Dogpatch is a neighborhood in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, roughly half industrial and half residential. It was initially a working-class neighborhood, but has experienced rapid gentrification since the 1990s. Now it boasts similar demographics to its western neighbor
Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is known for its views of the San Francisco Bay and city skyline, its proximity to many destination spots, its sunny weather, and having two freeways and a Caltrain stat ...
– an upper middle-class working professional neighborhood.
Dogpatch was originally part of Potrero Nuevo and its history is closely tied to Potrero Hill. Dogpatch has its own neighborhood association but shares a merchant association, Democratic caucuses, and general neighborhood matters with Potrero Hill.
Location
![Dogpatch 1937](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Dogpatch_1937.jpg)
Dogpatch is located on the eastern side of the city, adjacent to the waterfront of the
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland.
San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...
, and to the east of
Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is known for its views of the San Francisco Bay and city skyline, its proximity to many destination spots, its sunny weather, and having two freeways and a Caltrain stat ...
. Its boundaries are Mariposa Street to the north,
I-280 Interstate 280 may refer to multiple highways, all of which are or were related to Interstate 80:
* Interstate 280 (California), a north–south freeway running from San Jose to San Francisco
* Interstate 280 (Iowa–Illinois), part of the beltway ...
to the west, Cesar Chavez to the south, and the waterfront to the east. It contains housing, some remaining heavy industry, more recent light industry, and a new but growing
arts district. In 2002 it became an officially designated
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...
of the city of San Francisco.
Dogpatch is part of the City's neighborhood plans.
Attractions and characteristics
Dogpatch is mostly flatland and has many
docks (most of them built atop
landfill
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
). It is an industrialized area with pockets of residences. Many warehouses were converted to lofts and condos in recent years. Like its neighbor
Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill is a residential neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is known for its views of the San Francisco Bay and city skyline, its proximity to many destination spots, its sunny weather, and having two freeways and a Caltrain stat ...
, Dogpatch enjoys sunny weather in San Francisco.
Its
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far ...
station at 22nd Street makes Dogpatch popular with commuters who work south of San Francisco. 22nd Street is one of only nine stations in Caltrain’s 29-station system that receive
"Baby Bullet" express service in addition to regular service.
The main commercial artery of Dogpatch is
Third Street, which contains retail and service businesses and is served by the
T Third Street
The T Third Street is a Muni Metro light rail line in San Francisco, California. It runs along the east side of San Francisco — primarily in the median of Third Street — from to the Market Street subway. It is interlined with the ...
light rail line operated by the
San Francisco Municipal Railway
The San Francisco Municipal Railway (SF Muni or Muni), is the public transit system for the City and County of San Francisco. It operates a system of bus routes (including trolleybuses), the Muni Metro light rail system, three historic cable ...
(MUNI). The Third Street corridor connects Dogpatch to San Francisco's downtown, via new development zones including
Mission Bay and the
UCSF
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It condu ...
research campus.
Notable sites in the neighborhood include
Irving M. Scott School Irving may refer to:
People
*Irving (name), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
* Irving, the main character's love interest in Cathy (comic strip)
* Lloyd Irving, the main protagonist in the ''Tales of Symphonia'' vide ...
, the oldest public school building in San Francisco, built 1895; the historic shipyards at
Pier 70; a boxing gym, where many local amateurs train; a number of restaurants & breweries; Esprit Park, a sunny lawn with bordering trees that was donated to the city by Esprit Corp.; the headquarters of the San Francisco chapter of
Hells Angels
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide outlaw motorcycle club whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporatio ...
; and numerous historical residences.
Unique to San Francisco, property owners in Dogpatch and Northwest Potrero Hill established the first
Green Benefit District (GBD), a way for San Francisco residents to directly invest in the beautification and greening of their neighborhood.
Name
Origin
The name "Dogpatch" was first used for this area of San Francisco before World War II. There is no definitive explanation for the name; popular hypotheses are:
*It was called "Dutchman's Flat, where Dutchmen from the old country lived".
** Billy Carr, sheriff's deputy, raised in
Irish Hill, 1946
*It was named after
Dogpatch
Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977).
''Li'l Abner'' comic strip
The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...
, the fictional middle-of-nowhere setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip,
Li'l Abner
''Li'l Abner'' is a satirical American comic strip that appeared in many newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. It featured a fictional clan of hillbillies in the impoverished mountain village of Dogpatch, USA. Written and drawn ...
(1934–1977). A colloquialism of the time which described an underdeveloped backwater, Dogpatch was a primitive community "nestled in a bleak valley, between two cheap and uninteresting hills somewhere."
* It is named after the
dogfennel that proliferates there.
* There were packs of dogs that used to scavenge discarded meat parts from Butchertown (a slaughterhouse district located in Bayview) along
Islais Creek
Islais Creek or Islais Creek Channel (previously known as Du Vrees Creek, Islais Channel and Islais Swamp) is a small creek in San Francisco, California. The name of the creek is derived from a Salinan Native American word "''slay''" or "''islay' ...
and up the bay.
Usage
Dogpatch is used by different writers or speakers with or without "the". In the article ''Is the Dogpatch the coolest neighborhood in San Francisco?'' by Tessa McLean, the writer consistently uses "the Dogpatch." while John Borg, writing for Pier 70, consistently uses Dogpatch without "the" aside from the phrase "the Dogpatch neighborhood" in an image caption.; John King, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, uses Dogpatch without "the" as well.
History
The history of Dogpatch and Potrero Hill are closely tied as both were once part of Potrero Nuevo and belonged to the same land owner (
Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro (1792 – November 28, 1849) was a Californio politician, soldier, and ranchero, who served as the 1st and 5th Alcalde of San Francisco (initially known as Yerba Buena). He notably commissioned the first land survey of San ...
). Industry first arrived at Dogpatch in the mid-1850s. The earliest residents were mostly European immigrant factory workers. Over time, Dogpatch became more industrialized and many residents migrated to neighboring Potrero Hill. It remained blue-collared and working-class until the mid-1990s when gentrification vastly changed the neighborhood.
Because it survived the
1906 earthquake and fire relatively undamaged, and until recently had not been
redeveloped
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of Urban area, urban space.
Description
Variations on redevelopme ...
, Dogpatch has some of the oldest houses in San Francisco, dating from the 1860s.
Between the 1860s and 1880s, the
marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...
es at the edge of the bay were filled, and the area was connected to the main part of the city by bridges across what was then Mission Bay (which has since been filled in). Located nearby was the now-defunct working-class neighborhood of Irish Hill. This proximity allowed for development of industry and housing. Waterfront-oriented industry, including shipbuilding,
drydock
A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
s and ship outfitting and repairs,
warehouse
A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...
s,
steel mill
A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finish ...
s, and similar industries flourished until after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, when they began to decline.
Dogpatch endured several decades of decline, which lasted until the 1990s, when economic pressures led to modest
gentrification
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
of the existing housing stock, and new construction including
loft
A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large ...
-style
condominiums, many of which were designated as "live-work" units for
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s,
graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...
s, and similar occupations. The conversion of existing industrial space to live-work units or other housing has been controversial.
Early history
Dogpatch was uninhabited land for much of its history, used sporadically by Native Americans as hunting ground. In the late 1700s, Spanish missionaries grazed cattle on the hill and named this area (Dogpatch and Potrero Hill) Potrero Nuevo. "Potrero" is Spanish for "pasture"; "Potrero Nuevo" means "new pasture."
Rancho Potrero de San Francisco
Mexico gained independence from the colonial
Viceroyalty of New Spain
New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...
in 1821. In 1844 the Mexican
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
Governor
Juan Alvarado granted
Rancho Potrero de San Francisco to Francisco and Ramon de Haro, the 17-year-old
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
sons of
Don
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
*Don (river), a river in European Russia
*Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
*Don, Dang, a vill ...
Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro (1792 – November 28, 1849) was a Californio politician, soldier, and ranchero, who served as the 1st and 5th Alcalde of San Francisco (initially known as Yerba Buena). He notably commissioned the first land survey of San ...
, who was then ''
alcalde
Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...
'' (mayor) of
Yerba Buena
Yerba buena or hierba buena is the Spanish name for a number of aromatic plants, most of which belong to the mint family. ''Yerba buena'' translates as "good herb". The specific plant species regarded as ''yerba buena'' varies from region to regi ...
(present day San Francisco).
