The Other San Francisco Pt. 1: The Real South SF

[Nineties Flava]

No offense to any forumers who might live in the "other" South San Francisco lol.

San Francisco is a city known for its colorful neighborhoods, beautiful architecture, great food, etc... that is, the north side of San Francisco is. San Francisco can be split into three distinct sides: The highly prized (and highly priced) and extremely urban north side, the suburban west side and the south side which offers a mixture of both. Of the three, the north side is by far the most well-known; the other two are all but ignored.

On this thread, I'm focusing on the south side, which is the decidedly more middle class area of SF. The decidedly more modest size of the houses and the utilitarian nature of the main drags firmly differentiates it from what the media has dictated is the "average" San Francisco. Even within South SF, however, there are markers that separate income brackets; namely, 280 separates the upper middle class from the lower middle class and McLaren Park is the gateway into San Francisco's underclass.

IMO the most interesting neighborhood in South SF is the Excelsior District. Walking down its section of Mission Street, what immediately stands out is the hodge-podge of restaurants; Thai, Filipino, Mexican, El Salvadorean, all-American diners, Chinese, Italian, etc. operate next to each other. The mix of restaurants is reflected in the mix of people one sees on the strip. Much like the Mission District, murals abound throughout the neighborhood. Differentiating it from the Mission, however, is the much foggier weather and the hillier terrain.

Anyway, I don't feel like writing more... on to the pics. I will say that this will definitely not be my last thread on Excelsior though.


Glen Park















Cayuga Terrace











Excelsior District



















































Mission Terrace


































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Thanks for viewing my thread. All feedback is appreciated and will be returned.


In case you missed my other San Francisco threads:

Welcome to the Mission

San Francisco: Juneteenth In The Fillmore

The Town To The City

[kool maudit]

it's as if st-henri were stucco'd over and painted.

[ue]

A far cry from the "Painted Ladies," but South SF appears to still be distinctly San Franciscan. Thanks for sharing.

[krudmonk]

Real SF: where both "Frisco" and "San Fran" are socially acceptable

[Nineties Flava]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

Real SF: where both "Frisco" and "San Fran" are socially acceptable

lol I was wondering if somebody would notice those signs...

[blade_bltz]

Is that half-built, abandoned wood frame development the one you can see from 280? Anyone know what the deal is?

Originally Posted by krudmonk

Real SF: where both "Frisco" and "San Fran" are socially acceptable

Hah! Just like how all the kids in real Boston say "Beantown".

[Expat]

Fantastic thread! Thanks for breaking new ground for us! Loved it.

[tech12]

Sweet pics! Gotta love that "other SF". It's always felt strange to me how such a large part of the city is so unknown for most people who don't actually live there. Yeah south SF contains lots of low income, gritty, and high crime areas, but you'd think that somehow, with a city as famous and desirable (and small) as SF, that there would have had more attention on the less polished parts by now. I guess it took a while for the mission to be "discovered" and the Excelsior and other parts of south/east SF are bound to be on that list eventually as well.

If anyone wants to see some more of this area, check out my Mission Terrace and Sunnyside threads, in my sig below.

Originally Posted by blade_bltz

Is that half-built, abandoned wood frame development the one you can see from 280? Anyone know what the deal is?

I'm not sure what's up with it exactly, but it's been abandoned/stalled/uncompleted/forgotten for at least a year or two now.

edit: It's been at least two years, because it looked like this in 2009:

[gtbassett]

No Bernal Heights?

To be honest, I rarely make it down that far south these days. I think the last time I was there was a few months ago to take my mother to a very nice Burmese restaurant on Mission. I do like this area more than the other more "suburban" neighborhood of the Sunset, which is just so car oriented and devoid of streetlife compared to the rest of the city that it's quite depressing.

Seeing all these recent SF photo threads makes me want to throw my neighborhood's hat in the ring. The only problem is that my neighborhood is so small that if I didn't branch out and include the neighboring, larger, well known neighborhoods, it would be about 15 photos. Maybe I should anyway...

