USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > San Francisco, a history of the Pacific coast metropolis, Volume II > Part 14
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For many years the belief was persisted in that imperfectly squared blocks of basaltic rock, laid in the sand, without a foundation of any sort really made a desir- able and satisfactory pavement. It did not matter that roadways thus constructed sometimes presented as billowy an appearance as the agitated waters of the bay;
Planked Roads and Planked Sidewalks
Cobble- Stone Street Pavements
Good Pavements Demanded
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they were cheap and durable. The wooden sidewalks which endured on many of the principal streets all through this period were likewise adhered to, not so much, however, because they were cheap, as because there was no public sentiment which demanded anything better. That there was not complete indifference is true; there were some who, throughout the Seventies, were continually demanding improve- ments, but they made little impression in the face of official declarations of the sort put forth by Health Officer Meares on July 1, 1876, in his annual report: "When we consider," he said, "that our City is but little over a quarter of a century old, and that it already has a population of nearly 275,000 and rapidly increasing, instead of being surprised at the condition of our streets, and imperfect character of our sewerage, we are only astonished at the wonderful amount of work that has been accomplished in so short a time. Indeed, what has been accomplished is the result of an enterprise, energy and intelligence unsurpassed, if equalled by that of any city of modern times."
Reading between the lines we discover the existence of a sentiment favoring im- provement which must have been pretty strong to induce the health officer to take up the cudgels for the street department and come to the aid of the apprehensive taxpayer, who had come to fear the word improvement, because it stood for in- creased taxation in his mind without being coupled with any anticipated benefit. But while this sentiment prevailed and influenced the community generally to such an extent that it could not be induced to enter upon any scheme in its collective capacity, there was no lack of individual exertion and several very important im- provements were made during the decade 1870, notably the Dupont street widen- ing and the Montgomery street extension. This latter undertaking was attended with some scandal, and did not prove to be as great a benefit as expected. An act was passed in 1872 which authorized a board of works, consisting of the mayor, tax collector and the city and county surveyor, which was created by one of its sections to carry through the opening. The desire for the improvement was not unanimously entertained by the property holders affected, and suit was brought, in which it was finally held by the supreme court that the proceedings were irregular, and that the board of works had exceeded its authority because they had not secured a majority of the frontage of the property as required in the act of 1872. The frontage of the district was described at 424,096 feet, one-half of which would have been 212,048 feet. It was assumed by the board that the owners of 212,965 feet 71/2 inches had signed the petition, but this showing included the signatures of certain persons to whom the property signed for was not assessed. The court held that the law required the signatures of those assessed and whose names were on the assessment roll, and that the signatures of executors and administrators and of agents must be excluded, because "in any transaction in which executors and administrators pretend to act as such they cannot create any liability on the estate . unless the authority for doing so is produced. As there were some 6,05034 . feet represented by signatures of the kind disapproved of, the court in 1879 held that the proceedings of the board were invalid.
The Dupont street widening scheme was inaugurated in 1872 and successfully carried out, but it was one of those half way measures which cause regrets in after years that the projectors were not bolder men. Dupont street, or as it is now known in its widened part, Grant avenue, was one of the early narrow thorough- fares, the width of which scarcely entitled it to be regarded as more than an alley.
Dupont Street Widening
Taxpayers Dread Improvements
KF+
CALVARY BAPTIST CHURCH
TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH RUINS OF GRACE EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL
FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
569
SAN FRANCISCO
The success which attended the widening of Kearny street suggested that the prop- erty owners of Dupont street might be similarly benefited. Hence an assessment district was created, which, however, provided only for the widening of that part of the street south of Bush, it being assumed that the gradients north of the latter street would prove an obstacle to the extension of business towards North Beach. As in the case of Montgomery avenue extension there was dissatisfaction on the part of some of the owners assessed for benefits, and a good deal of complaint by some whose property had been taken to add to the width of the street.
It was not until some years after the widening that the name of the widened portion of the street was changed to Grant avenue. This latter step was taken not out of disrespect to the naval hero, but because the laxity of the police had per- mitted the name of the street to become a by-word and reproach, the upper end of it being almost wholly occupied by dissolute women, who lived in wretchedly constructed houses, for which they paid exorbitant rents. It was many years be- fore the stigma was completely removed, and it was not until after the fire of 1906 that Grant avenue took rank as an important retail center. The Montgomery avenue extension has thus far failed to accomplish the purpose of those who pro- jected and put it through, but it is not impossible that the development of the North Beach section through the instrumentality of the 1915 exposition may realize the dream of thirty-five years ago, and make it an important cross-town business thoroughfare. In 1912 it was still surrendered to the small neighborhood business of the Latin quarter, composed largely of Italians who began their settlement on Telegraph hill and around its western base about the time when the improvement began.