Just two years later, Francisco and Ramon de Haro were shot dead by
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and n ...
along with their uncle,
José de los Reyes Berreyesa
José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ).
In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...
, in
Sonoma at the order of
U.S. Army Major John C. Fremont, who had declared war on Mexico. Fremont's men were called the
Osos, the local insurgents of the day. These Osos jailed the Sonoma alcalde and put the town under siege in the
Bear Flag Revolt
The California Republic ( es, La República de California), or Bear Flag Republic, was an unrecognized breakaway state from Mexico, that for 25 days in 1846 militarily controlled an area north of San Francisco, in and around what is now Son ...
. The de Haro twins and De los Reyes Berreyesa traveled to Sonoma to inquire on the safety of the latter's sons when they were discovered and killed. With the death of his sons, Don Francisco de Haro became owner of Rancho Rincon de las Salinas y Potrero Viejo.
Construction of street grids in the Gold Rush era
In 1848, after the conclusion of the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...
, Mexico ceded all of California, and it was
admitted into the Union in 1850. Dr. John Townsend became the second mayor of the town now called San Francisco (changed from Yerba Buena in 1847). He succeeded de Haro, who was distraught over the death of his twin sons. Townsend would have a profound impact on the development of Potrero Hill.
With the start of the
Gold Rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
era in 1848, San Francisco experienced unprecedented rapid growth. Townsend envisioned developing Potrero Hill as a community for migrants and their newfound riches. Townsend, a good friend of de Haro, approached him about dividing his land into individual lots and selling them. De Haro, with his land rights already challenged and fearing that the United States government would now strip him of Potrero Nuevo, agreed to Townsend's suggestion. Together with famed surveyor
Jasper O'Farrell
Jasper O'Farrell (1817–1875) was an Irish-American politician who served as the first surveyor for San Francisco. He designed the "grand promenade" that became today's Market Street. O'Farrell Street in San Francisco is named after him.
Early ...
, recent emigrant Cornelius De Boom, and
Captain John Sutter hashed out the grid and street names. Even before
California became a state, local residents saw Potrero Nuevo as an intersection of Mexican California and the United States, due to its location. Townsend capitalized on this sentiment by naming the north–south streets after American states (Arkansas, Utah, Kansas, etc.) and the east–west streets after California counties (Mariposa, Alameda, Butte, Santa Clara, etc.). At this time, Potrero Hill was not part of San Francisco, so the men marketed this area as "South San Francisco."
Historians speculate that "merging the United States with the counties of California would attract homesick easterners" and their newly acquired gold-rush riches to settle in the neighborhood.
There is also speculation that Townsend named the north–south streets after states which he had been to, with Pennsylvania Street (his home state) being an extra wide street. However, there is no record of Townsend ever having been to Texas or Florida, whose names appear as streets. The east–west county street names survived until 1895, but as the city expanded, the Post Office demanded a simplification of the street grids. Most of the county streets took the names of the numbered streets that connected them to downtown, but because they didn't all line up exactly, a few county streets survived (such as Mariposa and Alameda).
By the standard of the mid-nineteenth century, Potrero Hill was not a convenient location to get to - it was still separated by
Mission Bay, which was not yet filled in. Prospective buyers partly deemed Potrero Hill too far away and were wary of de Haro's uncertainty as legal owner of the land. As a result, only a few lots were sold. In late 1849, Don Francisco de Haro died, and he was buried in
Mission Dolores Dolores, Spanish for "pain; grief", most commonly refers to:
* Our Lady of Sorrows or La Virgen María de los Dolores
* Dolores (given name)
Dolores may also refer to:
Film
* ''Dolores'' (2017 film), an American documentary by Peter Bratt
* ' ...
.
Early Industry
After the death of de Haro, squatters began to overtake
Potrero Point
Potrero Point is an area in San Francisco, California, east of San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood. Potrero Point was an early San Francisco industrial area. The Point started as small natural land feature that extends into Mission Bay ...
. The de Haro family tried to maintain control of the land but the family's ownership was challenged legally. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court when in 1866 it ruled against the de Haro family. Residents of Potrero Point celebrated with bonfires after learning of the outcome, some of whom gained title to the lot where they squatted through the
Squatter's Rights
Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land ( real property)—may ...
.
