Category: Mount Davidson

New Map: The Creek that Ran Through Sunnyside

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Here is a new map for understanding the historical path that Sunnyside’s tributary of Islais Creek once took through the neighborhood, a composite using color Sanborn maps from the Library of Congress and DavidRumsey.org from the early 1900s. Additional information for areas not covered by Sanborn from Joel Pomerantz’s Seep City project for mapping our city’s old waterways.

Read more about Sunnyside’s creek here. Click on map for larger version.

The Creek that Ran Through Sunnyside. OpenStreetMap base. Created in 2023 by Amy O’Hair SunnysideHistory.org

The Creek that Ran Through Sunnyside. Composite of historical data over OpenStreetMap.org base. Sources: Library of Congress and DavidRumsey.org. Help from SeepCity.org. Created in 2023 by Amy O’Hair SunnysideHistory.org. Click on image for the larger version.

A culvert was installed from one side of Monterey to the other at about Edna Street in the 1910s. Part of the creek was contained in a box drain in the 100 block of Flood Ave (north side) about the same time. Other manipulations took place, until the City diverted the water that would have fed it into the sewer system, during the 1920s.

View of Mt Davidson and Balboa Reservoir: 1973 and Today

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Looking north from Summit Street near Thrift in Ingleside. Note changes in the Balboa Reservoir and along Ocean Avenue (center), while residential streets are little altered (except perhaps bigger trees) in 50 years. Science Hill at City College Ocean Campus visible on the far right.

Future changes planned for the Balboa Reservoir will alter the view once again in coming years—both the housing development on the western portion, and City College’s plans for the eastern portion. A new house on the lower left muddles the 2022 view a bit.

Move slider to compare photographs. Can take time to load. View larger here. Look at other comparison photographs here.

View from Hazelwood: 1973 and Today

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1973. Photo: Greg Gaar. OpenSFHistory.org

Move slider to compare photographs. Looking south from Hazelwood Ave in Sherwood Forest neighborhood on Mount Davidson. Changes at the Balboa Reservoir (center) are notable, while much else remains the same. San Bruno Mountains on horizon. View larger here.   Look at other comparison photographs here.

 

View from Mount Davidson: 1974 and Today

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1973. OpenSFHistory.org

Move the slider to compare photographs. View larger here. Look at other comparison photographs here. This photo was initially dated 1973, but Tony wrote me to point out that Embarcadero 2 is visible, pushing the date to 1974.

 

Growing Up on Congo Street in the 1920s

Sunnyside History2 Comments

The account below by Phyllis Jensen Marklin of being a child growing up in a little house on Congo Street, on the Sunnyside/Glen Park border, includes some fabulous details–the sort of domestic history that is all too often lost with the passage of time. She wrote it when she was in her sixties. Her daughter has graciously given me permission to reproduce it here, along with a photo that includes the family in front of their house at 511 Congo Street. 

Her parents Axel and Olga Jensen came originally from Arhus, Denmark, but lived in Canada for years before coming to San Francisco. Although not all the children stayed in the neighborhood, Phyllis’s brother Gordon made his home as an adult just a few blocks down Congo. Read that story here.

The Jensens in front of their house at 511 Congo Street, late 1920s. Photo courtesy Judith Simpson.
The Jensens in front of their house at 511 Congo Street, late 1920s. Photo courtesy Judith Simpson.

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A Park for Sunnyside

Sunnyside History7 Comments
1966. SF Dept Public Works, Sunnyside Playground.

By Amy O’Hair

When Sunnyside was laid out in 1891, there was no provision for any public park or open space built into the plans—just rectangular blocks filled with edge-to-edge lots for building (see early maps here). To put it in perspective, many more basic matters of infrastructure in the neighborhood were lacking for years: there were no streetlights or sewers, the roads were dirt, and the water supply spotty, even into the 1920s. It was not until the 1960s that Sunnyside got a park of its own.

View of the children's play area at Sunnyside Playground, Foerster Street and Melrose Avenue, San Francisco. Photo: Amy O'Hair.
View of the children’s play area at Sunnyside Playground, Foerster Street and Melrose Avenue, San Francisco. Photo: Amy O’Hair.

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