San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia

dunes had been leveled out to reach a hodgepodge of wharves and industrial plants
extending from Laguna Street to Steiner Street.
Most of it came down in 1906, including the San Francisco Gas Light Company
generating house. But the brick meter house stood its sand, and the date of completion is
still visible: “1893,” in the archway at Buchanan and North Point streets, behind the
Marina Safeway (aka "Dateway").
West from there on North Point is a slope in the sidewalk where shore met sea. It was
here on North Point, west of Webster Street, that speculator James Fair built a seawall in
the 1890s, in a grand plan to create 70 acres (283,000 m²) of shallow waters and build an
industrial park. The walls were completed at the moment they ran out of sand to fill it
with, so there it sat, like a full bathtub.
Until 1912, standing at the intersection North Point and Fillmore Streets, in the heart of
today’s Marina, would mean standing in the bay. The creators of the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition leased James Fair’s pond and finished the project. Two dredges
and 146 days later, the bathtub was filled with 1.3 million cubic yards (100,000 m³) of
sand and mud.
After the exposition closed in 1915, the Fair heirs got the land back and sold it to the
Marina Development Corporation. City Engineer M. M. O'Shaughnessy created a
hodgepodge of streets that connected to the original city grid. The layout is out of
character with the older portions of the city, creating the maze-like feel of much of the
Marina District. The Marina Development Corporation carved this area into 634
residential lots, plus the Marina Green. When it was built out in the 1920s, the area
previously known as Harbor View or North End became known as The Marina.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused substantial damage, but the neighborhood was
quickly rebuilt. Much of the damage was due to liquefaction of the fill upon which the
neighborhood is built.
Geography
U.S. Route 101/Lombard Street is a boulevard that bisects the southern edge of the
Marina District. The street is dotted with motels built in celebration of the opening of the
Golden Gate Bridge and a collection of retail, fast food, and residential units. On a typical
afternoon the street is a strange mix of tourists searching for Ghirardelli Square and the
Golden Gate Bridge, older gentlemen visiting motels with their arrangements, and
children walking towards Marina Middle School.
The neighborhood’s commercial center runs along Chestnut Street near Fillmore. The
street has a reputation as a haven for swinging singles, and the local watering holes are
known as “high intensity breeder bars.” Even the local Safeway has been dubbed “The
Body Shop” or "The Single Way" because of the inordinate amount of cruising that goes