Hill then and now |Irish Hill]], ninety-eight steps, when he got off work. On one side of Irish Hill stood the blue muds of Potrero. Below it, on another side, was Dutchman's Flat, and the hill next to it was Scotch Hill.

Around the 1900s, one of the new settlers on the Hill was a man named Ramond, a dapper man, complete with goatee. Ramond and his family lived in a large white house at the corner of Wisconsin and Twentieth. Next to it were several houses extending up the hill on Wisconsin. At first glance one might receive the impression this was one of the first tracts of houses, but the original purpose of the location and identical architecture was simple housing provided for the hired help and families. These men apparently helped care for the cattle pastured on top of the hill running down to Army Street. It was thought the Ramond family were descendents of the Spanish settlers, but there wasn't written proof of it. This ranch was called by some people the Ramond's and Hawe's Ranch. Charlie Hawe was an Englishman and dairy cattle were his source of income. He had his farmhouse, built in 1889, on the northwest corner of Connecticut and Twentieth. Close to the house was a three-hundred foot well, which later had to be filled before an apartment building could be placed on the site. Across the street from the farmhouse, on the south side of Twentieth, where Atchison's Drug Store [now stands,] was a large barn for cattle. This was the same barn referred to earlier as Ramond's Hall. Water troughs for the cattle were on the northeast corner of the intersection.

The Ramond House was sold about 1925 by his daughter-in-law, Marie Ramond, to the Cassidy and Cicerone Realty Company. They in turn sold the property to the Houston family. The Houston House, as it's known by many Potrero residents, is [still standing] on the same site, quietly observing the increasing traffic on Twentieth Street, one of the main arteries of Potrero.

'''THE SOUTHERN SLAVS''', comprised of natives of Dalmatia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia, played an important part in the early development of California. It is recorded that in the 17th Century a group of Slav missionaries journeyed from Mexico to California, carrying with them the banner of Christianity and civilization. Around the time of 1848, during the gold rush, numerous Southern Slavs left their house and set out to seek their fortunes. Countless numbers came to the port of San Francisco.

A few of the Slavs settled on the western part of Potrero Hill in the vicinity of Vermont, Kansas and Rhode Island Streets, but it wasn't until 1906, after the earthquake and fire, that the large settlement of Slovenian people came to Potrero. They [now occupy] the Vermont and Kansas Street area and have established an active organization that meets regularly in the Slovenian Hall.

The Slovenian people are a music-loving group. The Southern Slavs have always considered music an essential medium of diversion and a means of refinement of the human soul. Today, the Slovenian Hall is alive with songs and folk music. As one abruptly drives off James Lick Freeway into the Vermont Street turnoff, it appears to have been a turn into the past. One cannot help noticing the words on the massive corner building, "Slovenian Hall."

'''THE RUSSIAN SETTLERS''' came to San Francisco before the revolution in Russia, about 1900 to 1908. One main reason for their leaving their homeland was religious persecution. There were approximately two hundred families of the Molokani sect, who grew tired of being forced to change from the Protestant Molokani, meaning "milk drinkers," to the Orthodox Russian religion. They grew so angry at the loss of religious freedom that they sold many personal effects, bought wagons, and traveled to a sea port where they sailed to the United States.

The Russian peasants landed at one of the seaports, slept on the docks, and were eventually brought to San Francisco. Some of the group settled in Los Angeles, and some settled in San Francisco and farther north.

It would be safe to assume that before 1900, there could have been a few Russian families on the hill. This was because the Gold Rush brought many immigrants to the San Francisco area eagerly searching for their fortune in gold.

Many of these immigrants who settled in San Francisco found employment in the Union Iron Works, [now known] as [[From Pastures to Industry| Bethlehem Steel]]. They were uneducated, but eager to settle in a new land where they could have freedom of religion. The Russians built their homes on top of Potrero Hill, around the streets of Carolina, Rhode Island, De Haro, and Southern Heights.

