The Mission District

Sentimentally and historically, this district gave root to a large share or the city's leaders. Its character is so strong that it even boasts its own accent, a Brooklynesque way or speech that may not survive another generation. Many or its voices have Spanish accents today. Traditionally a home for the working class that, too, is changing as its Victorian homes become prized abodes for those who can afford to restore them. Its neighborhoods include Eureka Valley, Noe Valley, Dolores Heights, the Inner Mission, the Outer Mission, Glen Park, Diamond Heights, the Excelsior and Crocker Amazon.

Boundaries: The County line at the south, Market Street and the Central Freeway at the north, the Lick Freeway, the U.S. 280 freeway Madison and Burrows Streets, LaGrande Avenue, McLaren Park and Carter Street to the cast.

9A - Bernal Heights - Around the slopes of this bald (except for a telephone company microwave station antenna) hill are a motley group of dwellings (modernistic stucco flats, Victorian and Edwardian houses plus some architect-designed contemporaries) and people. The latter range in income from poor to prosperous, in * occupation from artistic to professional to blue collar, and in ethnicity, from European to Polynesian. Lot sizes are smaller than city standard here, which is the reason you can still pick up a house for. by San Francisco standards, a bargain. Many homes have great views of downtown and the bay.

Boundaries: Army Street, Lick Freeway, U.S. 280 freeway, Mission Street.

9A - Peralta Heights (Bernal Heights) - Located at the northeast corner of Bernal Heights, its houses tend to be newer, stucco fronted dwellings.

Boundaries: Precita, Holladay, Esmeralda Avenues and Harrison Street.

9A - Precita Valley (Bernal Heights) – The name means "little dam" in Spanish: last century the Mexican government built a dam to protect this onetime swamp at the north end of Bernal Heights from flooding. Now it is better known for its pretty green park, a three block long rectangle that provides much needed open space in a part of town where it is scarce. A family area of small homes and flats.

Boundaries: Folsom to Hampshire Streets, Precita Avenue to Army Street.

9B - Happy Valley (South of Market) - Mostly a recollection, this neighborhood was engraved into the present by a bar of the same name inside the Palace Hotel. Back in 1849 it was a rollicking tent city.

Boundaries: First, Third, Mission and Folsom Streets.

9B - South Park - Back in the 1860s, this was a posh address. An oval street with center park, it was modeled after one of those John Nash-designed terraces of Georgian London. Today, its homes are mostly for the poor and the artistic. The latter find that 1860 vintage urban design inspires creativity, hence their houses become studios.

Boundaries: Bryant, Brannan, Second and Third Streets.

9C - Inner Mission - Commercially, a conglomeration of shops, restaurants of multi ethnic (though largely Latino) appeal. Residentially, a mix of Victorians and modern swinger apartments. A sizable second hand furniture neighborhood has replaced what was once the city's largest retail furniture center. A sprinkling of factories remains. There's also a burlesque theater. Two BART stations with bricked, palm tree decorated plazas decorate the main shopping street, the so called Mission Miracle Mile.

Boundaries: Dolores Street, Army Street, Potrero Avenue and Central Skyway.

9C - Old Town (Inner Mission) - A name used to describe the area at the foot of Potrero Hill, downtown side, where a number of early nineteenth century brick warehouses can be found. At its heart is Showplace Square, focal point of one of the West's largest wholesale furnishings centers a three building complex or sandblasted, recycled brick and timbers.

Boundaries: Seventh, King, Rhode Island, 16th, Vermont and Brannan Streets.

9D - China Basin (Mission Bay) - Once known as a dock area for unloading coffee and bananas, the area now houses a wholesale coffee company, an electrical supplies warehouse, a huge hangar like structure containing design studios and offices; as well as Blanche's, a veritable institution featuring art, lunch and a pier garden for outdoor eating.

Boundaries: Fourth, Third, Berry and Channel Streets.

Potrero District

In life style, the Potrero ranges from high-rental to low, from Bohemian to conservative. Commercially it includes high style wholesale furnishings to industrial and warehouse uses. It offers bay views and, by San Francisco standards, a warm summer climate. It includes Old Town, Potrero Hill and Apparel City.

One of the districts hardest hit by the freeway system, the Potrero has a flatland section containing San Francisco General Hospital which has been cut off and turned into a virtually isolated island by the concrete construction.

Boundaries: Division Street at the north, the bay at the east, Islais Creek and U.S. 280 freeway to the south, Lick Freeway and Potrero Avenue to the west.

