March 4, 2009 – A Walkabout San Francisco’s Barbary Coast

It’s Friday morning, November 8, 2008 at 8:00 o’clock. I’ve parked in the Golden Gateway Garage at 250 Clay Street in San Francisco several blocks from the office building near the Transamerica Tower where I have an appointment at 10:00 o’clock. I’ve come early to meet someone for breakfast but I’m not expected until 9:00 o’clock. I’m going to use the time until then to enjoy this part of the city. Where I am is what was the southeastern boundary of the Barbary Coast, that notorious section of the city that erupted when the first crush of gold seekers overran the small village of Yerba Buena toward the end of 1848. Being here is being at the epicenter of an explosion long after it detonated and time has covered over all trace of the initial event. In 1848, the small village of Yerba Buena, population 900, erupted into San Francisco, population 56,000 in 1850 and accelerating.

I exit the parking garage and turn right heading west on Clay toward Battery Street and the financial district further on. The office and residential towers of Two Embarcadero Center are on my left. Embarcadero Center sits atop what was Yerba Buena Cove in 1850 when everything southeast of Sansome from Jackson to California was underwater. The four large rectangular shaped building, between Clay and Sacramento Streets from The Embarcadero to Battery Street, and two hotels command 9.8 acres of the most prime real estate in San Francisco. The 45-story One Embarcadero Tower that I’ve just past was completed in 1971. The center’s rising happened just before my family and I found our way west to the Bay Area.

Embarcadero Center is the latest covering time has layered over the big event of 1849; the two towers of Three and Four Embarcadero Center are behind me. The brainchild of M. Justin Herman—the city named a plaza after him—the center began in 1967 when according to Time magazine, David Rockefeller President of Chase Manhattan Bank and his brother Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller proposed the $150 million project to San Francisco Redevelopment Agency Director M. Justin Herman. John Portman was the architect—think hotels like the Hyatt Regency with Atriums that soar skyward. Manhattan-based builder George A. Fuller Company would build the structure, with wealthy Dallas realty investor Trammell Crow participating in the deal, too. At the time the development was called Rockefeller Center West.

Running parallel to Clay and Sacramento and entirely covered over by the huge complex are five blocks that was once a notorious San Francisco thoroughfare, Commercial Street, which continues as little more than an alley from Sansome Street to Grant Avenue. In 1912 the 700 block of Commercial Street between Kearney Street and Grant Avenue had 15 houses of ill-repute—including the Parisian Mansion, the Lively Flea, and The Red Rooster—a year before the April 1913 Red Light Abatement Act became law in the state of California, officially shuttering the illicit trade of the notorious Barbary Coast though it would take a California Supreme Court ruling in 1917 before an organized police action on Valentine’s Day to close just over eighty houses of prostitution and evict over a thousand lady boarders from the establishments. San Francisco had come kicking and screaming into the 20th Century. However, the illicit trade didn’t stop; rather it moved to the San Francisco Tenderloin—today, the area between Polk Street, Sutter Street, Mason Street, Market Street, and Golden Gate Avenue—and went underground.

The Hyatt Regency San Francisco, sitting amidst the right triangle formed by Drumm and Sacramento Streets with Market Street as the hypotenuse, began welcoming guests in 1973. The hotel’s atrium lobby would be featured in “The Towering Inferno,” a year later. Two Embarcadero Center reached its full 30-story height in 1974. Three years later saw the completion of the 31-story Three Embarcadero Center and in 1982, the 45-story Four Embarcadero Center opened its doors for business. It would take until 1988 before the 25-story Park Hyatt Hotel—now the Hotel Le Méridien—at the corner of Battery and Clay Streets received guests. I stand out front of the hotel lobby for a moment remembering the times I had dropped off and picked up executives from my employer, a Cleveland-based publishing company. They liked staying here when visiting because the hotel chain bartered room accommodations for ad space.

I turn left at Sansome, walk halfway to Sacramento, and find the narrow asphalt thoroughfare that is Commercial Street leading west toward Montgomery Street. Beneath the concrete and asphalt of Embarcadero Center across Sansome are the hulks of many ships that brought the Argonauts—after the Greek mythological seekers of the Golden Fleece—and all merchandise they would consume. By the summer of 1850, over 500 vessels were recorded in the vicinity of Yerba Buena Cove. Most had been abandoned as passengers and crew struck out for the gold fields. The abandoned vessels were converted into warehouses, hotels, saloons, and jails or dismantled for their timber used in building construction by the San Franciscans who stayed behind to mine the miners. The history of the ship Niantic describes the fate of many.

Under command of Captain Henry Cleaveland of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and his sons James and Daniel as first and second mates, respectively, the Niantic rounded Cape Horn from Rhode Island en route to the Pacific Northwest. Stopping in Panama to drop cargo, it picked up 250 Argonauts who had crossed the Isthmus of Panama racing to the California Gold Fields. The Niantic dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay on July 5th 1849. All passengers and most of the crew hastily disembarked and went in search of wealth. Without a crew Niantic’s owner, Burr & Smith, instructed Captain Cleaveland to sell the ship. Upon carrying out the order, Captain and his two mates did not succumb to the siren call of the gold field but sailed away on another ship. The Niantic was hauled to where Montgomery and Clay streets are today, covered with a shingle roof, sub-divided into stores and offices and painted over with signs of the various occupants. It earned its owners $20,000 a month in rent, returning far more on land than it could ever have produced at sea. The great fire of 1852, one or more of the six that ravaged the area from December 1849 to June 1852 destroyed the structure. It was rebuilt on the hull of the ship as the Niantic Hotel, the finest hotel in San Francisco back then.

The Barbary Coast would survive nearly 70 years until genteel society finally determined to rid the city of its Dionysian soul. The task of dismantling the Barbary Coast fell to James Rolph Jr. the 38th mayor of San Francisco. He was a banker, shipbuilder, and California governor from 1931-1934. But, even he and the California Red-Light Abatement Act could not shut it down for good until 1920. Afterwards, the area became San Francisco's Produce District where the area's narrow streets were lined with vendors selling fruits and vegetables.

If you look back on the years that this piece of ground has hosted large-scale human habitation, the time seems remarkably brief. I wonder if a hundred years from now these high-rise towers will likewise be torn down by developers or natural disasters and built over once more. Civilization continues to build upon the past and nearly all the memories in that past are locked away waiting for some curious soul to dig them out and give them an airing. I resume my walk along Sansome heading toward Sacramento where I turn left and head toward the Hyatt Regency and my first meeting of the day. I’m reminded of the Emily Dickinson poem.

Forever—it composed of Nows—
'Tis not a different time—
Except for Infiniteness—
And Latitude of Home—

From this—experienced Here—
Remove the Dates—to These—
Let Months dissolve in further Months—
And Years—exhale in Years—

Without Debate—or Pause—
Or Celebrated Days—
No different Our Years would be
From Anno Domini's—