Castro District, San Francisco
The Castro District, commonly referenced as The Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States, San Franciscos gay village is mostly concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church Street and on sides of the Castro neighborhood from Church Street to Eureka Street. Some consider it to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights, which both have a strong LGBT presence and it reappears in several discontinuous sections before ultimately terminating at Chenery Street, in the heart of Glen Park. Castro Street was named for José Castro, a Californian leader of Mexican opposition to U. S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836. The neighborhood now known as the Castro was created in 1887 when the Market Street Railway Company built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown.
In 1891, Alfred E. Clarke built his mansion at the corner of Douglass and it survived the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed a large portion of San Francisco. Up to the 19th century, the possession of the Russian Empire in North America included the modern-day U. S. State of Alaska and settlements in the modern-day U. S. states of California. These Russian possessions were collectively and officially referred to by the name Russian America from 1733 to 1867, formal incorporation of the possessions by Russia did not take place until the establishment of the Russian-American Company in 1799. At the time, Russia was a young naval power. From the start, in 1840–1865, three consecutive Finnish pastors served this pastorate, Uno Cygnaeus, Gabriel Plathán and Georg Gustaf Winter, the Finns Aaron Sjöstrom and Otto Reinhold Rehn served as the parish organists/sextons during the same period. In 1841, under the governorship of Russian America by Finnish Arvid Adolf Etholén, during the final three decades of the existence of Russian America, Finnish Chief Managers of Russian America included Arvid Adolf Etholén in 1840–1845 and Johan Hampus Furuhjelm in 1859–1864.
A third Finn, Johan Joachim von Bartram, declined the offer for the term between 1850 and 1855. All three were high ranking Imperial naval officers, in reference to San Francisco, researcher Maria J. Enckell states the following about the Finns in the Russian-American Company, Russia relied heavily on Finnish seamen. These seamen manned Russian naval ships as well as its deep-sea-going vessels, Company records show that in the early 1800s these ships were crewed predominantly by merchant seamen from Finland. From 1840 onward the Companys around-the-world ships were manned entirely by Finnish merchant skippers, Most Company ships stationed in Sitka and the Northern Pacific were likewise manned by Finnish skippers and Finnish crews. During the California Gold Rush and in its aftermath, a substantial Finnish population had settled in San Francisco, Kalevalas visit in the city received a very warm welcome and created much attention. In addition to the Finnish-built corvette Kalevala now returning to the U.
S, Finnish officers serving in the squadron included Theodor Kristian Avellan, who became the Minister of Naval Affairs of the Russian Empire
David Chiu (politician)
David Chiu is an American politician currently serving in the California State Assembly. He is a Democrat representing the 17th Assembly District, which encompasses the eastern half of San Francisco, Chiu is a member of the California Asian & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. The eldest child of Hakka Taiwanese American immigrant parents, Chiu was born in Cleveland and grew up in Boston, where he attended Boston College High School. In the mid-1990s, Chiu served as Democratic Counsel to the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Constitution Subcommittee and he founded Grassroots Enterprise, an online communications technology company, and served as its chief operating officer. He served on the San Francisco Small Business Commission until he was elected supervisor in 2008, Chiu first ran for elected office in 2008, when he ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 3. He was backed by incumbent supervisor Aaron Peskin as well as Kamala Harris, Mark Leno, Leland Yee, on his first day in office on January 8,2009, Chiu was elected to a two-year term as president of the Board of Supervisors.
He was reelected president on January 8,2011, Chiu was reelected to his second and final term as supervisor in 2012, winning over 75% of the vote. He was reelected by his supervisors to serve an unprecedented third term as president of the board on January 8,2013. In addition to serving on the Board of Supervisors, Chiu served as a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, on February 28,2011, Chiu announced his mayoral candidacy at a morning rally at San Francisco City Hall. Over the course of the campaign, Chiu raised over $1.24 million from private and public sources and spent roughly the same amount. On Election Day, Chiu placed fourth behind incumbent Ed Lee with 17,921 first-place votes, despite the fourth-place finish, Chiu and third-place candidate Dennis Herrera appeared individually on more ballots overall than John Avalos, who came in second. He ran against fellow Democrat and supervisor David Campos, on January 22,2014, the San Francisco Chronicle column City Insider reported that Chiu reported having raised $450,000 for the Assembly race.
