Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is known for being one of the sunniest neighborhoods in the city and having view of the skyline, Sutro Tower, Twin Peaks, and the bay. A working-class neighborhood until gentrification in the late 1990s, it is now an affluent area and home to some of the highest-income residents in the city according to the United States Census Bureau.
The neighborhood is a popular location for movies and television shows because production can capture sweeping views, steep hills, and a residential area all in one shot.
Location
Potrero Hill is located on the eastern side of the city, east of the Mission District and south of SOMA and Showplace Square. It is bordered by 16th Street to the north, Potrero Avenue and U.S. Route 101 to the west and Cesar Chavez Street to the south. The city of San Francisco considers the area below 20th Street between Potrero Ave and Route 101 to be part of Potrero Hill as well, as outlined in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan.The area east of Highway 280 between Mariposa and Cesar Chavez is known as Dogpatch. Dogpatch was originally part of Potrero Nuevo and its history is closely tied to Potrero Hill. The City has Dogpatch in its neighborhood plans. Dogpatch has its own neighborhood association but shares merchant association, Democratic caucuses, and general neighborhood matters with Potrero Hill.
Characteristics
Potrero Hill started as a European migrants working-class neighborhood in the 1850s. Its central location attracted many working professionals during the dot-com era in the 1990s. Today, it is an upper-class neighborhood and its residents among the youngest in the city with a median age of 35. In addition to the 101 and 280 Interstate freeways, Caltrain also runs through this area.According to Google Earth, the highest point in the neighborhood is 104 meters above sea level, at the site of a water tower that was demolished in 2006.
History
Industry first arrived at Dogpatch in the mid-1850s. The earliest residents were mostly European immigrants. Over time, Dogpatch became more industrialized and many residents moved up the hill to Potrero Hill, turning it into a residential neighborhood. It remained blue-collared and working-class until the mid-1990s when gentrification turned it into a mostly working professional neighborhood, zoned by the San Francisco Planning Department to include light industry and small businesses.Early history
Potrero Hill was uninhabited land for much of its history, used sporadically by Native Americans as hunting ground. Its soil, developed on ultramafic, serpentine rock, promoted not a closed forest but an open landscape of shrub and grass. In the late 1700s, Spanish missionaries grazed cattle on the hill and named this area Potrero Nuevo, "Potrero" is Spanish for "pasture": "Potrero Nuevo" means "new pasture".Potrero Nuevo granted to the De Haro family
gained independence from Spain in 1821. In 1844, the Mexican government granted Potrero Nuevo to Francisco and Ramon de Haro, the 17-year-old twin sons of Don Francisco de Haro, then mayor of Yerba Buena. Just two years later, Francisco and Ramon de Haro, along with their uncle Jose de los Reyes Berreyesa, were killed during the Bear Flag Revolt in San Rafael at the order of U.S. Army Major John C. Fremont, who had declared war on Mexico. With the death of his sons, Don Francisco de Haro became owner of Potrero Nuevo.Construction of street grids in the Gold Rush Era
In 1848, after the conclusion of the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded all of California, and it was admitted into the Union in 1850. Dr. John Townsend became the second mayor of the town now called San Francisco. He succeeded de Haro, who was distraught over the death of his twin sons.With the start of the California Gold Rush in 1848, San Francisco experienced unprecedented rapid growth. Townsend envisioned developing Potrero Hill as a community for migrants and their newfound riches. Townsend, a good friend of de Haro, approached him about dividing his land into individual lots and selling them. De Haro, with his land rights already challenged and fearing that the United States government would now strip him of Potrero Nuevo, agreed to Townsend's suggestion. Together with surveyor Jasper O'Farrell, recent emigrant Cornelius De Boom, and Captain John Sutter, they hashed out the grid and street names. Townsend named the north-south streets after American states and the east-west streets after California counties. At this time, Potrero Hill was not part of San Francisco, so the men marketed this area as "South San Francisco".
Historians speculate that "merging the United States with the counties of California would attract homesick easterners" and their newly acquired gold-rush riches to settle in the neighborhood. There is also speculation that Townsend named the north-south streets after states which he had been to, with Pennsylvania Ave being an extra wide street. However, there is no record of Townsend ever having been to Texas or Florida, whose names appear as streets. Another theory is that battleships named after the states were the source of the street names. The east-west county street names survived until 1895, but as the city expanded, the Post Office demanded a simplification of the street grids. Most of the county streets took the names of the numbered streets that connected them to downtown, but because they didn't all line up exactly, a few county streets survived.