[[Image:Southern-Heights-and-Rhode-Island-1922 PHAP.jpg]]

'''Southern Heights and Rhode Island Streets, c. 1922, close to the Molokan settlement on Potrero Hill.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archives Project''

At 841 Carolina Street the Molokan or First Russian Christian Church, built about 1930, can still be seen. All Russian Churches on Potrero Hill are Protestant, and have such names as the Holy Jumpers Church and the Hillside Baptist Church. The Orthodox Russians established themselves in the Fillmore District of San Francisco.35

The Molokan Church is quite stark in its appearance. The Russian residents are devout, religious, hard-working people. The Russian women can be seen attending church in their full-length skirts with shawls or babushkas worn on their heads. The Molokan religion requires the women to always keep their head covered when out-of-doors. The elderly Russian men are often seen gathered together at the top of De Haro Street, cracking sunflower seeds, and each seems quietly immersed in thought as well as a healthy beard.

Many of the early Russian settlers took advantage of the numerous springs on Potrero, and today several "Bani" steam baths are used by the Russian people. These were not open for public use, and it would indeed be difficult to learn the location of the bani baths. The only visible clue to the whereabouts of such a steam bath is a rusty iron stove pipe emerging from the roof of a hillside building.

The Cicerone family started a grocery store in 1905, at 1204 Nineteenth Street. They were one of the '''FIRST ITALIAN FAMILIES''' to move into the Potrero community. Most of the inhabitants on the hill were Irish, Scottish, Russian, Yugoslav, Greek, and a few Chinese and Dutch.

About the year 1933 Cunio Flats, an Italian community near Fisherman's Wharf, burned to the ground. The fire caused many of the [[Firpo Family on Potrero Hill|Italian families]] to move to Potrero. They settled in the area of Eighteenth and below Mariposa.(43)

About 1935 to 1940, many Mexican laborers moved into the area of Third and Iowa Streets. The reason they came to Potrero was to be near employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad.(44)

At the time of World War Two, [African Americans] were brought to Potrero to work in the shipyards. Most groups who settled there had one factor in common: a home located close to their jobs.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/ssfPOTHILL2" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''1937 Feast Day Celebration on Potrero Hill.'''

''Video: courtesy Potrero Hill Archives Project''

[[Staking Out Potrero Hill |Prev. Document]] [[Irish Hill then and now |Next Document]]

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1860s]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:Immigration]] [[category:Irish]] [[category:Russian]] [[category:Scottish]] [[category:Italian]] [[category:Mexican]]

The Immigrants

2026-03-17T04:32:41Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Cheryl and Clark Kaplan, 1964''

[[Image:pothill$cooking-class-1912.jpg]]

'''Cooking Class, Irving Scott School, 1912'''

''Photo: [http://www.potreroarchives.com Potrero Hill Archives Project]''

Between 1850 and 1900, there appeared several groups of immigrants, who settled on Potrero Hill; the Scotch and Irish predominating.

'''THE SCOTS''' came to this area in 1865 from the Clyde River area in Scotland to work in the shipyard, and later to work in the Union Iron Works, established in 1883. The area chosen by the Scottish people to be their new homeland was on top of Potrero Hill along Mississippi, Texas, and Connecticut Streets. The name "Scotch Hill" was recognized by its residents at that time.

The Scotch built one of the first churches on the hill, the Olivet Presbyterian Church, in 1868. The structure burned in the 1870's, was rebuilt, and again burned several years later in the 1900's.

A charming gentleman by the name of Rintoul first came to "Scottish Hill" in 1893. He has lived in the same house at 522 Connecticut Street since that time and to the lucky visitor, he may expound on the subject he knows so well, the early years of Potrero: "Mostly pastureland at the time of 1893. There were a few scattered houses, several along this street and all of them belonged to Scottish families. I used to have a relative who lived over on De Haro Street at the top of the hill. Used to go visit him and we crossed Chilit Pass. That's the area of Carolina Street where there is a dip in the Hill." The small valley divided Scotch Hill and the higher hill known later as Russian Hill. The name originated from the Gold Rush, according to Mr. Rintoul.

'''THE IRISH''' settlement was also present on the hill in the 1870s. The Irish immigrants, arriving by ship from Ireland, carrying few personal belongings, settled on the hill near Twenty-Second and Illinois Streets. Many of those people came to San Francisco seeking employment at the Pacific Rolling Mills. If work could not be found there, they went to the Gashouse.