Polls showed him ahead of Campos, Chiu beat Campos in the San Francisco primary on Tuesday, June 3,2014, by approximately five percentage points. Chiu won 48% of the vote, while Campos pulled in 43%, on November 4, Chiu defeated Campos with 51. 9% of the vote, and Campos conceded on November 6. David Chiu was appointed by Speaker Toni Atkins to serve as assistant speaker pro tempore in the 2015–16 session, the assistant speaker pro tempore is the third highest ranking position in the state assembly
Supermarket
A supermarket, a large form of the traditional grocery store, is a self-service shop offering a wide variety of food and household products, organized into aisles. It is larger and has a wider selection than a grocery store. The traditional supermarket occupies a large amount of space, usually on a single level. It is usually situated near an area in order to be convenient to consumers. The basic appeal is the availability of a selection of goods under a single roof. Other advantages include ease of parking and frequently the convenience of shopping hours that extend into the evening or even 24 hours of day, Supermarkets usually allocate large budgets to advertising, typically through newspapers. They present elaborate in-shop displays of products, the shops are usually part of corporate chains that own or control other supermarkets located nearby—even transnationally—thus increasing opportunities for economies of scale. Supermarkets typically are supplied by the centres of their parent companies.
Supermarkets usually offer products at low prices by using their buying power to buy goods from manufacturers at lower prices than smaller stores can. They minimise financing costs by paying for goods at least 30 days after receipt, certain products are very occasionally sold as loss leaders, that is, with negative profit margins so as to attract shoppers to their store. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this tactic, to maintain a profit, supermarkets make up for the lower margins by a higher overall volume of sales, and with the sale of higher-margin items bought by the intended higher volume of shoppers. Customers usually shop by placing their selected merchandise into shopping carts or baskets, a larger full-service supermarket combined with a department store is sometimes known as a hypermarket. If the eatery in a supermarket is substantial enough, the facility may be called a grocerant, most foods and merchandise did not come in individually wrapped consumer-sized packages, so an assistant had to measure out and wrap the precise amount desired by the consumer.
This offered opportunities for interaction, many regarded this style of shopping as a social occasion. These practices were by nature very labor-intensive and therefore quite expensive, the shopping process was slow, as the number of customers who could be attended to at one time was limited by the number of staff employed in the store. The concept of a food market relying on large economies of scale was developed by Vincent Astor. The expectation was that customers would come from great distances, but in the end even attracting people from ten blocks away was difficult, the concept of a self-service grocery store was developed by entrepreneur Clarence Saunders and his Piggly Wiggly stores. His first store opened in 1916, Saunders was awarded a number of patents for the ideas he incorporated into his stores
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk moved from New York City to settle in San Francisco in 1972 amid a migration of gay men to the Castro District and he took advantage of the growing political and economic power of the neighborhood to promote his interests, and three times ran unsuccessfully for political office. His theatrical campaigns earned him increasing popularity, and Milk won a seat as a city supervisor in 1977, his election made possible by, and a key component of, a shift in San Francisco politics. Milk served almost 11 months in office and was responsible for passing a stringent gay rights ordinance for the city, despite his short career in politics, Milk became an icon in San Francisco and a martyr in the gay community. In 2002, Milk was called the most famous and most significantly open LGBT official ever elected in the United States, anne Kronenberg, his final campaign manager, wrote of him, What set Harvey apart from you or me was that he was a visionary.
