Houses of worship such as Temple Emanu-El and St. Ignatius Church, burned out of their downtown locations in 1906, slowly began to move west with their congregants. Likewise, Lowell High School, St. Mary’s Hospital and St. Ignatius College (now the University of San Francisco) reestablished themselves farther west, away from downtown San Francisco.
The cemeteries, however, provided a particularly difficult roadblock to westward expansion. As early as 1900, the many cemeteries located in the Richmond District (primarily Calvary, Laurel Hill, Masonic and Odd Fellows) were viewed as impediments to civic progress. The battle cry “Remove the cemeteries” had been proclaimed as early as the 1880s, yet it was not until 1902 that the Board of Supervisors enacted its first ordinance to prohibit new burials within the city—though there were numerous exceptions to this law, with Calvary Cemetery at Geary and Masonic recording its final interment as late as 1916.
In 1923, the Board of Supervisors passed a new ordinance requiring the removal of bodies from the many cemeteries in the Richmond District, and disinterment began in 1929, continuing for several more years as remains were taken to various locations across the county line in the San Mateo town of Colma.
There was initially strong opposition from the Catholic Church to the city’s attempts at forcing removals from Calvary Cemetery at the corner of Geary and Masonic. That position was softened somewhat when the Jesuits at nearby USF theorized that the removal of bodies from the Masonic Cemetery, adjacent to their St. Ignatius Church, would enable their college to expand. In the late 1930s, the archbishop dropped his opposition to the closure plan for cemeteries, so long as the removals were conducted in a reverent and organized fashion. Removals from Calvary commenced, with nearly forty thousand remains transferred to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma by 1940, with removal proceeding at most of the other cemeteries as well.
The columbarium represents the last remnant of a time when the Richmond District was filled with cemeteries. Photograph by Alvis Hendley.
Laurel Hill, the final holdout, saw thirty-five thousand removals from 1939 to 1941. Finally, after World War II, the last interments at Laurel Hill were relocated to Cypress Lawn in Colma, and the era of the cemeteries in the Richmond District was at an end.
Today, only the old columbarium, near Arguello and Geary, built for the Odd Fellows Cemetery, remains as a silent testimony to tens of thousands of San Franciscans who once regarded the neighborhood as their final “home.” In an interesting twist, the building, which had fallen into disrepair, was acquired by the Neptune Society in 1980. It has been refurbished and expanded, and new inurnments now join the historic ones on a regular basis.
The era for massive housing development in the city’s Western Neighborhoods was underway, and there was no turning back.
3
A PLACE CALLED HOME
As the Richmond District filled with new homes and businesses, developers eventually turned their view southward to the Sunset District. Here, however, the lay of the land presented challenges. The area south of Golden Gate Park was surrounded by hills that impeded direct access, particularly by streetcar lines, still a prime mode of transportation for the masses. Recognizing this challenge, along with the incredible opportunity for San Francisco if the area could be developed, the Twin Peaks Tunnel was conceived. It was built in 1917 and opened for service in February 1918, just months before the end of World War I. Suddenly, vast new tracts of homes could be constructed, all with easy access to the downtown business district.
Henry Doelger was among those who seized the opportunity to construct affordable homes for working-class San Franciscans. Joined by other builders, including Galli, Costello, Lang and the Stoneson brothers, acre after acre of sand and scrub began to emerge as new communities, where residents were soon joined by the usual mix of merchants, religious/fraternal organizations, schools and public recreational facilities. The Sunset (Duboce) Tunnel opened in 1928, improving a difficult commute by streetcars that formerly had to wind their way around Golden Gate Park on a slow route through several neighborhoods before reaching the downtown area. The Sunset District soon emerged as one of the most vibrant and bustling communities in San Francisco, with the construction of thousands of homes before, during and after World War II.
A 1939 Doelger ad shows several styles of homes then being built in the Sunset District. Courtesy of Prelinger Library.
As the country began to emerge from the Great Depression, many people who had been living in the Mission, North Beach or the Western Addition began thinking of a move to a new location west of Twin Peaks—less congestion, more fresh air, more room to raise a family, newer schools and space for an automobile. The expansion of streetcar service further prompted the growth of some existing residential areas such as Forest Hill, St. Francis Wood and Ingleside Terraces.
In the years just prior to and soon after World War II, the remaining open spaces south of Sigmund Stern Grove were soon filled with homes and apartments in communities such as Merced Heights, Stonestown, Parkmerced, Lakeshore and Country Club Acres.
Parkmerced, originally a planned community of low-rise garden apartments built by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, opened in 1940. Built on the site of a former golf course, with hundreds of mature trees, it offered San Franciscans modern, fireproof structures in a garden setting—something unique for a city that consisted mostly of tightly built wooden structures. After the restrictions on building materials were lifted following the war, eleven new high-rise towers, with more than fifteen hundred new units, were added to the complex.
Even after San Franciscans went on record as opposing freeways, the State of California was still tinkering with plans for this nightmare installation at Fulton Street and Park Presidio Drive in the Richmond District, just north of Golden Gate Park, as late as 1964. It was never built. Courtesy of Eric Fischer.
