The Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (also known as "The NABE") is a multipurpose community center and historic building built in 1922 at 953 DeHaro Street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, U.S.. The Potrero Hill Neighborhood House has been listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark since July 9, 1977.

Architecture

Potrero Hill Neighborhood House building was designed by architect Julia Morgan, and was completed on June 11, 1922. It is a single story

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

–style building. The Potrero Hill Neighborhood House design contained a large lobby with a fireplace, an assembly hall, clubrooms, a kindergarten, and a gymnasium room. In 1924, the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House structure was moved 90 feet in order to make way for the construction of a new street called Southern Heights Avenue. In 1930, a new Julia Morgan-designed building on Carolina Street was created to accommodate the kindergarten.

History

During the 1920s a number of immigrants from a Russia religious sect, the Molokans, had settled in Potrero Hill after they fled Czarist persecution in the Volga and Caucasus regions. Rev. William E. Parker, Jr., a pastor of the Olivet Presbyterian Church (located at Missouri and 19th Streets), was concerned about the needs of the community and brought the issue to the San Francisco Presbytery leaders. In 1919, the California Synodical Society of Home Mission, Inc., a group of women affiliated with the

Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

made Potrero Hill their first unit of Christian social service by offering

adult education Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...

courses to the new immigrants. The Molokans were able to learned English, sewing machine skills, and other skills at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, the adult education classes at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House were funded by

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

programs. In the 1940s and 1950s, a school was run out of the building by the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association. During World War II, the Potrero Hill Mother's Club, a group of women which met at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, sold Russian food items in order to fundraise for the American war efforts. Enola D. Maxwell, a lay minister at Olivet Presbyterian Church, later served as the director of the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House from 1971 until 2003.

Modern history

Today the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House offers community interest–driven adult education, as well as theatre performances and dramatics classes, hosts youth organizations, summer camp sessions, counseling, and more.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1922 Potrero Hill, San Francisco San Francisco Designated Landmarks Arts and Crafts architecture in California Julia Morgan buildings Clubhouses in California