Commercial Street is a street in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

that runs from Sansome Street to

Grant Avenue Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, is one of the oldest streets in the city's Chinatown district. It runs in a north–south direction starting at Market Street in the heart of downtown and dead-ending past Francisco Street in the North ...

. The eastern end of Commercial Street was originally the waterfront before it was filled in for real estate. It led to the

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

and is the location of both the original

San Francisco Mint The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint. Opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush, in twenty years its operations exceeded the capacity of the first building. It moved into a new one in 1874, now kno ...

and the California headquarters for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

. After a new Mint building at Fifth and Mission Streets opened in 1874, the original Mint was demolished and replaced with a U.S. Sub-Treasury building, completed in 1877. Most of this later building was destroyed in the earthquake and fires of April 1906; but, the surviving remnant — the first-floor facade and a portion of the subterranean vaults — now helps to house the

San Francisco Historical Society The San Francisco Historical Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and presentation of the history of San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area. It is a membership-based organization that holds monthly s ...

at 608 Commercial Street. Commercial is one of only two streets in San Francisco oriented directly toward the tower of the Ferry Building (the other being Market Street). Commercial Street is showcased in the 1950

film noir Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...

thriller, ''

Woman on the Run ''Woman on the Run'' is a 1950 American crime film noir directed by Norman Foster and starring Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe. The film was based on the April 1948 short story "Man on the Run" by Sylvia Tate and filmed on location in San Francis ...

'', directed by

Norman Foster Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

. The location in particular is Sullivan's Grotto at 776 Commercial Street — the Commercial Street side entrance of Eastern Bakery at 720 Grant Avenue. Parts of Commercial Street also contain circular designs of embedded brick taken from the street before the city paved the street. Photographer

Benjamen Chinn Benjamen Chinn (April 30, 1921 – April 25, 2009) was an American photographer known especially for his black and white images of Chinatown, San Francisco and of Paris, France in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Biography Born in San Francisco's ...

lived on Commercial Street and played a part ensuring the street brick patterns remained so as to pay homage to its historical significance as part of Chinatown. Commercial street sign is also seen, while blurry, in the movie 'Big Trouble In Little China'. It is near the alley that the "Lords Of Death" operate out of...in the movie.

Honorary naming of 600 block as "Emperor Norton Place"

Between 1864/65 and his death in January 1880, the San Francisco eccentric and folk hero known as

Emperor Norton Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton, was a resident of San Francisco, California who, in 1859, proclaimed himself "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". In 1863, after Napoleon III invaded Mexi ...

is documented to have lived in the Eureka Lodgings, a rooming house located at 624 Commercial Street, between Montgomery and Kearny Streets. The building that housed the Eureka was destroyed in the disaster of April 1906. The Eureka site now is occupied by a 4-story apartment building at 650/652 Commercial. In February 2023,

San Francisco Board of Supervisors The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body within the government of the City and County of San Francisco. Government and politics The City and County of San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, being simultaneously a c ...

president

Aaron Peskin Aaron Dan Peskin (born June 17, 1964) is an American elected official in San Francisco, California. He serves as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 3, and is currently Dean of the Board. He was elected in ...

introduced a resolution to add "Emperor Norton Place" as a commemorative name for the 600 block of Commercial Street. The resolution was adopted by the Supervisors and approved by Mayor

London Breed London Nicole Breed (born August 11, 1974) is an American politician who is the 45th and current mayor of the City and County of San Francisco. She was supervisor for District 5 and was president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Board ...

in April 2023, with signage installed in early May.Joe Kukura
"The renamed Emperor Norton street sign is now up in Chinatown,"
Hoodline, 8 May 2023.

References

{{Streets in San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco Financial District, San Francisco Streets in San Francisco