He imagined a world inside his head and he set about to create it for real. Milk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, Milk was born in Woodmere, New York, to William Milk and Minerva Karns. He was the son of Lithuanian Jewish parents and the grandson of Morris Milk. As a child, Harvey was teased for his ears, big nose, and oversized feet. He played football in school, and developed a passion for opera, in his teens, he acknowledged his homosexuality to himself, under his name in the high school yearbook, it read, Glimpy Milk—and they say WOMEN are never at a loss for words. Milk graduated from Bay Shore High School in Bay Shore, New York, in 1947 and attended New York State College for Teachers in Albany from 1947 to 1951 and he wrote for the college newspaper. One classmate remembered, He was never thought of as a possible queer—thats what you called them then—he was a mans man, after graduation, Milk joined the United States Navy during the Korean War. He served aboard the rescue ship USS Kittiwake as a diving officer.
He transferred to Naval Station, San Diego to serve as a diving instructor, in 1955, he was discharged from the Navy at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. Milks early career was marked by frequent changes, in years he would take delight in talking about his metamorphosis from a middle-class Jewish boy. He began teaching at George W. Hewlett High School on Long Island, in 1956, he met Joe Campbell, at the Jacob Riis Park beach, a popular location for gay men in Queens. Campbell was seven years younger than Milk, and Milk pursued him passionately, Even after they moved in together, Milk wrote Campbell romantic notes and poems. Campbell and Milk separated after almost six years, it would be his longest relationship, Milk tried to keep his early romantic life separate from his family and work
Safeway Inc.
Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain founded in 1915. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons, having been acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015, Safeways primary base of operations is in the western and central United States, with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California with parent company headquarters in Boise, in April 1915, Marion Barton Skaggs purchased his fathers 576-square-foot grocery store in American Falls, for $1,089. The chain, which operated as two businesses, Skaggs Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores, grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to help grow the network of stores. M. B. s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, by 1926, he had opened 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M. B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway stores and incorporated as Safeway, the original slogan was an admonition and an invitation to Drive the Safeway, buy the Safeway.
The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis — it did not offer credit and it was the safe way to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill. In 1926, Charles E. Merrill, the founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W. R. H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale, then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. On July 1,1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho, on completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business, two years later, M. B. listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding sell by dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, the merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi.
In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway, at the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a grocery warehouse in Oakland. Safeway headquarters remained there until the move to Pleasanton, California in 1996, the initial public offering price of Safeway stock was $226 in 1927. A five for one split in 1928 brought the price down to under $50, over the next few years, Charles Merrill, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, began aggressively acquiring numerous regional grocery store chains for Safeway in a rollup strategy. Early acquisitions included significant parts of Piggly Wiggly chain as part of the breakup of that company by Merrill Lynch, most transactions involved the swap of stock certificates, with little cash changing hands. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid-1930s, in 1929, there were rumors of a Safeway-Kroger merger
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia DAlesandro Pelosi is an American politician who is the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, representing Californias 12th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, Pelosi represents Californias 12th congressional district, the district was numbered as the 5th during Pelosis first three terms in the House, and as the 8th from 1993 to 2013. She served as the House Minority Whip from 2002 to 2003, Pelosi is the first woman, the first Californian and first Italian-American to lead a major party in Congress. On November 17,2010, Pelosi was elected as the Democratic Leader by House Democrats, Pelosi is Italian-American and was born Nancy Patricia DAlesandro in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. Nancy, who was born in Campobasso, South Italy, on 25 March 1909, Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore. Pelosis brother, Thomas DAlesandro III, a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, Pelosi was involved with politics from an early age.
In her outgoing remarks as the 60th Speaker of the House and she graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic all-girls high school in Baltimore, and from Trinity College in Washington, D. C. in 1962 with a B. A. in political science. Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and she met Paul Frank Pelosi while she was attending Trinity College. They married in Baltimore at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on September 7,1963, after moving to San Francisco, Pelosi worked her way up in Democratic politics. She became a friend of one of the leaders of the California Democratic Party, in 1976, Pelosi was elected as a Democratic National Committee member from California, a position she would hold until 1996. She was elected as party chair for Northern California on January 30,1977, and for the California Democratic Party, Pelosi was appointed Finance Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of the U. S.
