.gif)
Market Street (San Francisco)
Encyclopedia
Market Street is an important thoroughfare
Thoroughfare
A thoroughfare is a place of transportation intended to connect one location to another. Highways, roads, and trails are examples of thoroughfares used by a variety of general traffic. On land a thoroughfare may refer to anything from a rough trail to multi-lane highway with grade separated...
in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. It begins at The Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building
Ferry Building
The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay and a shopping center located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California. On top of the building is a large clock tower, which can be seen from Market Street, a main thoroughfare of the city...
at the northeastern edge of the city and runs southwest through downtown, passing the Civic Center and the Castro District, to the intersection with Corbett Avenue in the Twin Peaks neighborhood. Beyond this point, the roadway continues as Portola Drive into the southwestern quadrant of San Francisco.
Market Street is the boundary of two street grids. Streets on its southeast side are parallel or perpendicular to Market Street, while those on the northwest are nine degrees off from the cardinal direction
Cardinal direction
The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the directions of north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials: N, E, S, W. East and west are at right angles to north and south, with east being in the direction of rotation and west being directly opposite. Intermediate...
s.
Market Street is a major transit artery for the city of San Francisco, and has carried in turn horse-drawn streetcars
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
, cable cars
Cable car (railway)
A cable car or cable railway is a mass transit system using rail cars that are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required...
, electric streetcars, electric trolleybus
Trolleybus
A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...
es, and diesel bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es. Today Muni
San Francisco Municipal Railway
The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served with an operating budget of about $700 million...
's buses, trolleybuses, and heritage streetcars (on the F Market
F Market
The F Market & Wharves line is one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California. Unlike the other lines, the F line is operated as a heritage streetcar service, using exclusively historic equipment both from San Francisco's retired fleet as well as from cities around the world...
line) share the street, while below the street the two-level Market Street Subway carries Muni Metro
Muni Metro
Muni Metro is a light rail system serving San Francisco, California, operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway , a division of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency...
and BART. While cable cars no longer operate on Market Street, the surviving cable car lines
San Francisco cable car system
The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...
terminate to the side of the street at its intersections with California Street and Powell Street.
Market Street has been compared to Fifth Avenue, the Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...
, or the Great White Way.
Construction
Market Street cuts across the city for three miles (5 km) from the waterfront to the hills of Twin Peaks. It was laid out originally by Jasper O'Farrell, a 26-year old trained civil engineer who emigrated to Yerba BuenaYerba Buena (town)
Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco when in the Spanish Las Californias Province of New Spain, and then after 1822 in the Mexican territory of Alta California, until the Mexican American War ended with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when California became a territory of the...
, as the town was then known. The town was renamed San Francisco in 1847 after it was captured by Americans during the Mexican-American War. O'Farrell first repaired the original layout of the settlement around Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square is a one-block park in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, that is bounded by Kearny Street on the east, Washington Street on the north, Clay Street on the south, and Walter Lum Place on the west....
and then established Market Street as the widest street in town, 120 feet between property lines. (Van Ness now beats it with 125 feet.) It was described at the time as an arrow aimed straight at "Los Pechos de la Chola" (the Breasts of the Maiden), now called Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks, San Francisco, California
The Twin Peaks are two hills with an elevation of about near the geographic center of San Francisco, California. Except for Mount Davidson, they are the highest points in the city.-Location and climate:...
. Writing in Forgotten Pioneers, T.F. Pendergast wrote:
"When the engineer had completed his map of Market Street and the southern part of the city, what was regarded as the abnormal width of the proposed street excited part of the populace, and an indignation meeting was held to protest against the plan as wanton disregard for rights of landowners; and the mob, for such it was, decided for lynch law. A friend warned O'Farrell, before the crowd had dispersed. He rode with all haste to North Beach, took a boat for Sausalito, and thence put distance behind him on fast horses in relay until he reached his retreat in Sonoma. He found it discreet to remain some time in the country before venturing to return to the city."