By 1950, San Francisco reached a then-record population of 815,000, and there was an overall sense of prosperity and well-being.
Stonestown, built by the Stoneson brothers, was one of this country’s first shopping malls. Combined with adjacent tower and garden apartments (a community completely separate from Parkmerced), the apartments were first occupied in 1950, and the mall, anchored by the first branch store of Market Street’s Emporium, opened in the second half of 1952. The adjacent areas soon filled with a collection of single-family homes.
The rise of residential development and the growth of automobile traffic in San Francisco in the post–World War II years led to the threat of freeways planned to run through many residential neighborhoods. In December 1955, a determined group of Sunset and Parkside District residents confronted the State of California’s planners at a massive public meeting on the proposed “Western Freeway”—essentially a straight-line route from San Francisco International Airport to the Golden Gate Bridge that would have wiped out thousands of homes and small businesses. Lawmakers and politicians heard the voice of the people, and though some freeways, such as the ill-fated Embarcadero, were eventually constructed, San Francisco was spared from being crisscrossed by massive spider webs of concrete and steel.
With the development of Midtown Terrace in the mid-1950s, and then Diamond Heights in the early 1960s, San Francisco was nearly completely built out. Other than some smaller in-fill projects and the city’s 1960s-era redevelopment efforts in the Western Addition and elsewhere, most new home construction was beginning to take place outside the borders of San Francisco. The coming of the interstate highway system, and particularly the completion of BART in the 1970s, made suburban living a much more popular alternative for many than it had been in earlier days.
Throughout much of this history, though, there was an unfortunate stigma of both institutionalized and subtler racial discrimination present throughout the United States (including San Francisco) that limited residency in many neighborhoods solely to Caucasians. After World War II, however, old prejudices began to change, as people of many different ethnic groups chose to
live in integrated communities. Various court rulings were also made that outlawed “restrictive covenants” in property deeds. Once again, San Francisco was continuing to evolve and become more welcoming to all.
One particular home in Ingleside Terraces, now an official San Francisco Landmark, is not only an excellent piece of architecture but a symbol of an era as well. A report in the files of the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board explains:
[The house] is significant because of its association with two broad patterns of national and local history. When built in 1911, it was the showpiece of the first “suburban subdivision” in San Francisco, and marked an important shift in local urban design. Later, in the 1950s, it was the site of a cross burning due to its association with the residential racial integration of the city.
The house is also significant due to its association with the lives of two owners, Joseph A. Leonard and Cecil F. Poole, both of whom were important in San Francisco history. It is particularly ironic that Leonard, a prominent developer, was one of the first to use restrictive racial covenants as a real estate marketing tool in the city—while Poole was significant as San Francisco’s first African-American District Attorney, later a federal judge, and a pioneer in furthering the status of African-Americans locally.
The Leonard-Poole home in Ingleside Terraces tells an interesting story of change over time. Photograph by Alvis Hendley.
Over the last fifty years, San Francisco has become a much more tolerant place, particularly after the events in Ingleside Terraces and the blatant prejudice encountered by baseball star Willie Mays when he and his wife tried to purchase a home in the 1960s. Times were beginning to change, as people of many different backgrounds came together and became neighbors, friends and family to one another.
Terry Francois, San Francisco’s first African American member of the Board of Supervisors, initially encountered racial discrimination when trying to purchase a home for his family on Dewey Boulevard, but he was ultimately successful. Although he died in 1989, his family continues to enjoy their West Portal–area home after more than fifty years.
Superior Court judge Joseph Kennedy, one of San Francisco’s first African American judges, and his wife, Willie, lived on Mount Davidson for many years. Mrs. Kennedy was a longtime retail executive in the downtown area and later served fifteen years on the Board of Supervisors as well as on the BART Board of Directors and other civic agencies. Their residency in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood was largely a nonissue in the 1970s.
By the dawn of the 1980s, many longtime San Franciscans were astounded to see that modest Sunset and Richmond District homes were beginning to break the price barrier of $100,000—or nearly $100 per square foot. Of course, demographers could point to several factors: a baby boom population coming of age and starting their own families, seniors living longer and healthier lives while “aging in place” and remaining in their own homes, increased immigration (often the result of various political situations in overseas countries), greater numbers of households involving only one or two persons, divorced couples with shared custody arrangements establishing separate households nearby one another and so forth. Many disparate social factors have contributed incrementally to the increase in housing prices—in addition to the rampant inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s—all of which continued for many years.
As some of the 1950s advertising suggests, the cost of living in San Francisco has long been a challenge. Given the limited seven-mile by seven-mile geography and a local reluctance to see too many high-rise buildings outside of the downtown sector, there are constraints to expansion. As the law of supply and demand dictates, there is an inevitable upward trend in housing prices.
By the start of the new millennium, many “average” homes in San Francisco were beginning to approach the $500,000 price point. Just fifteen years later, prices of $1 million and more have become fairly routine for well-maintained homes. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that as of July 2014, $1 million was the new median price for a home in the city—half of all homes sold in the first half of that year cost more than that amount, and half of them cost less.