Senate Democrats, in 1985. That same year, she ran to succeed Chuck Manatt as chair of the Democratic National Committee, Pelosi left her post as DSCC finance chair in 1986. Phillip Burton died in 1983 and was succeeded by his wife, in late 1986, Sala became ill with cancer and decided not to run for reelection in 1988. She picked Pelosi as her successor, guaranteeing her the support of the Burtons contacts. Sala died on February 1,1987, just a month after being sworn in for a full term. Pelosi represents one of the safest Democratic districts in the country, Democrats have held the seat since 1949 and Republicans, who currently make up only 13 percent of registered voters in the district, have not made a serious bid for the seat since the early 1960s. She won the seat in her own right in 1988 and has been reelected 10 more times with no substantive opposition and she has not participated in candidates debates since her 1987 race against Harriet Ross. The strongest challenge Pelosi has faced was in 2008 when anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan polled 16%, in the House, she served on the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees, and was the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee until her election as Minority Leader
Buena Vista Park
Buena Vista Park is a park in the Haight-Ashbury and Buena Vista Heights neighborhoods of San Francisco, California. It is the oldest official park in San Francisco, established in 1867 as Hill Park and it is bounded by Haight Street to the north, and by Buena Vista Avenue West and Buena Vista Avenue East. The park is on a hill that peaks at 575 feet. The lowest section is the end along Haight. The hill on which the park lies is composed primarily of sand and San Francisco chert, the layout of the park uses the steepness of the hill to good advantage, offering good views of the city. At the peak of the park is a small lawn, the paths along the west side are lined with gutters built by WPA workers out of broken headstones from the Citys Victorian cemeteries at Lone Mountain, which were moved to Colma in 1930s. In a few cases the inscriptions were placed facing up and can be discerned, the northeast corner staircase features a large peace symbol shaped out of flower plantings. Further south a tennis court is located just inside the park at the intersection of Duboce, across the street from the south side of the park is 355 Buena Vista East, an architecturally notable building which appears briefly in Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo.
The building, constructed in 1928 as St. Josephs Hospital, has converted to condominiums. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and this modern house is no more, as it has been significantly modified with an addition of another level in 2015. Muni bus lines 6,7,43,71, the 37 line passes along the south end of the park. The 24 and 33 come within three blocks, the N Judah runs underneath the park via the Sunset Tunnel. List of hills in San Francisco Official page on San Francisco Recreation and Parks web site
North Beach, San Francisco
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fishermans Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Franciscos Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population and it is still home to many Italian restaurants today, though many other ethnic groups currently live in the neighborhood. It was the center of the beatnik subculture. The American Planning Association has named North Beach as one of ten Great Neighborhoods in America, main intersections are Union and Columbus, the southwest corner of Washington Square, Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street. Originally, the citys northeast shoreline extended only to what is today Taylor, the area largely known today as North Beach was an actual beach, filled in with landfill around the late 19th century. Warehouses, fishing wharves, and docks were built on the newly formed shoreline. Due to the proximity of the docks, the half of the neighborhood south of Broadway was home of the infamous Barbary Coast.
Following its reconstruction after the 1906 earthquake, a number of Italian immigrants created the Italian character of the neighborhood that still exists. During the 1950s, many of the cafes and bars became the home and epicenter of the Beat Generation. The term beatnik originated from the here and was coined in a derogatory fashion by famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Many of that generations most famous writers and personalities such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, during the 1960s a notable night spot was The Committee, an improvisational theatre group founded by alumni of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10,1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat cabaret theater, the Broadway area created innovations for the strip club industry. The Condor Club, on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, was opened in 1964 as Americas first topless bar, which it is again today. The Lusty Lady was the first striptease club to be structured as a worker cooperative, Broadway strip clubs owe their legacy to the Barbary Coast, which was located just one block south on Pacific Street during the late 19th-century.