By the standard of the mid-nineteenth century, Potrero Hill was not a convenient location to get to—it was still separated by Mission Bay, which was not yet filled in. Prospective buyers partly deemed Potrero Hill too far away and were wary of De Haro's uncertainty as legal owner of the land. As a result, only a few lots were sold.
Francisco De Haro died in 1849 and was buried in Mission Dolores.
Industry and squatters
After the death of de Haro, squatters began to overtake Potrero Hill around Potrero Point. The de Haro family tried to maintain control of the land but the family's ownership became a legal matter. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court when in 1866 it ruled against the de Haro family. Residents of Potrero Hill celebrated with bonfires after learning of the outcome, some of whom gained title to the lot where they squatted through the Squatter's Rights.Development eventually came in the early 1850s, not in the form of rich gold-miners envisioned by Townsend, but in a more blue-collar variety. The forerunner of PG&E opened a plant in the eastern shores of Potrero Hill in 1852. Not long after, a gunpowder factory opened nearby; then shipyards, iron factories, and warehouses followed. In 1856, San Francisco Cordage opened its extensive manufactory of Manila rope. Potrero Point experienced a minor boom in housing as factory workers preferred to live nearby. The opening of the Long Bridge in the 1860s would drastically change the dynamics of Potrero Hill.
The Long Bridge opened up Potrero
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Pacific Railway Act that provided federal government support for the building of the first transcontinental railroad. In anticipation of the railroad, San Francisco built the Long Bridge in 1865 that connected San Francisco proper over Mission Bay to Potrero Hill and Bayview. Potrero Hill, once deemed too far south, was suddenly a mile-long promenade away. The Long Bridge completely transformed Potrero Nuevo from no man's land to a central hub. One of the first of many waves of real estate speculation on Potrero Hill soon followed. The Long Bridge was closed after Mission Bay was filled in the early 1900s, which made Potrero Hill an even more desirable location.European migration
Potrero Hill was spared from the earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1906. Displaced San Franciscans set up tents and shelter on the hill. Many residents moved to the hill after their dwellings were devastated by fire, including a large population of Russian and Slovenian immigrants who previously resided in South of Market. The influx of new residents to Potrero Hill diversified the neighborhood's demographic.In August 1906 a group of Spiritual Christians from Russia arrived from Hawaii, where they refused to farm sugar cane, but some got work with the steamship lines and were transferred to San Francisco. More Molokans arrived from Los Angeles, Russia and Manchuria. By 1928 they built a 2-story meeting hall on Carolina street, and soon organized the Russian Sectarian Cemetery in Colma with Spiritual Christian Baptists, Evangelicals and Adventists from Russia.
By the early 1900s, a large concentration of European immigrants had settled. The new immigrants, now displaced by the earthquake and fire, had the burden of starting a new home and the strains of entering a new culture. Rev. William E. Parker, Jr., pastor of Olivet Presbyterian Church at 19th and Missouri Street took action by opening his home and began offering English classes. Initially the classes were held for men and later offered for women and youth. In 1918, the growing needs of the neighborhood warranted the incorporation of the Neighborhood House under the California Synodical Society of Home Missions, an organization of Presbyterian Church women. In 1919, renowned architect Julia Morgan was commissioned to design a permanent neighborhood house, now at 953 De Haro Street. On June 11, 1922, the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, fondly nick-named "the NABE", was completed.
The two earliest residential neighborhoods were the Irish Hill and Dutchman's Flat. The infamous Irish Hill, located east of Illinois St and right next to the factories, housed mainly Irish factory workers in boarding houses. Irish gangs were formed and crimes were rampant. Irish Hill was leveled for use as landfill and the residents displaced in 1918.
Over half of Potrero Hill's population at this time was Irish immigrants; Scots, Swiss, Russians, Slovenians, Serbians and Italians made up most of the remaining population. Native born whites made up less than 20% of the population. Today, the remnant of these ethnic groups' heritage is still visible, such as Slovenian Hall on Mariposa St. and the First Russian Christian Molokan Church on Carolina St.