The Sunnyside History Project of 2006

By Amy O’Hair

This website, which I began in 2015, has not been the only effort to collect and rediscover the stories of this neighborhood; almost twenty years ago, Sunnyside Neighborhood Association initiated a wide-ranging project to rediscover historical materials and record oral histories of old-time residents. One result of the group’s work was to present a history fair in February 2006, where documents and photos were shared with the community. Another product of their efforts was a little booklet, “A Brief Look at Sunnyside”.

The members of Sunnyside Neighborhood Association (SNA) who worked on the project were led by Jennifer Heggie, and included Daphne Powell, Robert Danielson, David Becker, Karen Greenwood Henke, Bill Wilson, and Rick Lopez. They were aided in their work by Woody LaBounty and Lori Ungaretti at Western Neighborhoods Project (WNP). Other contributors included Julia Bergman, City College of San Francisco’s Chief Librarian and Archivist (now deceased), and local history author Jacqueline Proctor, as well as two workers at St Finn Barr Church, Denise McEvoy and Kathleen Ramsay.

The Oral Histories

The oral history interviews took place in 1995, 2005, and 2006, and were conducted with six people who grew up in Sunnyside, mostly before the Second World War. To preserve the interviews, the transcripts were later archived at the San Francisco History Center.[1] The subjects described what it was like in the neighborhood, where they played and went to school, what transit they took, the landscapes and animals that were a part of their childhoods, and so on. (I’ll quote extensively from the oral histories later in this post.)

The History Fair 

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Greyhounds, Aeroplanes, and Wheelbarrows: the History of the Balboa Reservoir 1894-1944

OpenSFHistory.org

One of a series of articles on the history of the Balboa Reservoir.

By Amy O’Hair

The large plot of land that was known as the Balboa Reservoir has had a remarkable history, despite never having been filled with water and once being declared “void of positive features” by the City.[1] Through most of the twentieth century it was owned by SF Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), yet none of the uses the land has been put to have had any impact for good or ill on the city’s water supply. Now the last third of it still left in the hands of SFPUC is being developed as a housing project.

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The original dimensions of the Balboa Reservoir site, as purchased by the City in 1930. The lot now includes Riordan High School on the north, CCSF’s Multi-Use Building on the east, and housing and commercial buildings along Ocean Ave. View larger.

Spring Valley’s Real Estate Wager

The reservoir site started as part of Adolph Sutro’s Rancho San Miguel holdings, most of which were acquired by him in 1881.[2] Sutro sold the 42-acre lot on the far southeast corner of his eucalyptus-covered kingdom to the Spring Valley Water Company in 1894.[3] The company’s stated purpose was to build a reservoir there. They didn’t.

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SF Call 14 Feb 1894, p9. Read whole article here.

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Farms in Sunnyside?

1938 aerial. DavidRumsey.com

Here is a portion of the 1938 and 1948 aerial photos of San Francisco that shows the extensive farming in the area of Balboa Park below Havelock Street. This land had been used for the purpose of growing food from the 1890s until I-280 freeway was built in the 1960s. Some part of it was cultivated by inmates from the Ingleside Jail, but there was also a nursery business which leased land here.

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1938 aerial photo of extensive vegetable gardens below Havelock Street in Balboa Park. Land here used for that purpose from 1890s through to construction of I-280 freeway in 1960s. CLICK FOR LARGER  Photo from DavidRumsey.com, altered with labels. 
1948 aerial photo of area around present Balboa Park, still being used for vegetable gardens. Photo from DavidRumsey.com, altered with labels. 

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Farmland to Freeway: a history of Rock Ranch

OpenSFHistory.org

Once at the site of a landmark rock so large it merited its own mark on early maps, there was an area of rich farmland used for growing food and raising animals into the 1920s, located just east of Sunnyside and south of the present Glen Park Bart Station. It is now lost under the kilotons of concrete that make up the I-280/San Jose Ave interchange.

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The vegetable gardens near San Jose Avenue, 1917. OpenSFHistory / wnp36.01632.jpg
2017-openstreetmap-RockRanch-overlay
2017 OpenStreetMap altered to show area of ranch/vegetable gardens.

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