[[Irish Hill then and now |Irish Hill]], as it was called in the 1880s, seethed with excitement and brawny vigor. Irish Hill covered with hotels and boardinghouses such as the Green House, run by Mike Ferrell; the White House, run by Hans Rasmussen; Cash's Hotel, run by Jimmy Cole; and the San Quentin House, run by Jim Gately. The San Quentin House took in the parolees from San Quentin Prison, and got them jobs in rolling mills at the foot of the hill. Many a Saturday afternoon was filled with the sound of fighting in the streets. The boys from one hotel would challenge another to a fight. The fist-swinging fight would take place in a hay-rope ring outside of Gately's Hotel.

One man, Billy Carr, a retired deputy sheriff who lived in the Mission, could remember walking to the top of [[Irish Hill then and now |Irish Hill]], ninety-eight steps, when he got off work. On one side of Irish Hill stood the blue muds of Potrero. Below it, on another side, was Dutchman's Flat, and the hill next to it was Scotch Hill.

Around the 1900s, one of the new settlers on the Hill was a man named Ramond, a dapper man, complete with goatee. Ramond and his family lived in a large white house at the corner of Wisconsin and Twentieth. Next to it were several houses extending up the hill on Wisconsin. At first glance one might receive the impression this was one of the first tracts of houses, but the original purpose of the location and identical architecture was simple housing provided for the hired help and families. These men apparently helped care for the cattle pastured on top of the hill running down to Army Street. It was thought the Ramond family were descendents of the Spanish settlers, but there wasn't written proof of it. This ranch was called by some people the Ramond's and Hawe's Ranch. Charlie Hawe was an Englishman and dairy cattle were his source of income. He had his farmhouse, built in 1889, on the northwest corner of Connecticut and Twentieth. Close to the house was a three-hundred foot well, which later had to be filled before an apartment building could be placed on the site. Across the street from the farmhouse, on the south side of Twentieth, where Atchison's Drug Store [now stands,] was a large barn for cattle. This was the same barn referred to earlier as Ramond's Hall. Water troughs for the cattle were on the northeast corner of the intersection.

The Ramond House was sold about 1925 by his daughter-in-law, Marie Ramond, to the Cassidy and Cicerone Realty Company. They in turn sold the property to the Houston family. The Houston House, as it's known by many Potrero residents, is [still standing] on the same site, quietly observing the increasing traffic on Twentieth Street, one of the main arteries of Potrero.

'''THE SOUTHERN SLAVS''', comprised of natives of Dalmatia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia, played an important part in the early development of California. It is recorded that in the 17th Century a group of Slav missionaries journeyed from Mexico to California, carrying with them the banner of Christianity and civilization. Around the time of 1848, during the gold rush, numerous Southern Slavs left their house and set out to seek their fortunes. Countless numbers came to the port of San Francisco.

A few of the Slavs settled on the western part of Potrero Hill in the vicinity of Vermont, Kansas and Rhode Island Streets, but it wasn't until 1906, after the earthquake and fire, that the large settlement of Slovenian people came to Potrero. They [now occupy] the Vermont and Kansas Street area and have established an active organization that meets regularly in the Slovenian Hall.

The Slovenian people are a music-loving group. The Southern Slavs have always considered music an essential medium of diversion and a means of refinement of the human soul. Today, the Slovenian Hall is alive with songs and folk music. As one abruptly drives off James Lick Freeway into the Vermont Street turnoff, it appears to have been a turn into the past. One cannot help noticing the words on the massive corner building, "Slovenian Hall."

'''THE RUSSIAN SETTLERS''' came to San Francisco before the revolution in Russia, about 1900 to 1908. One main reason for their leaving their homeland was religious persecution. There were approximately two hundred families of the Molokani sect, who grew tired of being forced to change from the Protestant Molokani, meaning "milk drinkers," to the Orthodox Russian religion. They grew so angry at the loss of religious freedom that they sold many personal effects, bought wagons, and traveled to a sea port where they sailed to the United States.

The Russian peasants landed at one of the seaports, slept on the docks, and were eventually brought to San Francisco. Some of the group settled in Los Angeles, and some settled in San Francisco and farther north.

It would be safe to assume that before 1900, there could have been a few Russian families on the hill. This was because the Gold Rush brought many immigrants to the San Francisco area eagerly searching for their fortune in gold.

Many of these immigrants who settled in San Francisco found employment in the Union Iron Works, [now known] as [[From Pastures to Industry| Bethlehem Steel]]. They were uneducated, but eager to settle in a new land where they could have freedom of religion. The Russians built their homes on top of Potrero Hill, around the streets of Carolina, Rhode Island, De Haro, and Southern Heights.

[[Image:Southern-Heights-and-Rhode-Island-1922 PHAP.jpg]]

'''Southern Heights and Rhode Island Streets, c. 1922, close to the Molokan settlement on Potrero Hill.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archives Project''

At 841 Carolina Street the Molokan or First Russian Christian Church, built about 1930, can still be seen. All Russian Churches on Potrero Hill are Protestant, and have such names as the Holy Jumpers Church and the Hillside Baptist Church. The Orthodox Russians established themselves in the Fillmore District of San Francisco.35

The Molokan Church is quite stark in its appearance. The Russian residents are devout, religious, hard-working people. The Russian women can be seen attending church in their full-length skirts with shawls or babushkas worn on their heads. The Molokan religion requires the women to always keep their head covered when out-of-doors. The elderly Russian men are often seen gathered together at the top of De Haro Street, cracking sunflower seeds, and each seems quietly immersed in thought as well as a healthy beard.

Many of the early Russian settlers took advantage of the numerous springs on Potrero, and today several "Bani" steam baths are used by the Russian people. These were not open for public use, and it would indeed be difficult to learn the location of the bani baths. The only visible clue to the whereabouts of such a steam bath is a rusty iron stove pipe emerging from the roof of a hillside building.

The Cicerone family started a grocery store in 1905, at 1204 Nineteenth Street. They were one of the '''FIRST ITALIAN FAMILIES''' to move into the Potrero community. Most of the inhabitants on the hill were Irish, Scottish, Russian, Yugoslav, Greek, and a few Chinese and Dutch.

About the year 1933 Cunio Flats, an Italian community near Fisherman's Wharf, burned to the ground. The fire caused many of the Italian families to move to Potrero. They settled in the area of Eighteenth and below Mariposa.(43)

About 1935 to 1940, many Mexican laborers moved into the area of Third and Iowa Streets. The reason they came to Potrero was to be near employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad.(44)

At the time of World War Two, negroes were brought to Potrero to work in the shipyards. Most groups who settled there had one factor in common: a home located close to their jobs.

<iframe src="https://archive.org/embed/ssfPOTHILL2" width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" allowfullscreen></iframe>

'''1937 Feast Day Celebration on Potrero Hill.'''

''Video: courtesy Potrero Hill Archives Project''

[[Staking Out Potrero Hill |Prev. Document]] [[Irish Hill then and now |Next Document]]

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1850s]] [[category:1860s]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:1880s]] [[category:1890s]] [[category:1900s]] [[category:1920s]] [[category:1930s]] [[category:Immigration]] [[category:Irish]] [[category:Russian]] [[category:Scottish]] [[category:Italian]] [[category:Mexican]]

File:Southern-Heights-and-Rhode-Island-1922 PHAP.jpg

2026-03-17T04:30:06Z

Ccarlsson:

Western Pacific Tunnel Collapse 1962

2026-03-17T04:28:52Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Mariposa & Carolina Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10074.jpg|800px]]

'''Mariposa & Carolina Streets, July 1, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10074''

Western Pacific Tunnel Fire. view southeast on railroad right of way from Mariposa at Carolina. Looking at northern entrance of Western Pacific tunnel. The city plugged both ends with concrete and the railroad abandoned the tunnel. The city demanded $781,000 and settled with the railroad for $700,000 in 1964.

