Marina District

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Coordinates: 37 ° 48 ′ 11 "  N , 122 ° 26 ′ 10"  W.

Marina District in San Francisco
panorama
Location of the district

The Marina District is one of the northernmost neighborhoods of San Francisco , California . It is bounded to the east by Van Ness Ave, to the west by Lyon Street and the Presidio and to the south by Lombard Street. The world exhibition Panama-Pacific International Exposition took place in the area of ​​today's district in 1915 , for which a lagoon was filled with sand and thus converted into usable land. With the world exhibition , the city was able to show that it had recovered from the earthquake of 1906 . After the exhibition, all buildings with the exception of the Palace of Fine Arts were demolished to make way for the current residential area. Cow Hollow , Russian Hill and the Presidio delimit the Marina District to the south, east and west.

history

In the Bay of San Francisco , north of Cow Hollow, a levee was built parallel to the coastline and the enclosed marshland was filled with sand from the seabed. The dredging deepened the water, and so the St. Francis Yacht Club and the Golden Gate Yacht Club were founded , occupying prestigious locations at the foot of Baker Street. To the east is Marina Green , an extensive green area that is mostly used by joggers. The Golden Gate Promenade invites you to stroll. It runs parallel to Marina Boulevard and a few kilometers further to the eponymous bridge . Beginning at Crissy Field , a former airfield of the Presidio, great landscaping efforts have been used to recreate natural marshland and tidepools that extend from Marina Green to the bridge.

Numerous myths have arisen about the origin of the Marina District. Many people claim that the area was formed on the rubble that was poured into the bay after the great 1906 earthquake. However, footage of the Marina District through 1912 shows that most of the area was still part of the bay, which begs the question of why it would take six years to dump the rubble and create the Marina. In 1885 Filbert Street was still the old Presidio Road. Two blocks north, toward the bay where Lombard Street is now, was 10 meter high sand dunes at Buchanan Street. The coastline had already been shifted north by industrial settlements. Between Laguna Street and Steiner Street, in what is now the Moscone Recreation Center and the Marina Middle School, was Lobos Square, a piece of land that was leveled by clearing dunes to make room for moorings and industrial facilities.

Most of it was destroyed in 1906, including the Gas Light Company power station . Only the brick building of the measuring system remained and the date of completion, 1893, can still be seen in an archway behind the Marina Safeway, at the intersection of Buchanan and North Point streets.

To the west, on North Point Street, the sidewalk slopes down to where the coast and sea once met. There, builder James Graham Fair built a dike in the 1890s as part of a large project to reclaim 283,000 square feet of land and build an industrial park. The enclosed land was to be filled in with sand, but this ran out when the dams were completed. What remained looked like a large bathtub full of water.

Until 1912, the intersection of North Point and Fillmore Streets, which is in the heart of today's marina, was still in the middle of the bay. The organizers of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition rented James G. Fairs pond and finished the project. After being dredged twice and 146 days later, the bathtub was filled with 100,000 cubic meters of sand and mud.

After the end of the World's Fair in 1915, the heirs of Fair got the land back and sold it to the Marina Development Corporation. Urban planner Michael O'Shaughnessy built streets on it, which he connected with the original, checkerboard-like streets of the city, but whose layout contradicts the older parts of the city, and which in some areas of Marina are reminiscent of a maze. The Marina Development Corporation divided the area into 634 residential lots and the Marina Green . When it was expanded in the 1920s, the area previously known as Harbor View or North End was called The Marina.

geography

US Highway 101 / Lombard Street is a boulevard that divides the southern half of Marina. Along the street are motels built to mark the opening ceremony of the Golden Gate Bridge , and a number of retail stores, fast food outlets, and apartment buildings. On a typical afternoon, tourists in the street looking for Ghirardelli Square and the Golden Gate Bridge meet residents of the Marina / Cow Hollow area and children on their way to Marina Middle School. Lombard Street runs between Cow Hollow to the south and Marina to the north and is sometimes referred to as NoLo [north of Lombard].

The Moscone Recreation Center is home to the largest children's playgrounds in town, as well as tennis, basketball and volleyball courts. The park has served as a gathering place for the residents of San Francisco for generations and has been featured in numerous historical films. The piece of land on which the Tower of Jewels stood during the 1915 World's Fair was originally called Funston Park. Renamed in memory of the murdered Mayor George Moscone , the park is a political reminder of the Marina District's conservative activists who opposed Moscone's progressive policies.

The Marina Green is a scenic park that borders the marinas and San Francisco Bay. The wind in Marina Green often exceeds 80 km / h, making it ideal for windsurfing on the nearby East Beach.

The schools in Marina include the Tule Elk Child Development Center and Marina Middle School, whose students are mostly brought by bus from other, less affluent areas of San Francisco. Most of the few children and young people who live in the area go to private schools.

earthquake

The Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 caused considerable damage and many people were killed in the rubble of their homes. The area created by the backfill was worst affected due to the soil liquefaction caused by the quake .

There is an area in The Marina that has not been refurbished. This is bordered by Fort Mason, Octavia Street, Lombard Street and Van Ness Avenue. It is called The Gold Box because of its geologically pristine subsoil of sandstone and basement rock . From there it is equidistant to the shops and restaurants of Chestnut Street (Marina), Union Street (Cow Hollow), and Polk Street (Russian Hill). Also nearby are Fort Mason, Moscone Recreation Center and the Marina Safeway.

Significant structures

Marina Safeway - The “Marina” prototype was the first modern concept store : a classic piece of architecture, named after the first Safeway store that was planned on Marina Boulevard in San Francisco. Since it was built in June 1959, the external appearance of the supermarket has changed little. Hundreds more of this type exist in North America today, and most of them have been remodeled and expanded. The Marina Safeway is particularly known for its singles scene. Under the name Single's Safeway , lately also Dateway , it is considered to be one of the most promising places in town to get to know someone or to tear them up. This "concept" was first described by the San Francisco-born writer Armistead Maupin in his city stories.

Exploratorium - One of the most famous museums in San Francisco is the Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts . The Science Center annually offers more than half a million visitors "hands-on science" and this interactivity makes it particularly suitable for children. Northern California schools run regular day trips here.

Movies that feature The Marina

Web links