Nice thread 90s Flava, you always bring interesting new material to SSP and I am thankful for it.

[Travis007]

Nice photo tour, great mix of grit and character.

[STLgasm]

Yes yes yes!!!

[fflint]

This has been "under construction" for more than three years. I ride my bike through that area now and then, and you can really tell how weathered the shell has become. It's never going to be completed, IMO--the last two rainy seasons have likely ruined the wood, inside and out.

Great thread. As someone with an eye on buying a home in SF eventually, I'm hoping these awesome urban areas remain off most people's radar.

[Kingofthehill]

i love these areas - especially the area near ccsf. so authentically sf and devoid of the boutique culture that has taken hold in the more well-known areas. thanks for keeping it real!

[simms3_redux]

If that's as bad as San Francisco gets, then I'm there! Where's the ghetto?

[Nineties Flava]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

If that's as bad as San Francisco gets, then I'm there! Where's the ghetto?

The areas in the thread are all middle class/lower middle class... the ghetto in SF tends to be the area with the highest concentration of projects, which is far and away SE SF (i.e. on the other side of McLaren Park). The actual neighborhood streets tend to look about the same as the ones in this thread, but compared to Mission Street in Excelsior, the last thing left for 3rd Street in Bayview Hunters Point to do is be buried. I will get to this area though, probably some time in September.


EDIT: And thanks everybody for all the great comments. Apparently I need to keep doing the underexposed areas of SF... gets the most replies lol.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

If that's as bad as San Francisco gets, then I'm there! Where's the ghetto?

Nobody said it's as bad as SF gets, there are much worse areas. None of the stuff in this thread is really the ghetto...from the areas shown, SF's worst parts are to the east (Hunters point, Sunnydale, the Alemany projects), to the north (Tenderloin, Mission, Fillmore, Potrero Projects), and to the southwest (Lakeview...though it may not be much worse than the Excelsior anymore). But that said, none of the areas in this thread are free of impoverished people or crime/violence either, particularly the Excelsior, which has a decent amount of drug/gang stuff going on. For example, MS-13 was responsible for all 6 murders in the excelsior in 2008, all of them innocent victims: A father and two sons gunned down in mistaken identity, a 14 year old boy killed during a robbery, and two men shot dead again in mistaken identity. It doesn't have multiple murders every year and shootings aren't a daily occurrence or anything, but violent stuff like that isn't exactly rare. I've heard gunshots a couple times at night there my self.

In 2008 the combined area of Glen Park, The Excelsior, Mission Terrace, and Cayuga terrace has a population of 43,000 people in roughly 2.7 square miles (contiguous), and in 2008 had 11 murders, which comes out to murder rate of 26/100,000 residents. The Excelsior (pop. 24,000) had 6 murders, for a murder rate of 25/100k, Mission Terrace (pop. 9,000) had 2 murders for a rate of 22/100k, Glen Park (pop. 7,000) had 1 murder, for a rate of 14/100k, and Cayuga Terrace (pop. 3,000) had 1 murder, for a rate of 33/100k. None of that is too high as far as bad US neighborhoods go, but it certainly isn't low either. Just saying, It may not be the ghetto, but It's not Mayberry either.

And i'll also add that these are great neighborhoods to live in, i'm not trying to sound scary or something. "South SF" just has a bit more of an edge overall than the rest of the city. It's a diverse place, comprised of large middle and working class areas, with smaller concentrations of impoverished people and upper middle class people. Compared to northern, more well known parts of SF it's overall less wealthy, younger, more diverse economically and racially...it also contains 75% of SF's ghetto areas/housing projects (including the worst of them).

[volguus zildrohar]

Da real SF? I guess like so many places one rarely sees the other side. Thanks for the trip.

[CyberEric]

Thanks for the shots of this underrated part of SF.

[krudmonk]

Glen Park is definitely not ghetto. It's a quaint little area tucked into the hills.

[northbay]

nice pix! thanx for sharing