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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Of Goats and Groceries: Some Italians in Early Sunnyside

By Amy O’Hair

The presence of goats in Sunnyside is evident from the earliest photographs, such as this iconic shot that captured the witch’s hat tower of the Sunnyside Powerhouse in the background, with a munching goat in the foreground, taken on Monterey near Circular in 1911.

A view looking west of Monterey at Circular, with the Sunnyside Powerhouse in the background, and a roaming goat in the foreground. SFMTA Archives, https://sfmta.photoshelter.com/
A view looking west of Monterey at Circular, with the Sunnyside Powerhouse in the background, and a roaming goat in the foreground. 1911. SFMTA Archives, https://sfmta.photoshelter.com/

Then the same photographer turned to face the other direction, and caught a few more grazing goats on the railroad tracks.

A view looking east on Monterey near Circular, with goats grazing near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks on far right. 1911. SFMTA Archives, https://sfmta.photoshelter.com/
A view looking east on Monterey near Circular, with goats grazing near the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks on far right. 1911. SFMTA Archives, https://sfmta.photoshelter.com/ Learn more about this rich early photograph in this post.

One Sunnyside resident had his own goat dairy, located further up the street on Monterey in the 1910s. It probably wasn’t quite legal, given the City’s pound limits regulating what animals could be kept where. But no matter, because there were a lot of small dairy operations here, and in the Excelsior and elsewhere, well into the twentieth century. A cow in the backyard was far from uncommon.

After arriving in 1909, Sicilian immigrant Frank Maita opened a small dairy operation with goats, on the site of the present house at 535 Monterey Boulevard, in 1915. Most of the lot was open, with a little house set down the hill. Frank and Catherine Maita already had five children when they started their business; with four more to come, it was not a sustainable setup.

But it was a start on a new life in a new country.

Frank Maita with one of his goats. I was told this was taken at the Monterey Blvd site in the 1920s, but the background matches another photo taken later on the Hayward farm, so I believe it to be from the 1940s or 1950s. Photo courtesy Jack Maita.
Frank Maita with one of his goats. I was told this was taken at the Monterey Blvd site in the 1920s, but the background matches another photo taken later on the Hayward farm, so I believe it to be from the 1940s or 1950s. Photo courtesy Jack Maita.

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