[[Image:Texas near Sierra circa 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00773.jpg|800px]]

'''Texas Street near Sierra, June 30, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFhistory.org wnp69.00773''

[[Image:Missouri & Sierra Jun 30, 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00154.jpg|800px]]

'''Missouri & Sierra Streets, June 30, 1962.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp69.00154''

[[Image:Pothill-whole-at-19th-and-arkansas.jpg]]

'''Arkansas and 19th, hole indicating collapsed tunnel beneath in July 1960. Note the [[1955 Demographic Study|public housing projects]] in mid-distance.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archive Project''

[[Image:Protrero Hill tunnel cave in 1962.JPG|720px]]

'''July 1962, collapsing tunnel beneath the hill.'''

''Photo: courtesy Vance Chan''

[[Image:Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962 View nw from above Sierra St opensfhistory wnp27.3353.jpg]]

'''Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962—View northwest from above Sierra St.'''

''Photo: Opensfhistory wnp27.3353''

[[Image:23rd & Pennsylvania Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10079.jpg|800px]]

'''23rd & Pennsylvania Streets, July 1, 1962, during conflagration in Western Pacific tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10079''

[[Image:25th near Pennsylvania circa 1947 opensfhistory wnp27.50209.jpg|800px]]

'''25th near Pennsylvania, c. 1947, looking southeast at SP train chugging northward.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp27.50209''

[[Image:Carolina & Mariposa Jun 13, 1917 opensfhistory wnp36.01614.jpg|800px]]

'''Carolina and Mariposa Streets looking east over Western Pacific tracks, June 13, 1917.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.01614''

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:transit]] [[category:Hills]] [[category:roads]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1940s]]

File:25th near Pennsylvania circa 1947 opensfhistory wnp27.50209.jpg

2026-03-17T04:27:07Z

Ccarlsson:

Western Pacific Tunnel Collapse 1962

2026-03-17T04:26:05Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Mariposa & Carolina Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10074.jpg|800px]]

'''Mariposa & Carolina Streets, July 1, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10074''

Western Pacific Tunnel Fire. view southeast on railroad right of way from Mariposa at Carolina. Looking at northern entrance of Western Pacific tunnel. The city plugged both ends with concrete and the railroad abandoned the tunnel. The city demanded $781,000 and settled with the railroad for $700,000 in 1964.

[[Image:Texas near Sierra circa 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00773.jpg|800px]]

'''Texas Street near Sierra, June 30, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFhistory.org wnp69.00773''

[[Image:Missouri & Sierra Jun 30, 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00154.jpg|800px]]

'''Missouri & Sierra Streets, June 30, 1962.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp69.00154''

[[Image:Pothill-whole-at-19th-and-arkansas.jpg]]

'''Arkansas and 19th, hole indicating collapsed tunnel beneath in July 1960. Note the [[1955 Demographic Study|public housing projects]] in mid-distance.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archive Project''

[[Image:Protrero Hill tunnel cave in 1962.JPG|720px]]

'''July 1962, collapsing tunnel beneath the hill.'''

''Photo: courtesy Vance Chan''

[[Image:Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962 View nw from above Sierra St opensfhistory wnp27.3353.jpg]]

'''Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962—View northwest from above Sierra St.'''

''Photo: Opensfhistory wnp27.3353''

[[Image:23rd & Pennsylvania Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10079.jpg|800px]]

'''23rd & Pennsylvania Streets, July 1, 1962, during conflagration in Western Pacific tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10079''

[[Image:Carolina & Mariposa Jun 13, 1917 opensfhistory wnp36.01614.jpg|800px]]

'''Carolina and Mariposa Streets looking east over Western Pacific tracks, June 13, 1917.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.01614''

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:transit]] [[category:Hills]] [[category:roads]] [[category:1910s]]

Western Pacific Tunnel Collapse 1962

2026-03-17T04:25:32Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Mariposa & Carolina Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10074.jpg|800px]]

'''Mariposa & Carolina Streets, July 1, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10074''

Western Pacific Tunnel Fire. view southeast on railroad right of way from Mariposa at Carolina. Looking at northern entrance of Western Pacific tunnel. The city plugged both ends with concrete and the railroad abandoned the tunnel. The city demanded $781,000 and settled with the railroad for $700,000 in 1964.

