San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
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Crocker Galleria, the Embarcadero Center, the Ferry Building, and the Rincon Center<br />
complex.<br />
History<br />
A statue on Market Street in the heart of the Financial District commemorates the United<br />
States annexing <strong>San</strong> <strong>Francisco</strong> and California from Mexico during the Mexican American<br />
war in 1848.<br />
The area was the center of European and American settlement during Spanish and later<br />
Mexican rule. Following American annexation and the Gold Rush, the area boomed<br />
rapidly and the Bay shoreline, which originally ended at Battery St, was filled in and<br />
extended to the Embarcadero. Gold Rush wealth and business made it the financial<br />
capital of the west coast as many banks and businesses set up in the neighborhood. The<br />
west coast's first and only skyscrapers, were built in the area along Market Street.<br />
The neighborhood was completey destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake & Fire (although<br />
miraculously, the area's skyscrapers survived), and rebuilt. Because of state wide height<br />
restrictions due to earthquake fears, the district remained realtively low-rise throughout<br />
the 20th century until the late 1950s, when due to new building and earthquake<br />
retrofitting technologies, the height restrictions were lifted, fueling a skyscraper building<br />
boom. This boom accelerated under mayor Diane Feinstein during the 1980s under her<br />
plan of "Manhattanization". This caused widespread oppostion citywide leading to the<br />
"skyscraper revolt" similar to the "freeway revolt" in the city years earlier. The<br />
skyscraper revolt led to the city imposing extremeley strict, European style height<br />
restrictions on building construction citywide.