Throughout the Seventies there was more or less attention given to the question of sewerage, although the development was largely due to private initiative and was not carefully systematized. In 1876 a report was made by Wm. P. Humphreys, the city engineer, in which he stated that up to July 1, 1875, there had been con- structed nearly seventy-five miles of public sewers at a cost of $2,684,691. There were three kinds of sewers, the preference being given to those of brick, which cost $2,252,253, but there was also a number constructed of redwood, upon which $378,395 had been expended and $54,043 worth of cement pipes. Prior to 1858 there was no record of any public sewer, and their construction was not officially noted until after that date. It was many years before the necessity of symmetriza- tion was realized, and when the agitation for something approaching a system began many defects were disclosed in the work which had been performed under imperfect laws and lax supervision.
Notwithstanding the repeated lessons received by San Francisco in the Fifties attempts to reduce the danger from conflagration by extending the fire limits were always resisted, usually on the pretense that the requirement that buildings be constructed of less inflammable material than wood would inflict a hardship on the small property owner. Oftener than otherwise the opposition came from men who desired to increase the revenues from rentals by building with cheap materials. This desire was responsible for the fiction which was diligently promoted, that redwood had fire resisting qualities, or that at least it was so slow in burning that it gave something like a practical assurance against danger. Repeated experiences and high insurance rates did not dispel this illusion, and in every attempt to extend the fire limits it usually cropped out, and caused embarrassment to those who sought
Dupont Street Changed to Grant Avenue
The City's Sewers
Contracted Fire Limits
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SAN FRANCISCO
to enlarge the area within which owners would be compelled to build substantial structures. The fire limits in 1874, when they were amended, were very contracted, in the northern part of the City, being bounded on the west by Stockton street, along which they extended only as far south as Clay, where the line was deflected to Dupont and along the easterly side of that street to Bush and then back to Stock- ton along the southerly line of Bush. An examination of this irregular boundary discloses the fact that the rights of the public were subordinated to individual influ- ences, but there is not the slightest doubt that the people did not seriously demand the protection which the establishment of reasonable fire limits is supposed to afford.
A conspicuous feature of the growth of San Francisco during the Seventies was the disposition of men who had made money in mining, and other enterprises in California and the adjoining state of Nevada, to invest in city real estate. When Sutro lost control of the tunnel which he had projected and put through he returned to San Francisco, where he had resided during the earlier part of his career, and bought a large quantity of land, chiefly in outlying districts of the City, which have since been surrounded by quarters devoted to residential purposes. Among other properties, he purchased the bare hills of the San Miguel ranch and named his acquisition Mount Parnassus. On these hills he planted Australian eucalyptus trees, which grew rapidly and soon formed a dense forest. He also bought the heights overlooking the ocean opposite the seal rocks and created the gardens which bear his name. The acquisitive instinct was much stronger in him than the con- structive, and he left few monuments of a structural character to perpetuate his memory. A hotel opposite the seal rocks which he built was destroyed by fire, and the small residence erected on Sutro Heights constitute his principal contributions to the improvement of the large territory which he acquired. During his lifetime he collected a large library, which he intended to house in a fine building and con- fer it upon the City. He never carried out his purpose and his estate after his death was dispersed among his heirs.
A man of different temperament, who did much to promote the development of San Francisco, died in the City on the 1st of October, 1876. He has already been mentioned as the owner of the hotel which bore his name, and in the construction of which he assisted. James Lick was a pioneer of the days preceding the discov- ery of gold, having arrived in California in 1847. He had an abiding confidence in the future of the town and began investing in real estate in the time of the al- caldes and bought at extremely low figures. He was also a purchaser of country lands, and profited greatly by their advance in value. Although the.owner of the best hotel of the period in San Francisco he lived in a mean house, denying himself comforts, and earned the reputation of being a miser. He was an unmarried man but had a natural son whom he afterward adopted. It was generally understood that the mother of the boy was the daughter of a miller in Fredericksburg, Pennsyl- vania, who had refused her hand to Lick on the ground that he was too poor. A romantic story, with more truth in it than the average romance usually contains, is told of a quarrel and bitter words that followed the denial, in the course of which Lick told the miller that one day he would have a finer mill than the one he was leaving. He kept his word and built a mill on Guadalupe creek in Santa Clara county, the interior fittings of which were of mahogany. Near by he put up a fine house which he never occupied, and on the grounds erected a fine conservatory which was purchased from him later and removed to Golden Gate park.
