Western Addition and Haight

Introduction

This broad zone includes the Western Addition, defined here as streets west of Van Ness Avenue (or west of the Civic Center area which ends at Franklin) to Richmond (the Richmond, as San Franciscans are wont to say), and its natural extension to the southwest, the Haight which has been extended south, somewhat generously the neighbors may sniff, to take in streets bordering Buena Vista Park and the north slope of Corona Heights. The heart of the Western Addition is Fillmore Street; the Haight revolves around Haight Street. The western boundary of the zone is Arguello Boulevard.

Not everybody, and possibly nobody, will agree with this definition. It would be logical to group Presidio Heights with Pacific Heights which would have the effect of making it a panhandle south of the Presidio. Panhandles are problematic with the software employed in the Area Selector map. We hope Presidio Heights residents will not mind being lumped with one of the most beautiful parts of town where steep sloped park squares interrupt the landscape periodically and the painted lady is alive and well.

Western Addition

The historic definition of the Western Addition might seem surprising today. It was used in the 1850s to mean planned streets from Larkin, at the western edge of American-era settlement westward to Divisadero, the city limits. (El Divisadero, "place with a view," was the Spanish name for Lone Mountain.) The Western Addition would accommodate westward growth of the young city. After the holocaust following the earthquake, in which a dynamite line had been established along Van Ness Avenue and neighborhoods to the east were abandoned to the fire, the term came to mean the streets west of Van Ness, by then approaching a half century in age. And since the Western Addition largely escaped the fire (but by no means completely), it along with the Mission district southwest of downtown which was also spared, contain some of the oldest houses in the city.