In the 1970s and 1980s Broadway was the location of live music clubs, like the Stone. Paul Kantner was living in North Beach in an apartment unit above Als Attire at the corner of Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street at the time of his death, and was often a patron of nearby Cafe Trieste. The North Beach Festival street fair on Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue usually held on Fathers Day weekend in June is one of the citys largest and it is considered one of the nations oldest street fairs. The neighborhood hosts a large Columbus Day/Italian American heritage day parade along Columbus Avenue to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, the neighborhood still retains an Italian character with many Italian restaurants and bakeries that line Columbus Avenue and Washington Square
Duboce Park
Duboce Park is a small urban park located between the Duboce Triangle and Lower Haight neighborhoods of San Francisco, California. The park is less than one block wide from north to south and its western boundary is Scott Street, and its eastern boundary is Steiner Street. The park is part of the Duboce Park Landmark District, the N Judah Muni Metro streetcar line runs along Duboce Avenue, which forms the southern boundary of the park. As such, the park is served directly by the Duboce, the train tracks veer away from Duboce Avenue at the western end of the park and enter the Sunset Tunnel. Duboce Park is a site for dog walkers, and off-leash dog play is permitted in the Multi-Use Area. West of the Multi-Use area is an area with a childrens play structure. Behind the play area is a basketball court with multiple rims. Along Scott Street is a labyrinth, completed in 2007, designed for meditation, along the west end of the park is the Harvey Milk Recreational Arts Building, which underwent expansion/renovation and reopened in June 2009.
The facility hosts a number of community events and includes a center, a studio for dance and aerobics classes. In addition, the Friends of Duboce Park host an Annual Film Festival, featuring movies filmed in San Francisco, a fake BART station was constructed in the park in 2005 for filming of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, it was removed after filming. The park features in Gus Van Sants Oscar-winning biopic Milk, a helicopter landed in the park as part of a stunt for the television series Trauma. The park is unusual for having homes directly alongside it and it is one of the few parks in the city without a roadway or walkway separating the park land from buildings. The space was designated by the city as public land in 1858. This coincided with a period of development of homes in the surrounding area. The 1906 earthquake and fire devastated much of San Francisco, the Duboce Park area was relatively undamaged, the park is named after Victor Donglain Duboce. In the past, dog owners flouted city leash laws by letting their dogs run free throughout the park and this conflict was resolved when the official off-leash area was established.
Some residents have noted that the area is far larger than the on-leash area. Because of the number of dogs, owners are reminded to remove the droppings
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 46.7 square miles with an budget of about $700 million. In ridership Muni is the seventh largest transit system in the United States, with 210,848,310 rides in 2006 and the second largest in California behind Metro in Los Angeles. With a fleet average speed of 8.1 mph, it is the slowest major urban transit system in America and one of the most expensive to operate, costing $19.21 per mile per bus and $24.37 per mile per train. However, it has more boardings per mile and more vehicles in operation than similar transit agencies, many weekday riders are commuters, as the daytime weekday population in San Francisco exceeds its normal residential population. Muni shares four metro stations with BART, on weekends, most Muni bus lines are scheduled to run every ten to twenty minutes. However, complaints of unreliability, especially on less-often-served lines and older lines, are a system-wide problem.
Muni has had difficulty meeting a stated goal of 85% voter-demanded on-time service. Most intercity connections are provided by BART and Caltrain heavy rail, AC Transit buses at the Transbay Terminal, 70% of stops are spaced closer than recommended range of 800–1,000 feet apart. Muni is short for the Municipal in San Francisco Municipal Railway and is not an acronym, the Muni metro is often called the train or the streetcar. Most San Francisco natives use Muni when speaking about the system in general, the E Embarcadero and F Market & Wharves lines are referred to by Muni as a historic streetcar line rather than as a heritage railway. Munis logo is a stylized, trademarked worm version of the word muni and this logo was designed by San Francisco-based graphic designer Walter Landor in the mid-1970s. Bus and trolleybus lines have number designations, rail lines have letters, except for cable cars, cash fares are $2.50 for adults, $1. Clipper card fares are $2.25 for adults and $1 for seniors, proof-of-payment, which fare inspectors may demand at any time, is either a Clipper card, Muni Passport, or paper transfer.
