San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia
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Bernal Heights, <strong>San</strong> <strong>Francisco</strong>, California<br />
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<br />
The Bernal Heights hill and microwave tower<br />
The Bernal Heights neighborhood, familiarly called Bernal (rhymes with colonel), lies<br />
to the south of <strong>San</strong> <strong>Francisco</strong>'s Mission District. Its most prominent feature is the open<br />
parkland and microwave tower on its large rocky hill. Bernal is bounded by Cesar<br />
Chavez Street to the north, Mission Street to the west and freeways 280 and U.S. Route<br />
101 to the south and east.<br />
History<br />
Bernal had its origin in an 1839 land grant to Don Jose Cornelio Bernal, who grazed his<br />
cattle on what he called Rancho Rincon de las Salinas y Potrero Viejo. In 1860 the land<br />
belonged to a French merchant, Francios Pioche, who subdivided it into smaller lots.<br />
Bernal remained undeveloped, though, until its combination of bedrock with a lack of gas<br />
or electricity spared it from the shaking and fires of the 1906 <strong>San</strong> <strong>Francisco</strong> earthquake.<br />
Some of the tiny earthquake cottages built to house refugees survive to this day. During<br />
World War II the area saw another population surge thanks to its proximity to the <strong>San</strong><br />
<strong>Francisco</strong> Naval Shipyard at Hunters Point.<br />
By the 1990s, Bernal's pleasant microclimate, traditional Victorian and Edwardian<br />
architecture and freeway access to the peninsula and Silicon Valley led to a third wave of<br />
migration. Bernal has not gentrified to the extent of its neighbor Noe Valley, but property