Potrero Hill is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California. A working-class neighborhood until gentrification in the late 1990s, it is now home to mostly upper-income residents.
Location
Potrero Hill is located on the eastern side of the city, east of the Mission District and south of SOMA (South of Market) and the newly designated district Showplace Square. It is bordered by 16th Street to the north, Potrero Avenue and U.S. Route 101 (below 20th Street) to the west and Cesar Chavez Street to the south. The city of San Francisco considers the area below 20th Street between Potrero Ave and Route 101 to be part of Potrero Hill as well, as outlined in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan.
The area east of Highway 280 between Mariposa and Cesar Chavez (and west of the waterfront) is known as Dogpatch. Dogpatch was originally part of Potrero Nuevo and its history is closely tied to Potrero Hill. Some consider Dogpatch to be its own neighborhood while others disagree, although the City has Dogpatch in its neighborhood plans. Dogpatch has its own neighborhood association but shares merchant association, Democratic caucuses, and general neighborhood matters with Potrero Hill.
Characteristics
According to Google Earth, the highest point in the neighborhood is 104 meters (about 341 feet) above sea level, at the site of a water tower that was demolished in 2006.
Potrero Hill started as a Caucasian working-class neighborhood in the 1850s. Its central location attracted many working professionals during the dot-com era in the 1990s. Today, it is mostly an upper-middle-class family-oriented neighborhood. In addition to the 101 and 280 Interstate freeways, Caltrain also runs through this area.
History
Industry first arrived at Dogpatch in the mid-1850s. The earliest residents were mostly European immigrants. Over time, Dogpatch became more industrialized and many residents moved up the hill to Potrero Hill, turning it into a residential neighborhood. It remained blue-collared and working-class until the mid-1990s when gentrification turned it into a mostly working professional neighborhood, zoned by the San Francisco Planning Department to include light industry and small businesses.
Early history
Potrero Hill was uninhabited land for much of its history, used sporadically by Native Americans as hunting ground. Its soil, developed on ultramafic, serpentine rock, promoted not a closed forest but an open landscape of shrub and grass. In the late 1700s, Spanish missionaries grazed cattle on the hill and named this area Potrero Nuevo, "Potrero" is Spanish for "pasture": "Potrero Nuevo" means "new pasture".
Potrero Nuevo granted to the De Haro family
Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821. In 1844, the Mexican government granted Potrero Nuevo to Francisco and Ramon de Haro, the 17-year-old twin sons of Don Francisco de Haro, then mayor of Yerba Buena. Just two years later, Francisco and Ramon de Haro, along with their uncle Jose de los Reyes Berreyesa, were killed during the Bear Flag Revolt in San Rafael at the order of U.S. Army Major John C. Fremont, who had declared war on Mexico. With the death of his sons, Don Francisco de Haro became owner of Potrero Nuevo.
Construction of street grids in the Gold Rush Era
In 1848, after the conclusion of the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded all of California, and it was admitted into the Union in 1850. Dr. John Townsend became the second mayor of the town now called San Francisco (changed from Yerba Buena in 1847). He succeeded de Haro, who was distraught over the death of his twin sons.
With the start of the California Gold Rush in 1848, San Francisco experienced unprecedented rapid growth. Townsend envisioned developing Potrero Hill as a community for migrants and their newfound riches. Townsend, a good friend of de Haro, approached him about dividing his land into individual lots and selling them. De Haro, with his land rights already challenged and fearing that the United States government would now strip him of Potrero Nuevo, agreed to Townsend's suggestion. Together with surveyor Jasper O'Farrell, recent emigrant Cornelius De Boom, and Captain John Sutter, they hashed out the grid and street names. Townsend named the north-south streets after American states (Arkansas, Utah, Kansas, etc.) and the east-west streets after California counties (Mariposa, Alameda, Butte, Santa Clara, etc.). At this time, Potrero Hill was not part of San Francisco, so the men marketed this area as "South San Francisco".