Sutro's Investments in Real Estate
James Lick
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SAN FRANCISCO
Lick was eighty years of age when he died, but some years before his death he took steps to prevent any complications in the disposition of his estate, which was valued at more than $3,000,000. In 1874 he created a board of trustees who were to carry out several purposes which he indicated to them. Prior to this creation he had endowed the Society of California Pioneers, of which he was a member, with valuable property, at the same time conveying to the Academy of Sciences the lot on which the office building on Market street still owned by that body now stands. The trustees first selected by him became dissatisfied with his arbitrary requirements and following a dispute they resigned in a body. On September 21, 1875, he named a new board, consisting of Richard S. Floyd, Faxon D. Atherton, John Nightingale, Bernard D. Murphy and his son, John H. Lick, whom he had legally adopted. To these he deeded his property in trust to carry out several of his expressed desires. The first of these was the creation of an observatory which was to be provided with the largest telescope in the world, $700,000 being named for that purpose. The second was the establishment of a school of mechanical arts at a cost of $540,000. An Old Ladies' home and a free bath house were each to have $150,000, and several hundred thousand dollars were to be set aside for orphan asylums. He also directed that a statue to Francis Scott Key, the author of the "Star Spangled Banner," be erected in Golden Gate park and a monument to the California pioneers in front of the new city hall, then in course of erection.
During the remaining days of his life Lick did not get on harmoniously with his second board of trustees and demanded their resignation. They promptly com- plied with the exception of Floyd, who formed a member of a third board, consist- ing of Edwin B. Mastick, William Sherman, George Schoenwald and Charles M. Plum. The son, who had received the sum of $150,000 as compensation for the renunciation of his claims, after the death of his father brought a suit which the trustees compromised. It required nineteen years to execute all the designs out- lined by Lick, and at times there was criticism of the slowness with which the work proceeded, but on the whole his intentions were faithfully carried out, and the City and state contain numerous monuments which will perpetuate his memory long after his oddities have been forgotten.
The plan of entrusting the construction of the new city hall to a commission did not prove satisfactory, and the legislature in 1874 conferred upon the board of supervisors the power to complete the unfinished contracts let by that body, and authorized the expenditure of a sum not exceeding $25,000 for the preservation and protection of the building. In 1875 nothing had been accomplished on the main structure, but the work on the hall of records was well advanced. Doubts had already arisen concerning the plans, and the opinion was freely expressed that serious changes would have to be made in them in order to secure a building adapted to the City's needs. There was also a wave of pessimism regarding the ability to carry through an undertaking which it was beginning to be perceived would involve a much greater expenditure than was originally contemplated. But when Mayor Bryant entered upon the duties of his office in 1876 conditions had changed, and he remarked in a message to the board of supervisors that "there ought to be no difficulty in securing out of the large amount of taxes collected, sufficient funds to carry on the gradual completion of the building, and the erection of other public buildings needed."
Vol. II-7
Lick's Gifts to the People
Trust Properly Carried Out
City Hall Construction Proceeds Slowly
572
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The "New City Hall Ruin"
From this time until its completion the plan of piecemcal construction was followed, the supervisors setting aside annually a sum derived from direct taxation to prosccute the work. This programme was interrupted several times, and there were periods during which no progress was made, work being wholly suspended for want of funds. The result was to greatly enhance the cost, and, as already stated, to materially change the original design. The delays were the cause of considerable irritation, and productive of many scandals growing out of the suspi- cion that the piecemeal method adopted enhanced the cost of the work executed and increased the opportunities for jobbery. But the sentiment in favor of the pay- as-you-go plan which later crystallized into the dollar limit on taxation prevailed, and the outcome was a very costly edifice, entirely unsatisfactory in its arrange- ments and the completion of which was delayed for so many years that the building was sometimes jocularly alluded to as the new city hall ruin.
Cessation of Civic Progress
Although Mayor Bryant, in 1876 spoke of the abundance of money available from taxation for other building enterprises, there was none of any consequence under- taken. A needed fire house or two and some cheap frame structures for schools were built, but there was no creditable display of civic energy. The work of re- claiming the sand dunes, which were gradually assuming the appearance of a park, was proceeding with some regularity, and a little bit more attention than formerly was being paid to the upkeep of the squares in the City, but even this exhibition of public spirit began to flag when the depression set in after 1876, and during the period when the workingmen's mayor and the republican board of supervisors were at outs there was almost a complete cessation of civic progress or caretaking.
The lack of energy displayed by the people in their collective capacity, bow- ever, was offset by the enterprise of private citizens, whose efforts during the period were directed towards providing better business structures, finer hotels and more comfortable and elegant homes. The Palace hotel, projected by Ralston, the con- struction of which was begun in 1871, was opened on the 2d of October, 1875, under the management of Warren Leland. At the time of its completion it enjoyed the reputation of being the largest and finest hotel in the United States. It contained a thousand rooms and accommodated 2,500 guests at a time, its capacity being tested in 1883, when three in excess of that number were entertained on the same day within its hospitable precincts. The size and solidity of the building may be in- ferred from the statistics of the material consumed in its construction. There were 31,000,000 brick, 32,000 barrels of cement, 10,000,000 feet of lumber, 28 miles of water and 20 of gas piping used by the builders, who sought to impart to the vast structure strength sufficient to resist earthquakes and fire resisting qualities by thick walls and the liberal use of iron.
