I always think of the Western Addition as this huge part of San Francisco west of Van Ness Avenue…read more In my head, where I live (the Panhandle), Hayes Valley, Anza Vista, Alamo Square, Cathedral Hill, and even Japantown are sub-neighborhoods of the larger Western Addition, kind of like South Beach seems like a part of SOMA, rather than a distinct neighborhood. I know I'm not right, but it is interesting and telling that what used to be the larger Western Addition got carved into these smaller neighborhoods, probably for real-estate purposes--and by "real-estate purposes," I mean racism, because the Western Addition has long had a reputation as a Black neighborhood, and one of the things that the real-estate industry has traditionally done is segregate potential homebuyers by race.
You probably know the story. Through the 1950s, the Western Addition was home to many of San Francisco's jazz clubs and to a larger Black community of business- and homeowners. This Black neighborhood was destroyed, like many Black and minority neighborhoods across the country in the mid-twentieth century, by redevelopment. The Central Freeway was rammed through the middle of the neighborhood, and by 1970, more than 10,000 people had been displaced, 60 entire city blocks of homes and businesses having been razed. What replaced those homes were the widened Geary Street (now Geary Boulevard) and the collection of mostly shoddily constructed housing projects that dot the Western Addition today.
It's still an interesting neighborhood with a slightly higher Black population than most of the rest of the city (excluding Bayview and Hunters Point, which are losing their Black populations as well), but it is a shell of its former self, especially when it comes to nightlife. It recently lost is Safeway, but there is a new Trader Joe's. The city is also redoing the Buchanan Street Mall, which is the no-cars greenway, including multiple playgrounds, that replaced Buchanan Street between roughly Page and Eddy Streets in the heart of the Western Addition.
The blocks and blocks of fenced-in housing projects can feel scary to walk by, especially at night, when the east-west streets in the neighborhood are desolate except for people waiting for the 5-Fulton or 31-Balboa at bus stops. Sadly, there's still more crime here than in surrounding neighborhoods, including drive-by shootings near Jefferson Square Park that killed a child at a sleepover party.
The Western Addition is also home to The Fillmore, Kimbell Park, the the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center, and quite a few churches. I also think it's funny that it's called the Western Addition even though it's on the eastern side of San Francisco. And its police station, in front of which cars are broken into regularly, is called Northern Station, even though three other police stations are farther north than it, including, again hilariously, Central Station.