At the time, the right-of-way of Market Street was blocked by a sixty-foot sand dune where the Palace Hotel
Palace Hotel, San Francisco
The Palace Hotel is a landmark historic hotel in San Francisco, California, located at the SW corner of Market and New Montgomery streets. Also referred to as the "New" Palace Hotel to distinguish it from the original 1875 Palace Hotel that it was built to replace, the present...
is now, and a hundred yards further west stood a sand hill nearly ninety feet tall. The city soon filled in the ground between Portsmouth Square and Happy Valley at First and Mission Street
Mission Street
Mission Street is a north-south arterial thoroughfare in San Francisco, California that runs from the city's southern border to its northeast corner. The street and the Mission District through which it runs were named for the Spanish Mission Dolores, several blocks away from the modern route. Only...
. The dunes were leveled and the sand used for fill.
Reconstruction
Market Street underwent major changes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Muni MetroMuni Metro
Muni Metro is a light rail system serving San Francisco, California, operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway , a division of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency...
service was moved underground in concert with the construction of the Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The heavy-rail public transit and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in the East Bay and suburbs in northern San Mateo County. BART operates five lines on of track with 44 stations in four counties...
system.
Festivities
Market Street parades have long marked global events, such as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Preparedness Day bombingPreparedness Day bombing
The Preparedness Day Bombing was a bombing in San Francisco, California on July 22, 1916, when the city held a parade in honor of Preparedness Day, in anticipation of the United States' imminent entry into World War I. During the parade a suitcase bomb was detonated, killing ten and wounding...
of 1916, the parade of the influenza-masked revelers of the first Armistice Day
Armistice Day
Armistice Day is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day...
, the 1934 general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
that paralyzed the port
Port
A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....
s of the Pacific Coast, the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In the days of the first United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
conferences, Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
, Molotov, Stettinius, and Bidault sped up Market street, waving to the crowds of hopefuls.
Market Street enjoyed a fine moment on Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
in 1910, when opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame.Tetrazzini's voice was remarkable for its phenomenal flexibility, thrust, steadiness and thrilling tone...
(for whom the dish Tetrazzini
Tetrazzini
Tetrazzini is an American dish usually involving a non-red meat , mushrooms, and almonds in a butter/cream and parmesan sauce flavored with wine or sherry and stock vegetables such as onions, celery, and carrots...
was named) sang to the city she loved. Another historic Market Street memory was the New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
celebration at the Ferry Building
Ferry Building
The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay and a shopping center located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California. On top of the building is a large clock tower, which can be seen from Market Street, a main thoroughfare of the city...
on December 31, 1999. Over 1.2 million people jammed Market Street and its intersecting streets for the raucous and peaceful turn-of-the-century celebration.
Redevelopment
Central Market Community Benefit District extends from Fifth to Ninth Streets, and is considered part of either the "Mid Market" or "South of MarketSouth of Market, San Francisco, California
South of Market is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States.-Name and location:Its boundaries are Market Street to the northwest, San Francisco Bay to the northeast, Mission Creek to the southeast, and Division Street, 13th Street and U.S. Route 101 to the southwest...
" areas.
On September 29, 2009, traffic-calming efforts took effect for a six-week test in which private automobiles would be restricted in travelling east from Sixth Street towards the Ferry Building. All eastbound traffic will be encouraged to turn right onto 10th Steet and then required to do so at 8th Street. Eastbound traffic entering Market from Seventh Street will be required to exit Market at Sixth. These traffic-calming efforts are following recent urban planning trends seeking to make streets safer and more pleasant. Drivers failing to comply would face fines.
External links
- Photo tour of Market Street A photo tour of Market Street complete with narrative text.
- Virtual tour An aerial photo with links to buildings along Market Street
- JB Monaco Market Street Photo Gallery
- City Place, a proposed development on the 900 block of Market Street
- Short film shot from the front of a cable-car descending Market Street in 1906, days before the earthquake