Neighborhoods in San Francisco - Portola

Portola

Portola is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of San Francisco, northeast of McLaren Park. It is roughly bordered by San Bruno Avenue and the James Lick Freeway (U.S. Route 101) to the east, Mansell Street to the south, University Street to the west and the Southern Freeway (Interstate 280) to the north. The adjacent Portola Heights extension lies west uphill from University Street to the Excelsior District, bordering McLaren Park to the south.

Phillip and Sala Burton Academic High School (formerly Wilson High School) is located on Mansell Street, and the Portola Library is at Bacon Street and Goettingen Street (380 Bacon Street), between the Edward Robeson Taylor Elementary School and the Martin Luther King Middle School (which replaced the former Portola Junior High School). The large University Mound Reservoir is located along University Street, between Felton Street and Woolsey Street.

Portola (pronounced PORE-toe-luh, at least by traditionalists) was named after the old Portola School, which in turn was named after the Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá (credited by some as the discoverer of San Francisco Bay). Originally settled after the 1906 earthquake by Jewish and Italian immigrants, the area evolved into a community populated by nurserymen and their families who grew much of the city's flower crop there and uphill to the west in the Portola Heights extension. "The Road," as San Bruno Avenue was affectionately referred to by the locals, still hosts businesses that include bakeries, grocery stores, pharmacies, and in earlier times a theater, now a large restaurant. The Portola was also once home to a significant population of Maltese immigrants and settlers and at one time the Maltese Consulate. According to the U.S. Census, the Asian population in the Portola has been steadily increasing since the 1990s. The Portola is marked by Census Tract 257.