Potrero Hill, San Francisco, California

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Texas Street and 18th Street, Potrero Hill

Potrero Hill is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, located on the east side of the city, east of the Mission District and south of the South of Market area. It is roughly bordered by 16th Street to the north, Potrero Avenue or U.S. Route 101 to the west and Cesar Chavez Street to the south. There are many docks located on the eastern edge of the neighborhood, which are mainly built atop landfill.

Notable features of Potrero Hill include the Anchor Steam Brewery located on Mariposa Street, between Carolina and DeHaro Streets and owned by the washing machine heir Fritz Maytag, a section of Vermont Street between 20th Street and 22nd Street that has many switchbacks, similar to Lombard Street, Bottom of the Hill on 17th Street, a popular music venue in San Francisco, and the public housing projects on the southeastern side of the hill. The powder blue water tower, located near 22nd Street and Wisconsin Street, was demolished in mid-2006 (as part of a seismic upgrade and due to the fact that it was no longer needed).

"Potrero" is Spanish for "pasture": the name derives from a 1835 land grant to Don Francisco de Haro to graze cattle in the "potrero nuevo" ("new pasture").

Notable residents and businesses

• O.J. Simpson — Former star football player who played for Galileo High School, San Francisco City College, University of Southern California, and the Buffalo Bills. Simpson grew up in the Federal housing projects of Potrero Hill.
• Wayne Thiebaud — Famous and prolific painter lived on and painted Potrero Hill for years
• Robert Bechtle — Photorealist painter used the hill for both a home and subject matter for his art.
• Peter Orlovsky — Poet Allen Ginsberg's partner. Lived at 5 Turner Terrace, one of several Federal Post WWII War Potrero Hill housing projects, in the 1950s.
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti — Poet and co-founder of City Lights, America's first all-paperback bookstore. Ferlinghetti bought the house at 706 Wisconsin St. in 1957.
• The offices of social news site Digg are located above the SF Bay Guardian newspaper on Mississippi St.
• The headquarters for popular Discovery Channel program Mythbusters is located at the southern edge of the neighborhood.
• Miguel Migs — Internationally recognized deep house producer and DJ. Founder of Salted Music: a house music record label (originally spun-off from another San Francisco-based label; Om Records).
• Sarah Lane — Former host on The Screen Savers, and Revision3 employee now does TWiF with Martin Sargent on the TWiT network, and works for Current Tech News^[1]
• Erling Wold — Composer and Associate Music Director of the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra.>
• The Anchor Brewing Company, operates a brewery and distillery on De Haro Street. It is one of the last remaining breweries to produce California Common beer, also known as Steam Beer, a trademark owned by the company.
• The main campus of the California Culinary Academy is located at 350 Rhode Island Street. The facilities include professional kitchens, student-staffed restaurants, lecture classrooms, a library, and culinary laboratory.

Notable streets

• De Haro Street is named after Francisco De Haro. Along with Potrero Avenue, it is one of the main streets of the neighborhood. Most of this street is served by the Muni 19 Polk route.
• Vermont Street is famed for the block between 20th and 22nd which, like the better-known Lombard Street, has several sharp switchbacks.
• 18th Street runs through the heart of the North side of the hill and is home to three blocks that serve as the primary shopping and dining spot in the neighborhood.^[2][3][4][5]

Transportation

Two freeways run through Potrero Hill, U.S. Route 101 on the western side, Interstate 280 on the eastern side. The San Francisco Municipal Railway provides bus service on the hill (the 19-Polk, 22-Fillmore, 53-Southern Heights, 10-Townsend and 48-Quintara - 24th St) and light rail service on 3rd Street (the T-Third Street).^[6]

The names of most streets in Potrero Hill are said to be taken from battleships of the US Navy, one of which was constructed at the nearby shipyards and all of which called on San Francisco during their careers, but this cannot be true because some of the streets have had their names longer than there have been ships of the same name (for example USS Texas). The naming scheme extends slightly beyond Potrero Hill into the Dogpatch neighborhood to the east, the Mission District to the west, and the new Mission Bay neighborhood to the north.

The streets, in order from East to West are:

• Illinois St.
• Third St. (formerly Kentucky St.)
• Tennessee St.
• Minnesota St.
• Indiana St.
• Pennsylvania St.
• Mississippi St.
• Texas St.
• Missouri St.
• Connecticut St.
• Arkansas St.
• Wisconsin St.
• Carolina St.
• De Haro St. (not a ship name)
• Rhode Island St.
• Kansas St.
• Vermont St.
• Utah St.

The streets in the Mission District that follow this naming scheme are:

• Hampshire St.
• York St.
• Florida St.
• Alabama St.

In literature

• Potrero Hill is home to James Patterson's character Lindsay Boxer of the Women's Murder Club book series.

In film

• Potrero Hill has been a location in the movies and TV, 1948's I Remember Mama (Rhode Island Street), 1990's Pacific Heights (the actual house is at Texas and 19th Street, not in Pacific Heights)[1], 2002's 40 days and 40 nights and 2001's Sweet November[2], and in chase scenes in 1968's Bullitt (20th Street & Rhode Island, Kansas Street) and Just Like Heaven. TV shows include 1970's The Streets of San Francisco (De Haro Street between 19th & 20th Streets)and Nash Bridges.
• Potrero Hill is also mentioned in the dark thriller The Game (1997) as being the location where the mysterious 'Christine' lives.
• Potrero Hill begins the first Dirty Harry film, Dirty Harry (1971), when Clint Eastwood's title character Harry Callahan is injured in the line of duty, the doctor who tends to him says, "Us Potrero Hill boys gotta stick together."
• In yet another Dirty Harry film installment Magnum Force (1973), the film opens with a murder at 18th and Pennsylvania.
• In the final Dirty Harry film, The Dead Pool, Clint Eastwood's character and his partner are chased around Potrero Hill by a remote-controlled car with a bomb attached to it.
• Australian band Architecture in Helsinki reference Potrero Hill in their song "Rendezvous: Potrero Hill", found on their album entitled In Case We Die (2005).
• Other films shot in the famed Potrero Hill neighborhood, The Organization (1971), The Laughing Policeman (1973), Chu Chu and the Philly Flash (1981), The Rock (1996), Sweet November (2001), and High Crimes (2002), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)

See also

San Francisco Bay Area portal

• Potrero Point
• Mission Bay, San Francisco, California
• List of San Francisco, California Hills
• Dogpatch, San Francisco, California
• Irish Hill (San Francisco)

References

Further reading

• San Francisco's Potrero Hill by Peter Linenthal, Abigail Johnston, and the Potrero Hill Archives Project, was published by Arcadia Publishing Co. in their Images of America series in 2005. Its 128 pages are full of photos and neighborhood history. It includes early Native American Ohlone history, Mission Dolores, early industry, both world wars, the 1960s, and recent developments. Many photos come from family collections.

External links

San Francisco Bay Area portal

• San Francisco Neighborhoods: Potrero Hill - Neighborhood guide from the San Francisco Chronicle
• Potrero Hill SF - Neighborhood guide and blog
• Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association

Coordinates: 37°45′26″N 122°23′59″W / 37.75716°N 122.39986°W / 37.75716; -122.39986