San Francisco History

This week I found myself in the Civic Center, which I usually avoid, as it is filthy. I went to the Main library and found the San Francisco History Center. I'd been meaning to research the history of my building for some time: when was it built, who lived there, what was there before, etc.

They gave me a checklist of resources. One of the most interesting is the Sanborn Fire Insurance map. There are several map books laid out on bookshelves. Each one measures about 2' X 4'. They are beautifully detailed records of a city's architectural history. Each building is carefully drawn, with numerous notes and symbols denoting things of interesting to an insurance company, such as building material, number of fire escapes, how many units, what type of commercial use, etc. The pages are thick and covered with corrections, notes, and worn with age. Of course, these are gold mines for the historian, because they provide the most detailed visual record of a city at a given time. These maps were compiled for major American cities, so if you are interested, I advise you to search out the map for your city.

Looking through the 1905-1913 Sanborn books (and microfilms) was like time-traveling. On a given block, you might find stables, 'french laundries', 'chinese laundries' (the difference not explained) vaudeville & motion picture theaters, and my favorite, 'candy factories'. I spent most of my time looking at the maps of the upper fillmore and pacific heights neighborhoods where I live. As you might expect, some things had changed drastically, and others (mainly the private dwellings) had not. My building was an empty lot in 1905, but appeared in the 1913 survey as "The Grenoble Apartments". Apparently there was a wire glass skylight in the building, but it seems long gone. However, the number of units on the map was 26, which is the same as today. I had wondered whether the apartments had been chopped up into smaller rooms.

Looking around the neighborhood, I saw that the building next to Eliza's Chinese restaurant on California St. had been a Chinese laundry in 1905. A church once stood where the Mollie Stone's supermarket parking lot exists today. At Steiner near Sutter was the wonderfully named "Dreamland Rink". Sadly, I saw how busy Japantown was at the turn of the century-many stores marked "Jap.", and other community sites like schools and churches. 30 years after these maps were made, some of these residents-Japanese-Americans-were being hauled off to concentration camps. Once the war was over, the community seems to have waned, despite 60s era attempts at revitalization (and business investment). Today the Japan center is a worn but popular mini mall of various Japanese stores and restaurants.



How to research your San Francisco building:

Sanborn fire maps history:

Sanborn fire maps sample: