Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika As at every tourist destination, visitors to San Francisco love to check off the usual sightseeing highlights: Golden Gate Bridge, the cable car, Alcatraz, Alamo Square with its neat Victorian houses and of course Fisherman's Wharf, which locals avoid like the plague. There's many places listed in the popular tourist guides which are actually worth visiting, of course, but the city also offers many hidden gems, unexplicably neglected by both tourists and locals alike, although I'd consider them part of the heart and soul of San Francisco. One of these places is the Dogpatch neighborhood, located in the eastern part of town, adjacent to the Bay and between Mariposa and Cesar Chavez Street.
As an well-established part of San Francisco history, the Dogpatch neighborhood has gone through stunning developments over the years. You can find some of San Francisco's oldest buildings there, thanks to the fact that neither the 1906 earthquake nor the following fire blaze caused any harm there.
For many years, the Dogpatch neighborhood used to be a working class neighborhood with a high percentage of European immigrants, making a living by working at the surrounding factories and the shipyard at Pier 70. The municipal company PG&E, sole provider of gas and electricy in San Francisco, opened a factory building there as far back as 1852. Around 1990 hower, the landscape started to change with the dot com boom. Working class families were driven out due to increasing rents, and the upper middleclass started to move into the beautiful old tiny houses, thanks to which San Francisco is such a charming city.
The newly opened streetcar T Line which runs through the neighborhood also brought noticable changes. And only a few blocks away, the Mission Bay neighborhood has also been going through drastic changes, as the renowned UCSF hospital erected an entirely new research complex there with numerous buildings. Not all changes are bad, however, as many great new restaurants can attest to, as well as signature stores that are unique to San Francisco, like the bag shop "Rigshaw Bagworks" or "Poco Dolce" which offers an exquisit selection of fine confectionery and chocolate.
Around the corner is a hip butcher shop, "Olivier’s Butchery", which is a rarity in the U.S, because most people buy their meat shrinkwrapped at the supermarket. Another interesting venture is "The Workshop Residence", where artists get the opportunity to collaborate with local companies to create and sell unique products.
If you're interested in getting a whiff of how the Dogpatch was like in the olden days, go to the Dogpatch Saloon which has been serving as the local watering hole all the way back since 1912. And don't miss out on the adjacent truly unique Pier 70 area, where abandoned factory buildings hint on how this area looked like 100 years ago. It's a treasure trove for every photographer and history buff, and I love to stroll through the streets and imagine what life was like back then.
Pier 70 hasn't been entirely abandoned, by the way, as the old shipyard is still in the business of repairing vessels and the Noonan Building is home to various local artists. But the bulldozers are already lined up waiting to turn the area into a bustling business and appartment district in 2017, allegedly by integrating some of the historic buildings into the newly shaped landscape. I recommend you take a last look at the area right now, as newly constructed buildings in San Francisco tend to be boring and architecturally uninspired these days.
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