Clearly, that trend continues today when abandoned homes in poor condition often sell for $1 million or more in prime locations and where there is renovation potential. Where does it end? It is hard to tell, but the steady appreciation contributes to the willingness of buyers to pay top prices, even as some other longtime San Franciscans “cash out” and take their profits elsewhere.
Again, there are many factors contributing to this huge run-up, not the least of which continues to be supply and demand. In addition, many lower-paying clerical jobs at banks, insurance companies and retailers (one considered to be the backbone of the local economy) began to disappear in the 1980s and 1990s, replaced by new jobs in many sectors that offered higher income potential. Many more residents today are two-income couples with no children, and many career fields continue expanding—healthcare research and high-tech, in particular—so that the household incomes of many people are rising steadily, thus giving them an increased ability to buy and remodel.
This 1948 aerial view of Lake Merced shows a very different scene from what exists today. At that time, there was no Stonestown Shopping Center/Galleria, no San Francisco State University, no Lowell or Mercy High Schools, no Lakeside Presbyterian or Temple Baptist Churches, no high-rise towers in Parkmerced, no schools or houses of worship or housing development along Brotherhood Way and thousands fewer homes throughout San Francisco and the adjacent part of Daly City that would soon become the Westlake District. Significant construction activity was about to commence in all of these areas. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.
In this author’s own brief three-score-plus years on this planet, the Mission District has been transformed from a blue-collar German-Irish enclave (with a heavy Scandinavian influence at its outer rim near 15th and Market Streets) to a large Hispanic community with immigrants from Mexico and Central America It is now transforming into an even more diverse community that includes all of the above, plus an incoming mix of younger, tech-savvy residents.
Likewise, Noe Valley and neighboring Eureka Valley, once home to my many Irish great-aunts and great-uncles, has been home to San Francisco’s growing LGBT community (which once favored the Polk Gulch area off Van Ness Avenue) ever since the 1970s. In the years following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which caused widespread damage in the Marina District, many yuppies (yes, that is what they were called then—young urban professionals) began to make the move from the landfill of the Marina to the more solid ground of Noe Valley, and the shopping area along 24th Street began to reflect this, with a notable increase in high-end baby strollers, boutique-style retailers and family-friendly dogs.
Row after row of railroad tracks used to fan out from Southern Pacific’s old 3rd and Townsend train station, serving a community of factories and warehouses, but those began to disappear soon after San Francisco’s decline as a major shipping port in the 1970s. Slowly, over the years things began to change, and suddenly the concept of Mission Bay began to emerge—now with a Major League Baseball stadium, apartment and condo complexes, restaurants, night spots, recreational facilities, shopping and an enormous expansion of the healthcare research clinics operated by the University of California.
MUNI’s expanded service on the T-3rd Street line, plus the 1974 closure of the Hunters Point Naval Base and the more recent demolition of Candlestick Park (also officially known over the years as 3Com Park, San Francisco Stadium at Candlestick Point and Monster Park due to various naming rights and expirations), is continuing to bring change to the southeast corner of the city as well.
The Caucasian majority on the western half of San Francisco has long since been replaced by a predominantly Asian population, often with multiple generations living under the same roof.
Even staid old Parkmerced, my first home once I was on my own and out of college
, used to have a sarcastic reputation of being “for the newly wed and the nearly dead.” Today, it is a mix of recent arrivals from all over the world, students from nearby San Francisco State University (the school purchased several blocks of garden apartments nearest the campus from the Parkmerced Corporation early in this millennium) and a large mix of retirees, singles, couples and young families. A massive redevelopment project, approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2011, and affirmed following a number of legal challenges, is now underway. Over the next twenty years, the thousands of low-rise garden apartments will gradually be demolished, and replacement units, in the form of mid- and high-rise towers, will join the current eleven tower buildings as the neighborhood population nearly doubles.
As we near the end of this second decade of the new millennium, newcomers are still being welcomed, sometimes warily at first—with some media-fed examples of bad behavior in Dolores Park and other recreational locales—yet for the most part, they are drawn into the fabric of city life as San Franciscans.
4
FDR AND THE KNOTTY PINE ROOM
Mr. Roosevelt came home with me the other day.
Until the move, the framed full-page magazine photograph, depicting FDR at his jauntiest, had stood silent sentry on a wall above an old upright piano in one of those knotty pine downstairs rooms that were once so common in Sunset District homes. Today, such places are fading quickly from the scene, as new owners convert them into studio apartments or the latest real estate must-have: the “man-cave.”
Back in the day when the firms of Charles J. O’Callaghan on Taraval Street, James Sullivan on West Portal Avenue and Julius Saxe on Noriega Street were selling Sunset real estate, a standard phrase in their advertising read simply “Knotty pine down + ½ ba,” and everyone knew exactly what that meant. The phrase still evokes images of generations of happy family gatherings, New Year’s Eve celebrations with noise makers and party hats, plus a console radio or an old upright piano in the background and a marvelous array of glassware for every type of drink imaginable lined up on backlit glass shelves behind a built-in wooden bar.
Growing Up in San Francisco Page 2