The most attractive feature of the hotel, which had a fame wider than national, was its great court, surrounded by galleries. It was designed on a scale which per- mitted vehicles to enter and deposit their passengers inside the hostelry, and was so large that the glass roof with which it was covered permitted the entrance of sufficient light to make the court as bright as the day outside. It never failed to make a strong impression on the stranger guest, and became a great resort for the poli- ticians of the City and others who cared for the interchange of thought. The inte- rior of the hotel, which had 90,000 feet of floor space, was destroyed in the fire of 1906, but its walls were unaffected by the shake. When the work of rehabilita- tion was undertaken it cost the owners of the property nearly $90,000 to take down
International Fame of the Palace
Palace Hotel Opened
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SAN FRANCISCO
the walls, which they decided to remove in order to permit the construction of a building more in accordance with modern ideas of comfort. There was no question about their strength. The building could have been restored on its original lines, and might have endured for centuries if so reconstructed, but the rooms were too large and the ceilings too lofty to suit present day taste, so the vast structure with its hundreds of bay windows, which made it the most conspicuous edifice on Market street, disappeared to make way for a thoroughly up-to-date building.
The Baldwin hotel was another notable structure erected toward the end of the seventy decade. It occupied the site of the present Flood building on the corner of Market and Powell streets, its frontage extending along the latter thoroughfare to Ellis street. While not so large as the Palace, it was an imposing building and gave character to Market street, the popularity of which received a marked westward impulse with its completion. Like its rival on the other side of the street, and nearer to the Ferry, the Baldwin was provided with innumerable bay windows and was crowned with a dome-like structure at the corner of Market and Powell. Although it came within the rather lax requirements of the fire limit or- dinance it was in no sense a fireproof structure, the vast quantity of wood used in the construction of the bay windows making it very vulnerable. It possessed the added drawback of a theater, which occupied the northeastern portion of the build- ing, being entered from Market street through a narrow lobby, the remainder of the frontage on that thoroughfare being occupied by stores, with rooms of the hotel overhead. The theater was opened in March, 1876, and the hotel in the ensuing February. The Baldwin was destroyed several years before the conflagration of 1906 by a fire which originated in the scene lofts of the theater.
In the interval between the last of the early conflagrations, and the middle of the Seventies, there was not much that could be called notable in the way of business construction. The success of the Bonanza firm called into existence the Nevada block, a pretentious building on the corner of Pine and Montgomery streets, which was erected in 1875-76. It was without architectural distinction, and did not escape the prevailing bay window mania. In 1881 James Phelan erected on the gore formed by the intersection of O'Farrell and Market streets a brick edifice of five stories. Its great frontage on Market street, and the solidity of its construction, made it a conspicuous feature of that thoroughfare, which had by that time asserted its supremacy over the streets running north and south, although Kearny and Montgomery streets still held their places as retail centers. Montgomery street was gradually declining in popularity owing to the encroachment of business offices, while Kearny continued to grow in favor, and in the early Eighties was the thor- oughfare most affected by shoppers, but it began to share its popularity with the north side of Market when the stores in the Phelan block were opened.
In the report of the street superintendent, who had charge of the thoroughfares of the City in 1876, the necessity for more crossings on Market street was dwelt upon. He declared that "the immense pedestrian travel" across that thoroughfare made it positively necessary to provide such conveniences. At that time a very large proportion of the population of San Francisco lived in the district south of Market street. The small streets running parallel with the main thoroughfare were filled with the residences of mechanics and artisans, many of whom owned their own homes. The numbered streets running north and south were well filled with buildings, mostly of frame, many of them with stores underneath and used as lodg-
The Baldwin Hotel and Theater
Business Buildings
South of Market Street
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SAN FRANCISCO
ing houses overhead. The movement toward the western addition had not become very pronounced, as may be inferred from the fact that when the first cable road was built it was not deemed advisable to carry it further westward than Jones street. A year later, however, in 1874, it was extended to Leavenworth street.
Population Spreading Westward
Until the cable roads afforded facilities for penetrating westward, the tendency towards congestion in the district south of Market, between Second and Tenth streets, was very marked and produced results which made themselves apparent in the thronged condition of the City's principal street, especially on the blocks be- tween Montgomery and Fifth. In 1880 when the population of the City was only 233,959, the number of pedestrians who crowded the sidewalks appeared to be as great as twenty years later, when the expansive movement had acquired force and the people were dispersing themselves over a wide area formerly occupied by sand dunes, which were rapidly disappearing before the advancing home seekers, who were building in localities which a few years earlier were regarded as inaccessible and wholly unsuited for residential purposes.
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