Sunset District, San Francisco

The Outer Sunset from Grand View Park

The Sunset District is a neighborhood in the west-central part of San Francisco, California, United States, that is primarily residential and is built along a grid pattern. It was one of the last areas of San Francisco to be developed, and most of its homes and buildings date from the 1920s through the 1950s, with the fastest rate of construction occurring during the 1930s and 1940s (although parts of the Inner Sunset were developed beginning in the 1890s) .

Geography

Golden Gate Park forms the neighborhood's northern border, and the Pacific Ocean (or, more specifically, the long, flat strand of beach known as Ocean Beach) forms its western border. The Sunset District's southern and eastern borders are not as clearly defined, but there is a general consensus that the neighborhood extends no further than Sigmund Stern Grove and Sloat Boulevard in the south and no further east than Stanyan Street (just east of the Parnassus campus of the University of California, San Francisco) and Laguna Honda Hospital. Prior to the residential and commercial development of the Sunset District, much of the area was covered by sand dunes and was originally referred to by 19th century San Franciscans as "the Outside Lands".

File:Sunset 1886.jpg

Looking south from what is now Golden Gate Park, toward what are now the Inner Sunset and Golden Gate Heights areas, of what is now San Francisco's Sunset District, in 1886.

The Sunset District is further divided into three separate neighborhoods, the Inner Sunset, Central Sunset and Outer Sunset. The commercial area of the Inner Sunset is centered around Irving Street between 7th and 11th Avenues. The Central Sunset is generally considered to begin at 19th Avenue and to extend to 36th Avenue, The Outer Sunset starts at 37th Avenue and extends to the Great Highway across from the Ocean. The southern half of the Outer Sunset is recognized as a separate neighborhood known as Parkside. The Parkside District extends south of Ortega Street (or at certain points, Noriega Street) to Sloat Boulevard and west of 19th Avenue to the Great Highway (including part of Ocean Beach).

Characteristics

The Sunset District is the largest district within the city of San Francisco. Districts in San Francisco are sections of the city larger than neighborhoods, but distinct enough (at least when they were initially identified) to be set apart by name from another district.

The Sunset comprises much of the west-central section of San Francisco. Its northern border is Golden Gate Park, western border Ocean Beach, southern border Sloat Boulevard, and its eastern border is at Stanyan St. All six lanes of State Route 1 run directly through the middle of the Sunset District along 19th Avenue, neatly bisecting the district into two sub-districts—the Inner Sunset (east of 19th Avenue) and the Outer Sunset (from 19th Avenue to Ocean Beach). Those two areas are very different in terms of demographics and commercial development.

The western part of the Sunset borders the cold north Californian Pacific Ocean coastline, so it tends to get much of the fog San Francisco is famous for. The Sunset is one of the more residential districts in San Francisco. The area, particularly the Outer Sunset, has several assets to the people who live there: the best-performing schools in the city; a low crime rate; plenty of on-street parking (a rarity in San Francisco); and great ocean views. Sand can be found on roadways and driveways within the first 5-10 blocks east of Ocean Beach, carried by Pacific Ocean winds.

The Sunset (paticulary the outer Sunset) can be foggy for many consecutive days during summer. Consecutive days of sunshine are quite rare at this time. The fog typically retreats toward the west in late afternoon, presenting a pleasing sunset. The Sunset's finest weather is usually from mid September through October, when regional air patterns transition from onshore to offshore weather and the area is free of fog.

The commercial area along Irving Street is served by Muni Metro's N Judah line. The neighborhood's property values have risen along with those of other San Francisco districts, most spectacularly during the late 1990s. Wood-frame and stucco homes of 1,000-1,500 square feet, originally built in the 1930s and 1940s for $6,000-$10,000, now sell for prices that often reach $950,000 and beyond.

The Inner Sunset is now a popular evening destination, primarily due to the influx of young transplants with disposable income. It has a diverse mix of restaurants along 9th Avenue and Irving Street (the intersection of which is the focal point of the area). The fortunes of the Inner Sunset have only risen in the last decade starting with the sudden influx of young transplants from all over the United States during the late '90s. Prior to the dot-com boom of the late '90s, smaller service businesses such as laundromats and grocery stores dominated the Inner Sunset's commercial character. The population of the Outer Sunset is approximately 45% Asian[1], so the commercial development in that area tends to cater to Asian, and especially Chinese, interests.