9E - Dogpatch (Potrero Hill) - Packs of dogs rather than any suggestion of resemblance to cartoonist Al Capp's mythical hillbilly village inspired the name, according to City Archivist Gladys Hansen's San Francisco Almanac. In this neighborhood factories stand alongside old homes. There's a lovely row of Victorian houses on Minnesota Street. History buffs would enjoy seeing Scott School, a wooden structure that looks like a farm country schoolhouse. Some soul rood restaurants here, too, in the sunshine bell below Potrero Hill.

Boundaries: 19th, 23rd, Third and Iowa Streets.

9E - Potrero Hill - An enormous plateau within the sunshine belt of town, overlooking the eastern waterfront. Summer climate and views have attracted artists and professional people who, unfortunately, brought rising rents and home prices with them. A variety of immigrants settled here over the years, leaving their ethnic .identities on names of three bluffs: Russian Hill, uphill from Rhode Island Street and 21st Streets; Scots Hill, from Connecticut to Texas and l9th to 23rd Street; and Irish Hill, which has since been leveled for the Bethlehem Shipyard on the northeast corner of Potrero Hill. The house styles range from older family style dwellings to contemporary apartments.

Boundaries: U.S. 101 and 280 freeways, Mariposa Street to Keith Street.

9F - Skid Road or Row - Since the redevelopment agency ripped down the two bits a night flophouses along Third Street, the muscatel crowd has forsaken the Yerba Buena site (except for a few caves) and expanded along a greater South of Market area.

Boundaries: Mission, Harrison, Ninth Streets and the Embarcadero.

9F - South of Market- Much of the city's history was written in this area which includes several towering concrete extensions of the Financial District. two principal post office buildings, the East Bay and Greyhound bus terminals, the Southern Pacific rail terminal, the Flower Market, the Yerba Buena Center, the Hall of Justice and many warehouses which show signs of blossoming into a series of shelters for artists and their works.

Boundaries: Market Street, the bay, China Basin, Channel, Division, 13th Streets and Central Freeway.

9F - Tenderloin - Big cities name scats of sin in this anatomical fashion. The naughtiness, vice and crime obscure the area's importance as the location of residence hotels for elderly pensioners, of apartments for middle class people of all ages, a broadcasting center, and as the place where one finds good Greek restaurants. There's another sort of color around Mason and Turk Streets which has been dubbed Transvestite Center.

Boundaries: Golden Gate Avenue, Larkin, O'Farrell and Mason Streets.

9G - St. Mary's Park (Bernal Heights South)- Originally the site of St, Mary's College, now in Moraga across the bay, this has been since the decade of the thirties a five hundred home subdivision, laid out in the shape of a bell. It is a folksy, tidy neighborhood of white, tiled roof, single family houses and neat front lawns. Streets are named after Christian brothers on the college faculty. At the entrance, there is a bell monument. And at the far end there is a park and recreation center.

Boundaries: Mission Street, Crescent Avenue, Alemany Boulevard and St. Mary's Park.

9G - Holly Park (Bernal Heights South) - One of the best parks in southeastern San Francisco gives its name to a few residential blocks surrounding this meadow, tennis court and playing field the park portion of which is high enough to enjoy a bay view.

Boundaries: Mission Street, Richland Avenue, Bennington Street and a reservoir.

9G - College Hill (Bernal Heights South) - Across Mission Street from the old site or St. Mary's College are a few blocks that are isolated from the territory to the northwest by the San Jose Boulevard cut. Its homes reveal a wide disparity in age, from contemporary white stucco to early century wood shingle, Notable landmarks are white-columned St. John's Catholic Church and, alongside the heavily trafficked arterial uphill, the Ray Oil & Burner Co. factory.

Boundaries: Milton Street to College Avenue, San Jose Boulevard to Mission Street.

9G - Castro Village - A contemporary name intended to promote several blocks of a newly flourishing business district. It includes, besides such basic shopping center staples as bakeries, drug, florists, pharmacists, variety, hardware and delicatessens (German, Italian and Scandinavian): a number of good restaurants of ethnic variety, book bazaars, funk shops and gay bars. The area rivals Polk Street as a center of gay life.

Boundaries: Castro Street between l7th and l9th Streets, l8th between Diamond and Noe Streets.

9G - Crescent Valley - of mostly working class homes running alongside Cortland Avenue, between Bernal Heights and Holly Park.

Boundaries: Andover Street. Lick Freeway, Eugenia and Jarboe Avenues.

9H - Rincon Hill - Once it was the ritziest place to live, a Nob Hill south of the Slot, but not since 1906. Today, much of the hill has been blasted away to carry an approach to the Bay Bridge. What remains cradles warehouses, offices, union headquarters and a few apartments.

Boundaries: Folsom, Bryant, Spear, Third Streets.