[[Image:Texas near Sierra circa 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00773.jpg|800px]]

'''Texas Street near Sierra, June 30, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFhistory.org wnp69.00773''

[[Image:Missouri & Sierra Jun 30, 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00154.jpg|800px]]

'''Missouri & Sierra Streets, June 30, 1962.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp69.00154''

[[Image:Pothill-whole-at-19th-and-arkansas.jpg]]

'''Arkansas and 19th, hole indicating collapsed tunnel beneath in July 1960. Note the [[1955 Demographic Study|public housing projects]] in mid-distance.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archive Project''

[[Image:Protrero Hill tunnel cave in 1962.JPG|720px]]

'''July 1962, collapsing tunnel beneath the hill.'''

''Photo: courtesy Vance Chan''

[[Image:Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962 View nw from above Sierra St opensfhistory wnp27.3353.jpg]]

'''Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962—View northwest from above Sierra St.'''

''Photo: Opensfhistory wnp27.3353''

[[Image:23rd & Pennsylvania Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10079.jpg|800px]]

'''23rd & Pennsylvania Streets, July 1, 1962, during conflagration in Western Pacific tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10079''

[[Image:Carolina & Mariposa Jun 13, 1917 opensfhistory wnp36.01614.jpg|800px]]

'''Carolina and Mariposa Streets looking east over Western Pacific tracks, June 13, 1917.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.01614''

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:transit]] [[category:Hills]] category:roads]] [[category:1910s]]

Western Pacific Tunnel Collapse 1962

2026-03-17T04:24:24Z

Ccarlsson: added photos and categories

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Mariposa & Carolina Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10074.jpg|800px]]

'''Mariposa & Carolina Streets, July 1, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10074''

Western Pacific Tunnel Fire. view southeast on railroad right of way from Mariposa at Carolina. Looking at northern entrance of Western Pacific tunnel. The city plugged both ends with concrete and the railroad abandoned the tunnel. The city demanded $781,000 and settled with the railroad for $700,000 in 1964.

[[Image:Texas near Sierra circa 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00773.jpg|800px]]

'''Texas Street near Sierra, June 30, 1962 during fire in tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFhistory.org wnp69.00773''

[[Image:Missouri & Sierra Jun 30, 1962 opensfhistory wnp69.00154.jpg|800px]]

'''Missouri & Sierra Streets, June 30, 1962.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp69.00154''

[[Image:Pothill-whole-at-19th-and-arkansas.jpg]]

'''Arkansas and 19th, hole indicating collapsed tunnel beneath in July 1960. Note the [[1955 Demographic Study|public housing projects]] in mid-distance.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archive Project''

[[Image:Protrero Hill tunnel cave in 1962.JPG|720px]]

'''July 1962, collapsing tunnel beneath the hill.'''

''Photo: courtesy Vance Chan''

[[Image:Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962 View nw from above Sierra St opensfhistory wnp27.3353.jpg]]

'''Potrero Hill Aerial Jul 3, 1962—View northwest from above Sierra St.'''

''Photo: Opensfhistory wnp27.3353''

[[Image:23rd & Pennsylvania Jul 1, 1962 opensfhistory wnp010.10079.jpg|800px]]

'''23rd & Pennsylvania Streets, July 1, 1962, during conflagration in Western Pacific tunnel.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp010.10079''

[[Image:Carolina & Mariposa Jun 13, 1917 opensfhistory wnp36.01614.jpg|800px]]

'''Carolina and Mariposa Streets, June 13, 1917.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp36.01614''

[[Image:Mariposa-looking-east-from-Rhode-Island-c-1920s PHAP.jpg]]

'''Mariposa Street looking east from Rhode Island, Western Pacific train tracks in foreground, c. 1920s.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archives Project''

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1960s]] [[category:transit]] [[category:Hills]] category:roads]] [[category:1910s]] [[category:1920s]]

File:Mariposa-looking-east-from-Rhode-Island-c-1920s PHAP.jpg

2026-03-17T04:22:57Z

Ccarlsson:

File:Carolina & Mariposa Jun 13, 1917 opensfhistory wnp36.01614.jpg

2026-03-17T04:21:34Z

Ccarlsson:

1955 Demographic Study

2026-03-17T04:19:58Z

Ccarlsson:

''' Historical Essay '''

''by Cheryl Clark, 1964''

[[Image:Cushman-May-17-1954-ene-19th-and-DeHaro-projects-on-Pothill-P07134.jpg]]

'''May 17, 1954, view of Public Housing projects at 19th and DeHaro. Later to be cleared for public school, and slopes behind have been [[Potrero Commons 18th-Wisconson|filled with condominiums]], after a lengthy [[How to Fight City Hall and Lose|public effort]] to maintain the open space.'''

[http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/ ''Charles Cushman Collection: Indiana University Archives (P07134)'']

[[Image:pothill$lick-wilmerding-1950s.jpg]]

'''Lick-Wilmerding School at 17th & Utah, 1950s'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archive Project''

In 1955, the San Francisco Department of City Planning undertook a study of neighborhood conservation on Potrero Hill. The first step in the plan was to find what conditions did exist, and if the hill was a blighted area. The population at the time of the study was about 11,450. Of that number, 21% were born in a foreign country, and 5% were Negro. Of the immigrants, 29% were Italian and 18% were Russian.

True to the past history of the Potrero, two-thirds of the male population were employed as draftsmen, foremen, operatives, and laborers. Thirty percent of the women over age fourteen were employed. This was 3% more than the citywide average. The median annual income was $3,119, or about $100 higher than the median for the city.

The study provided many charts showing the average San Francisco area in relation to Potrero Hill. The following presents some interesting comparisons to the housing on the hill, as opposed to the rest of San Francisco.

'''HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS OF POTRERO HILL'''

'''Type of Structure S.F. Total Potrero Hill '''

1 & 2 units 51.3% 68.3%

3 & 4 units 11.6% 12.7%

5 or more units 37.1% 19.0%

Owner occupied units 2.6% 9.0%

Units built 1919 & earlier 50.0% 59.4%

The hill has never taken advantage of the excellent weather or view in regard to income property. This is shown in the higher rate of 1 and 2 unit buildings on the previous chart. Owner-occupied homes are almost 6.4% higher than the rest of the city. Working families of the Potrero are not the nomadic type. They tend to live in the same house throughout their life. Potrero Hill, compared to the city average, has eighteen percent less of five or more dwelling unit buildings.

This area is also a leader in older units. As noted earlier, the Potrero was not a victim of the Nineteen-Six Fire, and many of the houses are remains of an earlier period. Some of these homes are assets to the community, standing aloof from the present, as monuments to the past. On the other hand, older homes, if run down, will discredit an area. At the time this research was assembled by the city, most of the old Victorian homes were in need of repair.

Another problem are vacant lots. These lots tend to be collection spots for trash and waste. Due to the poor planning of streets, and the neglect of removing or improving hills and cliffs, many small sections are not suitable for construction.

From the material in the city report, it appears that many, 83.5% of the dwellers on the hill had lived in the same house for five years or more. Four percent had come from another country and eleven percent had moved here from other parts of the U.S. One could conclude that the decay was not caused by outside forces, but from within or because or a lack of interest. A community which is in many ways an island within a city, can become a victim of neglect. Such was the problem of Potrero Hill. Of the dwelling units on Potrero in 1955, nearly 60% were built in 1919 or earlier, and 10.7% were without private baths or dilapidated. The media rent was $33.73 per month. The median value per single family structure was $7,319 [(*"current" value is about $21,000).]

Schools were not within a desirable distance and the transportation was inadequate. The only junior high schools in the area were in the Mission District. The same was true for high schools.

The Potrero District does have 16.32 acres of parks and playgrounds. The three parks, Jackson, Potrero Playfield, and McKinley Square, are located a good distance from one another. Each park serving its own particular section of the hill.

[[Image:Jackson-Square-playground-Sept.jpg]]

'''Kids playing at Jackson Square, September 28, 1912.'''