Development eventually came in the early 1850s, not in the form of rich gold-miners envisioned by Townsend, but in a more blue-collar variety. PG&E opened a plant in Potrero Point in 1852. Not long after, a gunpowder factory (gunpowder is vital for gold mining) opened nearby; shipyards, iron factories, and warehouses followed. In 1856, San Francisco Cordage (agents: Tubbs & Co.) opened its extensive manufactory of Manila rope. Potrero Point experienced a minor boom in housing as factory workers preferred to live nearby. The opening of the Long Bridge in the 1860s would drastically change the dynamics of Dogpatch and Potrero Hill.
The Long Bridge (1865 to early 1900s)
In 1862,
President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...
signed into law the
Pacific Railway Act that provided Federal government support for the building of the
First transcontinental railroad
North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...
. In anticipation of the railroad, San Francisco built in 1865 the Long Bridge, to connect San Francisco proper (at the then-foot of Third St.) over Mission Bay to Potrero Hill, Dogpatch and Bayview. Dogpatch, once deemed too far south and marketed as South San Francisco, was suddenly a mile-long promenade away. The Long Bridge completely transformed Potrero Nuevo from no man's land to a central hub. One of the first of many waves of real estate speculation on Potrero Hill soon followed. The Long Bridge was closed after Mission Bay was filled in the early 1900s, which made Dogpatch an even more desirable location.
European migration
By the early 1900s, a large concentration of non-English European immigrants had settled. The two earliest residential neighborhoods were the
Irish Hill and Dutchman's Flat. The infamous Irish Hill, located east of Illinois St and right next to the factories, housed mainly Irish factory workers in boarding houses. Irish gangs were formed and crimes were rampant. Irish Hill was leveled for use as landfill and the residents displaced in 1918.
Over half of Dogpatch's population at this time was Irish immigrants; Scots, Swiss, Russians, Slovenians, Serbians and Italians made up part of the population, and native born whites accounted for less than 20%.
Freeway and development
By the 1930s, the land in Dogpatch had already been built out. The advance of automobile affordability meant that many factory workers were able to drive to work and live further away from the factories in Dogpatch, and thus there was no urgency to increase housing in Dogpatch to accommodate more people. The neighborhood didn't see significant housing development until the 1980s. As a result, many late nineteenth and early twentieth century residences are preserved to this day.
The United States' decision to enter World War II created an industrial boom in Dogpatch, led by the shipyards that constructed navy ships. Dogpatch experienced a significant increase in population (but not housing).
In the 1960s, Interstate 280 was constructed, under much controversy. To obtain the necessary land for the freeways, some residents were forced to vacate their homes in exchange for significantly below-market price paid by the government. Interstate 280 sliced through Potrero Nuevo, and the area east of the freeway began to form a unique identity. More people began to refer to this neighborhood as "Dogpatch."
Modern-era
Dogpatch began to shed its gritty, working-class roots during the dot-com era in the 1990s, when its demographic began to change due to spillover from Potrero Hill and the Mission District. The transformation of Mission Bay (to the north of Dogpatch) into a biotechnology and healthcare hub further gentrified Dogpatch. The construction of
Oracle Park
Oracle Park is a Major League Baseball stadium in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants. Previously named Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, and AT&T Park, the stadium's curre ...
in the late 1990s contributed to the gentrification, and many high-rise, high rent apartment buildings were built near the ballpark.
From 2010 to 2020, the population of Dogpatch increased by 200%. In 2016, the
Minnesota Street Project
Minnesota Street Project (MSP), is a dual for-profit/foundation model art space founded in 2016 in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, California; and features 13 art galleries, an event space, and a restaurant.
History
Minnesota Stree ...
(MSP), a visual arts organization and complex, opened in Dogpatch.
MSP ushered in an increase in local art events and supported the development of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco.
References
External links
Dogpatch Home PageDogpatch Neighborhood AssociationDogpatch, San Francisco, California-
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
San Francisco, Way Out East - travel.nytimes.comStreet date: Third Street, San Francisco - sfgate.com
{{Coord, 37.76060, N, 122.39107, W, display=title
Neighborhoods in San Francisco
Mission District, San Francisco
Potrero Hill, San Francisco
Warehouse districts of the United States
San Francisco Designated Landmarks