Fillmore - Hayes Valley

It is one of those neighborhoods with a bittersweet past. The stretch of Fillmore Street between Haight Street and Geary Boulevard, where Japantown begins, is sometimes called Hayes Valley, although along Fillmore the real valley is at about Fulton, a couple of blocks north of Hayes. The Fillmore District is one of San Francisco's most diverse neighborhoods. And though traditionally black and Japanese, waves of immigrants from all over the world in search of low cost housing settled here earlier in the 19th century.

Fillmore Street is best known for its clubs. The most famous of these for the past 35 years has been Bill Graham's Fillmore ("The Fillmore") Auditorium at the corner of Geary Boulevard and Fillmore Street. (By the way, Jim Jones' People's Temple was next door. In the 1970s, I occasionally watched its ham radio antenna rotating so that it pointed southeast toward Guyana.) "The Fillmore [Auditorium] property... was originally built as an Italianate-style dance hall" at its present location, the southwest corner of Fillmore and Geary. You can view details at the Fillmore's own site. Jefferson Airplane, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, The Who and everybody else who made the San Francisco rock scene in the Sixties, and after, performed here.

A lot was crowded into Fillmore Street besides the clubs in that decade. The Black Panthers' headquarters were at 1336 Fillmore, a few doors north of Eddy Street. A curbside emblem marks the location. It's an empty lot for the time being. An interesting building in the neighborhood from a much earlier era is the Fillmore car barn, at the corner of Turk.

One installment of KQED-TV's series "Neighborhoods: The Hidden Neighborhoods of San Francisco" originally broadcast in 2001 was dedicated to this neighborhood.

"Because the neighborhood in its prime was primarily African American and working class, it was often ignored or dropped from mainstream city history and photo records," says Peter L. Stein, the program's producer and writer.

Go here to read more. Also, see the Fillmore Timeline 1860 - 2001.

The era of clubs catering to black clientele began in 1933 with Jack's Tavern, at the corner of Sutter and Webster, one block east of Fillmore Street. The names of some of the other establishments that flourished in the 1940s and early 50s suggest a street filled with the sounds of jazz, like West 52nd St. in New York. For instance, there were the New Orleans Swing Club, and the Club Alabam and Bop City.

SF Mayor Willie Brown lived around here when he first moved to San Francisco from Texas in 1951.

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency widened Geary Street to four lanes in the late 50s when it became Geary Boulevard. The new thoroughfare became the dividing line for a neighorhood that had formerly been more heterogenous. The agency condemned buildings and promised business owners preference in returning to new buildings, but only a few exercised their right. It is only because buildings were razed in such great numbers 40 years ago that there could be such a thing as an empty lot today (see previous) in this prime commercial district in the middle of San Francisco. The far sighted person would do well to take a lesson from Adolph Sutro whose 19th century acquisition of portions of Rancho San Miguel were considered folly in the early years. On balance, the Fillmore is a pretty nice neighborhood to build a business.