How the Tiny Port Town of Yerba Buena Turned Into the Bustling City of San Francisco
Map historianDaniel Steiner, who previously explained howNYC's first street grid originated inGravesend, Brooklyn, and the origins of the crooked streets of Los Angeles, talked about how the tiny port town of Yerba Buena evolved into the bustling city of San Francisco.
Much of the swampy land surrounding the city was filled with sand from flattened hills, which allowed cartographers to create a city grid similar to that of New York City, with Market Street as its central axis. Unfortunately for the urban planners, many of the hills just would not cooperate, so the map had to conform to the terrain.
David Hewes, who made a great fortune by having his steam shovel works ...Hewes would come over and build his little rail line right up to your lot line and bring his steam shovel and he'd take all the sand and rock and debris and he'd flatten your property for you. Now he had these train loads full of sand and debris so he'd go to this other person who happened to own water lots that they'd speculated on on the theory that if I buy this mud flat out in the water someday there'll be enough extra rock and sand and debristhat I can build it up and turn it into real land.
After the 1906 earthquake, the city was rebuilt, thanks to the fireproof stone facade of the local US Mint. The remaining money was used to expand into outer areas, such as theRichmondandSunsetdistricts, which expanded the map and increased the city's size.
One of the survivors of the 1906 disaster was the US Mint. While nearly everything around it was reduced to rubble and ash, the Mint and the $300 million worth of gold inside of it were safe. That's somewhere in the ballpark of $10 billion in today's money. Because workers fought off the flames, the Mint... was able to be a financial anchor to rebuilding the city and in that process, the destruction turned to expansion. With the displacement of over 250,000 people. what had been speculative land to the west now became essential and the result is today's Richmond and Sunset districts.
This was good until skyscrapers and freeways were built. That's when the citizens of San Francisco protested the Manhattanization" of their city.
The city's early fires building codes had placed strict limits on height across San Francisco but as construction advanced the shadows of taller and taller buildings began to stretch across the city. The invasion of these skyscrapers was referred to as Manhattanization and just as the freeways were rejected so were the highrises that threatened to destroy the character of this city. A lot of cities around the country fought against freeways and high rises but San Francisco won.
Previous Posts by Daniel SteinerThe First New York City Street Grid Was Laid Out in Gravesend, Brooklyn in 1645
How 18th Century Spanish Conquistadors Built the Heart Los Angeles Around Crooked Streets