San Francisco Culture

Chapter 13: Culture

View from Bernal Hights

Golden Gate Park

There has been much mention in previous blogs about the cultural diversity and many ethnic groups that have given San Francisco its character, and continue to do so. The Northwest region of the United States (Oregon, Washington) is known for its environmental consciousness, to which San Francisco and most of Northern California is a part of. Overall, this area attracts a different kind of person, one who is not looking for a New York or Las Vegas. Although these states contain bustling metropolitan cities, they are nestled between acres of natural landscapes and wildlife preserves. This area is more about community and life-style and social tolerance.

Castro Street

Sun Bathers in Dolores Park (nowhere near the beach!)

Since I was young, places like San Francisco, Eugene, Oregon and Seattle, Washington have captured my attention as places I would like to move. I am a born and raised in Los Angeles girl, but the older I get, I just do not feel that I get this city, or that this city gets me. In doing this blog, I have only reinforced my draw to the North. I hope the move happens when I finish my degree! SOON!

A block on Valencia Street

San Francisco Neighborhoods

Chapter 11: Neighborhoods

Even though San Francisco is a small sized city, there are many different neighborhoods or districts that exist, each with a distinct style and flavor. I've written a little about each area based on the map above.

District 1 – Richmond/Laurel Heights

This is the area where Golden Gate Park resides and the Presidio. It is also popular for its many critically acclaimed restaurants and shopping. Historically it was a Jewish and Italian area, but after WWII it became more Chinese, to which it is now referred to as the “New Chinatown.”

District 2 & 3 – Sunset

This district borders the south of Golden Gate Park. It is a primarily residential area built on a grid. It contains the campus of the University of California, San Francisco, and is called to as “The Avenues.”

District 4 & 5 – Castro/Noe Valley – Twin Peaks

The Castor is probably best known as the “Gay” area of the City, but because of many Victorian homes, it does contain “straight” residents and families. In fact, there is a gentrification of young families with children moving in the last few years. Historically it was dairy farms and dirt roads, inhabited by Mexican land barons and European homesteaders. It is now a popular place for late nightclubs and is one of the safest neighborhoods in the City.

Noe Valley is a socially/shopper friendly place. It is filled with family residences with a mixed economic and political diversity--, from working class, dot.comers, millionaires, and Hollywood film crews, liberal and conservatives alike. It was named after the last Mexican Mayor of the area Jose de Jesus Noe. Though gentrification, property has risen to the millions.

Twin Peaks is named after the two hills that sit in the surrounding neighborhood. The peaks themselves, 922 feet high, 31 acres of undeveloped land. It is a popular hiking spot and contains a bird sanctuary.

District 6 & 7 – Marina/Presidio – Pacific Heights – The Height-Ashbury

The Marina was developed after the big earthquake of 1906 (in fact there is a myth that the area was built on dumped rubble from the earthquake). It is filled with upper scale apartment buildings and restaurants. Historically, this is the area where Native Americans resided.

The Presidio which sits in the Marina neighborhood used to be a Spanish Military base. It is now a historic landmark, run by the Golden Gate Park National Park.

Pacific Heights is the most luxurious of all the City’s neighborhoods. There are Victorian mansions, which were built after the earthquake, and you’ll find some of the greatest views of the whole City. For this reason, it is a tourist attraction.

The Height-Ashbury district is another well known district as the Hippy Mecca in the 1960s. There are actually two streets that intersect named Height & Ashbury for which it gets its name. The bohemian hippy subculture mentality still prevails in this area, although some mainstream stores do exist here, it consists of mostly indipendedntly own stores.

District 8 & 9 – Fishermans Warf – Chinatown/North Beach – Russian/Nob Hill – Downtown – Soma/Potero Hills – Mission/Bernal Heights

This area is the most commercial and tourist visited area. Fisherman’s Warf and Downtown contain many, many mainstream stores and tourist kitschy stores. Union Square in downtown is literally a square park flanked by mounds of department and fashion stores. One can ride the famous cable cars around this area. Despite its tourist appeal, it is an entertaining area.