''Photo: courtesy of the [http://www.potreroarchives.com Potrero Hill Archives Project]''

Shopping on Potrero is limited to small shops. A shopping area on 18th Street has a number of shops of various kinds, but the general condition is poor. Many of the buildings are vacant and in need of repair. Twentieth Street is fast becoming the major trading area, including a drug store, medical center, library, barber shops, and grocery stores.

This was the condition of Potrero Hill as reported by the city planning commission in 1955. The opinion of the study was that Potrero was in need of renewal. Only a small part of the area was actually blighted and any further deterioration could be stopped. The basic plan was as follows:

1. Land Use

2. Circulation

3. Public Facilities

4. Neighborhood Appearances

Land Use: Retain all existing land used for living area and include the Carolina War Housing. Move the Dutch Boy Paint Factory at Twenty-Third and Kansas St., and convert the land to living area. Establish a supermarket at the site of Twentieth and Connecticut, and in conjunction with this, provide off-the-street parking. An area with a population of over 10,000 can support a multi-purpose shopping area.

[[Image:Kansas at 24th street 1930.jpg]]

'''Northward view at corner of 24th and Kansas, 1930, paint factory at right'''

''Photo: Private Collection''

[[Image:24VMT993.jpg]]

'''North at corner of 24th and Kansas, 1993, paint factory now replaced by condominiums.'''

''Photo: David Green''

General repair of streets and painting of traffic lines at blind intersections would improve traffic. Transit lines could be improved if the buses were rerouted through the areas which are more heavily populated.

A section between Twenty-Second Street and Twentieth, and Vermont and Rhode Island, would be subject to complete renovation. This would include enlarging McKinley Park. Several new units of housing, a total of twenty-eight apartments, would be placed above Vermont and Twenty-Second. Numerous trees would be planted along the freeway, and along the streets to provide a more pleasant surrounding.

Nine years have passed since this study was undertaken. In that nine year period, a change has taken place on the hill. Although a vast number of apartments have been built on the hill, it appears that Potrero will not suffer the same fate as Twin Peaks. Although it does not possess as spectacular a view as Potrero, Twin Peaks has become the victim of mass uninteresting housing, capitalizing on a fast turnover and impressive view.

Always an island in the city, the Potrero has become a refuge to a new breed. In the recent years, the hill has become the home of artists and writers. The steep sides of the hill and the sunny weather, seem to spawn artistic ability. With this new life in the area, a growing pride is developing in the community. Old Victorians are regaining their lost grandeur with fresh paint and trim. Property values have increased at an alarming rate.

Neighborhood groups have emerged, and are attacking zoning laws and slums with increasing vigor. Each new building project on the hill is viewed with critical alarm. An area considered by many to be on the wrong side of the tracks, is not happy that it is in such an isolated position.

'''Names of streets as they appeared in 1876 from Langley's Directory of San Francisco:'''

El Dorado (15th)

Center (16th)

Santa Clara (17th)

Mariposa

Salano (18th)

Butte (19th)

Napa (20th)

Sierra (22nd)

Nevada (23rd)

Yolo

Colusa

Tulare

Islais Creek

[[Neighborhood House |Prev. Document]] [[Reshaping Potrero Hill |Next Document]]

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:Italian]] [[category:Russian]] [[category:African-American]] [[category:1870s]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:Housing]]

Texas Street Views

2026-03-17T04:17:01Z

Ccarlsson: Created page with "''' Unfinished History ''' 800px '''Texas near 19th Street, April 1953.''' ''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp27.7387'' Image:Texas-and-18th-St-c1957 PHAP.jpg '''Texas and 18th Street, c. 1957.''' ''Photo: Potrero Hill Archives Project'' category:Potrero Hill category:1950s category:roads"

''' Unfinished History '''

[[Image:Texas near 19th Apr 1953 opensfhistory wnp27.7387.jpg|800px]]

'''Texas near 19th Street, April 1953.'''

''Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp27.7387''

[[Image:Texas-and-18th-St-c1957 PHAP.jpg]]

'''Texas and 18th Street, c. 1957.'''

''Photo: Potrero Hill Archives Project''

[[category:Potrero Hill]] [[category:1950s]] [[category:roads]]