Western Addition: A Basic History
Unfinished History
Post and Laguna Streets, 1927
Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library
The area was built up after 1858 as the city's first middle-class expansion. The district's middle-class quality was lost after the 1906 earthquake when refugees poured into the neighbor-hood and threw up shacks and odd structures in every conceivable lot and corner. By the 1950s this diverse and relatively chaotic assortment of structures, dating from the 1800s, was seen as a cause of delinquency and public health problems.
The Western Addition A-1 clearance project led to the redevelopment of Japantown and the Geary Boulevard corridor in the early 1960s. Once built, the surrounding area appeared even more "blighted" by comparison, so redevelopment monies were directed toward continuing the removal of old housing stock.
--Chris Carlsson
The intersection of Hayes and Buchanan. "The lady that baby-sat me lived in the flat-fronted Victorian on the far left... (SFNative2) the address is 716 Hayes", c. 1958
Photo: Kurt Bank
A little different angle of the same intersection in May 2010
Photo: Michael Greene, San Francisco, CA