One fare entitles a rider to unlimited vehicle transfers for the next 90 to 120 minutes, cable cars are $7 one way, with no transfers unless the rider has a Muni Passport or Fast Pass. As of September 2014 monthly passes cost $70 for adults, $35 for low-income residents, or $24 for youth, passes are valid on all Muni lines—including cable cars—and the $83 adult Fast Pass allows BART transit entirely within San Francisco. Other passes and stickers are valid on all Muni lines, including cable cars, cable car fare is $7 per trip, with no transfers issued or accepted. Muni has implemented a smart card payment system known as Clipper
Edwardian architecture
Edwardian architecture is an architectural style popular during the reign of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Architecture from up to the year 1914 may be included in this style, Edwardian architecture is generally less ornate than high or late Victorian architecture, apart from a subset - used for major buildings - known as Edwardian Baroque architecture. The Victorian Society campaigns to preserve Edwardian Architecture, Decorative patterns were less complex, both wallpaper and curtain designs were more plain. Clutter, There was less clutter than in the Victorian era, ornaments were perhaps grouped rather than everywhere. And Victorian Art Nouveau Georgian Arts and Crafts Edwardian era Edwardian Baroque architecture Federation architecture Gray, A. S. Edwardian Architecture, the Edwardian House, the Middle-Class Home in Britain 1880-1914
Chinatown, San Francisco
The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. It is the oldest of the four notable Chinatowns in the city, since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, places of worship, social clubs, there are two hospitals, numerous parks and squares, a post office, and other infrastructure. Chinatown has been defined by the neighborhoods of North Beach, and Telegraph Hill areas as bound by Bush Street, Taylor Street, Bay Street. Officially, Chinatown is located in downtown San Francisco, covers 24 square blocks, within Chinatown there are two major thoroughfares. It is dominated by buildings that are three to four stories high, with shops on the ground floor and residential apartments upstairs. A major focal point in Chinatown is Portsmouth Square, since it is one of the few open spaces in Chinatown and sits above a large underground parking lot, Portsmouth Square bustles with activity such as Tai Chi and old men playing Chinese chess.
A replica of the Goddess of Democracy used in the Tiananmen Square protest was built in 1999 by Thomas Marsh and it is made of bronze and weighs approximately 600 lb. According to the San Francisco Planning Department, Chinatown is the most densely populated area west of Manhattan. In the 1970s, the density in Chinatown was seven times the San Francisco average. The estimated total population in the 2000 Census was at 100,574 residents, during the time from 2009 to 2013, the median household income was $20,000 - compared to $76,000 citywide - with 29% of residents below the national poverty threshold. The median age was 50 years, the oldest of any neighborhood, as of 2015, two thirds of the residents lived in one of Chinatowns 105 single room occupancy hotels,96 of which had private owners and nine were owned by nonprofits. Most residents are speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese, in 2015. Many of those Chinese immigrants who gain some wealth while living in Chinatown leave it for the Richmond District, working-class Hong Kong Chinese immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the 1960s.
Despite their status and professional qualifications in Hong Kong, many took low-paying employment in restaurants, an increase in Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Mainland China has gradually led to the replacement in Chinatown of the Hoisanese/Taishanese dialect by the standard Cantonese dialect. These outer neighborhoods have been settled largely by Chinese from Southeast Asia, there are many suburban Chinese communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially in Silicon Valley, such as Cupertino and Milpitas, where Taiwanese Americans are dominant. Despite these developments, many continue to commute in from these neighborhoods and cities to shop in Chinatown, causing gridlock on roads and delays in public transit. To address this problem, the public transit agency, Muni, is planning to extend the citys subway network to the neighborhood via the new Central Subway
Lower Haight