Chinatown, although visited by tourist, does not really cater to tourist, per se. It is a thriving Chinese community. Statistically it draws more tourist than Golden Gate Bridge!

Russian Hill is a mostly residential neighborhood, charmed by coffeshops, unusual stores and antique shops. The famous crooked street, Lombard, runs down the hill. The place got its name from goldminers who discovered several tombstones containing Russian writing on them. The best guest of their identity were fur traders or sailors. The tombstones were never preserved and lost, but the nickname “Russian Hill” stuck. The names does not imply a large Russian community here. The actual Russian community in the City exist in the Richmond district.

Noe Hill is another highly affluent area, probably the first rich area that comes to mind in San Francisco, mainly because this is where the “old money” resides (for this reason, and it is easy, it has the nickname “Snob Hill”). Rows of mansions fill the streets. It is also famous for the many movies that have been filmed in the area such as “The Rock,” “Vertigo,” “Dirty Harry,” and the 1980’s TV series “Full House.”

The Mission district is where the “spice of life” is. For one, it is the highest concentration of Latin Americans (and their ethnic foods, i.e. Salvadorian, Nicaraguan, Mexican) and figuratively because of the many popular nightclubs that line Valencia Street. It is a artsy/hipster place and reminds me a lot of Echo Park/Silverlake in Los Angles, only cooler, lol!

Bernal Heights is the forgotten area of San Francisco, situated to the South of the Mission district. It is a quiet neighborhood that attracts artist, progressives and has a large lesbian population. It is attractive to first homebuyers and dog lovers, as it is one of the few areas where you can get a house with a small yard (most houses in the City lack yards, and apartments do no contain yards). Through gentrification, it has lost its reputation as being a dangerous area filled with drugs and violence. Historically this area was a rancho owned by Jose Cornello de Bernal and during the 1906 earthquakes this area did not suffer as much damage due to the fact that it sits on a bedrock foundation.

District 10 – Excelsior/Bayview – Hunters Point

Excelsior district is an area that runs along south of Interstate 280, with its intersections being Mission Street and Ocean Avenue. It is the most ethnically diverse area. The area over the years has tried to gain attraction through development and entertainment festivals that celebrate its diversity and present culture. Gerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead grew up in the area, so there is a “Jerry Day” celebration near his birthday, August 5, attracting thousands yearly. The McLaren Park Amphitheater was renamed the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater on July 21, 2005. This is where Jerry Day is held.

Bayview is a small district that stretches along Third Street, south of Evans Avenue. Its Neighborhood History Preservation Project is housed there. There are urban gardens and public art projects that have been developed entirely by the residents, who are organized and call themselves the Quesada Garden Initiative.

Hunters Point is west of Bayview is home to the Shipyards. It also boasts the warmest area in the City. It also contains toxic waste yards (wonder if that affects the climate). Since the 1950’s it has been a Afro-American community, Blacks who migrated from the Southern states seeking work in the shipyards.

Human Impact on the Environment

Chapter 12

San Francisco is filled with National Recreation Parks, this has influenced the city to be very environmentally concieious. I am sure that this environmental conciousness was present before the hippies of Haight and Ashbury back in the mid-1960s, but I am sure that some of their lifestyle that involved getting back to nature has influenced present day environmental conciousness.

One may visit San Francisco’s Department of the Environment’s website to see just how serious they are. <>

Recent Oil Spill in the Bay

Oil Surrounding Alcatraz

A huge oil spill occurred in the San Francisco Bay on November 7, 2007. 58,000 gallons of oil seeped from an 810-foot-long containership as a result of it smashing into the base of the Bay Bridge. The Bridge suffered no structural damage, but wildlife will be in trouble for the weeks to come. On another economic level, the commercial crab season was coming up, but due to the spill, it has been postpone. It apparently was a bad fishing summer season, and now this.

An oil broom pulled up from the waters.

