Where are the borders of the neighborhood? A look at the historical data, with links to historical maps to follow.
The boundaries of Sunnyside
When Sunnyside was laid out by the Sunnyside Land Company in 1891, a plat map showing the streets, lots, and boundaries was submitted to the city. These are the original boundaries.
Here are those original boundaries applied to a modern map.
The far eastern flatiron point was located at Joost Ave and Monterey Blvd (then Sunnyside Ave). The southernmost edge was Havelock Street. The northwest corner was Melrose and Ridgewood Avenues (then Hamburg) and the north/northeast corner stood at Melrose Ave and Congo Street.
On the Border of Pretty Nice
In previous decades these boundaries have been chipped away at times, by residents or real estate agents, for reasons that entirely escape this writer. Sunnyside is older than all the surrounding neighborhoods, and has more intriguing history to explore. And Sunnyside does not have the regrettable legacy of ever having had systemic race-restrictive deed covenants in operation. Why abdicate your own neighborhood? More recently the district has gained a bit more shine; it’s more urban, interesting, and walkable than its residence-park neighbors; there are shops and apartment buildings, a Slow Street, bike-share stations, a public stairway on the mend, and lots of new families.
Through the Years
The Sunnyside Land Company reproduced the original homestead map (with a few misspellings) on their big splashy half-page advertisement in the SF Chronicle announcing their property speculation project in April 1891.
One thing the property company conveniently left out was the route of Sunnyside’s tributary of Islais Creek!
This Department of Public Works map of Sunnyside from 1912 (with some updates from 1940s) shows the neighborhood extended northward a bit.
The San Francisco Planning Department in the twenty-first century has a different set of boundaries (below) displayed in their SFFind map (select ‘Sunnyside’ from dropdown menu). It is somewhat more generous than the original ones, and puts City College, Dorothy Erskine Park, and all of Sunnyside Playground inside the borders. This bit of jiggery-pokery boosts (perhaps artificially) the open-space-to-resident ratio for this neighborhood.
Map junkie? Here is a post about how Google Maps has removed “Sunnyside” from their map, and other shenanigans (Aug 2024).
Historical Maps
A short list of links for exploring old maps of San Francisco, including Sunnyside.
All linked maps contain a navigation slider embedded in the middle to allow zooming in. It sometimes mysteriously disappears—just click in the left side bar, and it should reappear.
- 1938 aerial photo-map of San Francisco
- 1929 Board of Public Works (MM O’Shaughnessy) San Francisco
- 1924 Rand McNally San Francisco
- 1915 Chevalier Map of San Francisco, gorgeous, colorful, fun
- 1905 Sanborn Insurance Maps (general index)
- 1899 San Francisco Sewer Map (includes streets & topographical lines)
- 1892 HW Faust Map of San Francisco (lots of streets never built, aka “paper streets”)
- 1887 Britton & Rey’s Guide Map of the City of San Francisco (before Sunnyside was laid out)
- 1881 Bancroft’s Official Guide Map Of City And County Of San Francisco (also before Sunnyside)
These maps are all located on the excellent map site DavidRumsey.com.