Architecture

As in the northerly Richmond District streets are laid out in long, narrow blocks, eight to the mile north-south and eighteen to the mile east-west. Unlike the more expansive Richmond District lot, the typical lot on a numbered avenue (north-south) will be one half of the block in depth (about 125 feet from the curb) and very narrow - typically 25 feet in width for most. Setbacks beyond the inner sidewalk edge will be modest and most original small lawn patches have been replaced with concrete over the years. Many buildings will be built with only an inch or so between them and so will have windows only on the street and backyard side, with skylights on the upper floor. Most houses built after 1945 will be in blocks with only a very few floorplans with exterior architectural variety obtained solely by streetside variations, usually with only two to four houses in a row having a common reference point such as French Normandy, Spanish Colonial, or Streamline Moderne styles. On the street side, concrete stucco dominates. Owing to the narrow lots, a greater proportion of later houses will be two story, with the first floor a single car garage, entrance, and utility space and above two bedrooms, bath, kitchen/dining and livingroom — such two story layouts on 25 foot lots are called a "Junior Five". Some older houses in the Sunset will be found in Sunset Village, an enclave of only a few square blocks in the North-West corner, where once this district serviced beach visitors, most having been replaced with more modern structures. Some date to the post 1906 earthquake recovery period, with at least one being built from old trolley cars.

Demographics and subcultures

About half of the Sunset's residents are Asian American (mostly Chinese American)[2], a result of a demographic shift that began in the late 1960s and accelerated from the 1980s as Asian immigration to San Francisco increased dramatically and much of the original, nearly exclusively white, heavily Irish American population of the Sunset moved to other neighborhoods and outlying suburban areas . A major commercial area of the Sunset District, Irving Street between 19th Avenue and 24th Avenue, is today lined with businesses catering to Asian Americans, with additional commercial areas filled with Asian grocery stores and restaurants in other parts of the Sunset District as well, such as on Taraval Street and Noriega Street west of 19th Avenue. In addition, there is still a significant Irish American and Irish minority in the neighborhood and there are several Irish pubs in the Sunset. The Sunset also contains three synagogues and several churches, mosques, and Buddhist temples.

This thematic map shows the Sunset District's large Asian American population in southwest San Francisco

The strip near the Pacific Ocean has a notable population of surfers who take advantage of the sometimes excellent surf conditions of Ocean Beach.

The Avenues

The Sunset District and the neighboring Richmond District (on the north side of Golden Gate Park) are often collectively known as The Avenues, because the majority of both neighborhoods are spanned by numbered north-south avenues. When the city was originally laid out, the avenues were numbered from 1st to 49th and the east-west streets were lettered A to X. In 1909, to reduce confusion for mail carriers, the east-west streets and 1st Avenue and 49th Avenue were renamed. The east-west streets were named after American-born heroes & Spanish explorers in ascending alphabetical order in a southward direction. First Avenue was renamed Arguello Boulevard and 49th Avenue was renamed La Playa Street.

Today, the first numbered avenue is 2nd Avenue, starting one block west of Arguello Boulevard, and the last is 48th Avenue near Ocean Beach. The avenue numbers increase incrementally, with the exception that there is no 13th Avenue; instead, it is known as Funston Avenue (named for Frederick Funston, a Spanish-American War general who was sent to the city to direct its recovery from the 1906 earthquake).

The east-west streets in the Sunset are for the most part in alphabetical order. These streets are: Lincoln, Hugo (Inner Sunset only), Irving, Judah, Kirkham, Lawton, Moraga, Noriega, Ortega, Pacheco, Quintara, Rivera, Santiago, Taraval, Ulloa, Vicente, Wawona, and Yorba. "X" was originally proposed to be Xavier, but was changed to Yorba due to a pronunciation controversy.

City districts

San Francisco's eleven districts each elect a single member to the city's Board of Supervisors. Most of the central and outer sunset constitutes District 4, which has traditionally elected Chinese supervisors from the business community. The inner sunset overlaps the southern edge of the more liberal-leaning District 5, encompassing the Haight-Ashbury and Western Addition.

District 4 supervisors

• Carmen Chu 2007 - present
• Ed Jew 2006 - 2007
• Fiona Ma 2002 - 2006
• Leland Yee 1997 - 2002

District 5 supervisors

• Ross Mirkarimi 2005 - present
• Matt Gonzalez 2000 - 2005

Education

San Francisco Unified School District operates public schools. A. P. Giannini Middle School opened in 1954 in the Sunset District. One of the campuses of Cornerstone Academy, the largest private elementary school in San Francisco, is located in the Sunset District.

Further reading

• Ungaretti, Lorri (2003). San Francisco's Sunset District. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-2862-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Inner, Center and Outer Sunset guided photo tour
• Template:Wikitravelpar
• Inner, Outer Sunset Neighborhood Guide (SFGate)
• Sunset Beacon, local newspaper
• Street Naming Controversy How the east-west streets in the Sunset were renamed in 1909
• Photographs of the Sunset District, 1886-1972, at San Francisco Public Library
• Western Neighborhoods Project
• Sunset Neighborhood Beacon Center, youth and family community center
• Sunset Community Space, wikispace for Sunset service providers and residents
• Sunset District Events Calendar, local events calendar