In the first few days, there was an overwhelming response of citizens volunteering to help clean up the oil spill, however they were turned away for safety reasons–the oil is just too hazardous for untrained people to handle. Training of this kind can take only 24 hours, but at the time, there was no time or offical trainers set up to train volunteers. The City of S.F. has about 150 specially trained municipal workers in this line of work, to help clean the beaches, but the Coast Guard has been reluctant to call on them, stating that they have it under control. Early this week of November 11th, the Coast Guard recognized that it as well as state and federal agencies were ill prepared to handle volunteer requests, and realize they lost out on a great resource those first few days. In response, the California Department of Fish and Game held instructional session for volunteers.

Those first eager citizens were given grunt work to do for Oiled Wildlife Care Network (www.owcn.org), an organization of UC Davis who are helping to save the birds. Citizens are not washing birds, but they are helping with food preperation, cleaning equipemtna and bird pins. (Fun fact: Ultra Dawn dish soap is what is being used to wash the oil off the birds, because it has been proven to work the best of them all. Proctor & Gamble, makers of UltraDawn have donated 30 cases of 22-ounce bottles for OWCN’s current work).

A volunteer picks up an oil-slicked bird

Here is one of the better articles pertaining to this incident, with a link that has a audio podcast of the Coast Guard talking with the newspaper The Chronicle, along with photographs
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/13/MNO2TB3AV.DTL&hw=oil+spill&sn=022&sc=573

Clean Technology

San Franciscos biggest economy draws are technology, biotechnology, health care, and telecommunications, in addition to tourism. But another technology of special interest to venture capitalist has been Clean Technology. What is meant by Clean Technology are innovations such as hybrid/electric vehicles, wind power, solar energy, and energy efficient building design. The Mayor of San Francisco has an initiative that works with the an advisory council to help put San Francisco at the hub of this business and job attraction strategies, and help establish public-private partnerships in this industry.
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Recreational Resources

Chapter 11

What are the City’s recreational resources?

Although San Francisco is 7miles x 7 miles, there is an amazing amount of things to do. Because it is a walking city, and transportation is plentiful and constant, it is easy to get around. For instance, I live 10 miles away from my job here in Los Angeles. I have taken the bus before and with our MTA it takes 2 hours to get there because of the poor frequency of buses. I have taken the bus, light rail, trolley, or BART from one end of San Francisco to another, and it is anywhere from 30-45 minutes.

According to an article in Outlook Magazine's quality-of-life report , San Francisco ranked #1 nationally in nine categories: arts, health, recreation, transportation, education,climate, economy, safety, and housing. San Francisco ranked first in the arts, second in health and
recreation, and fourth in transportation.

The City contains many National Recreation areas. One of the biggest and best getaways is Golden Gate Park, a National Park. It is a little over 1,000 acres in the middle of the City and is larger than New York’s Central Park. It starts, or ends depending on how you look at it, at the beach and stretches into San Francisco. There are numerous things to see here other than just green grass and trees; there is a botanical garden, the Striping Arboretum; the Japanese Tea Garden, where you can have Japanese tea service in a traditional Japanese wooden patio overlooking the carefully laid out and beautifully manicured garden and pond; the only national AIDS memorial called the AIDS Memorial Grove; two lakes, Stow Lake and Spreckels Lake where you can rent rowboats and where you can race radio controlled boats; it contains two museums, the De Young Art museum and the Academy of Sciences, one of the largest natural history museums in the world which also houses an aquarium and planetarium; Kezar Stadium is also located here, in the southeast corner of the park, the former home of the Oakland Raiders and 49ers–it now host amateur sports, high school football games, and is the home to the San Francisco Dragons, a lacrosse team.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area is not a continuous location, but there is a collection of areas all over the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the more popular areas are: Alcatraz, the Presidio, Ocean & Baker Beaches, and Land’s End.

Additional recreational things to do in San Francisco are sight seeing places like China Town, Coit Tower, Lombard Street (the curvy brick street), jumping on one of the public transpirations and seeing where it takes you. For shoppers and real tourism, you can go to the Embarcadero and Fisherman’s Warf where there are loads of stores, seafood restaurants; Giant’s Stadium is located on that side of town.

One of my favorite things to do in San Francisco is eat. There are so many great places to dine. Just like Los Angeles, they have every ethnicity, but it’s all in walking distance or a hop on the bus: Indian, Asian, Little Italy, Russian, American, or British just to name a few.