History
The San Francisco Bay Area was Yelamu Ohlone land until the arrival of the Spanish in 1776. In 1823 Alta California came under the rule of the newly form country of Mexico. The last of San Francisco's Yelamu were forcibly removed from the Village of Yerba Buena and from the Mission San Francisco de Asís in 1826. The Ohlone are still attempting to gain tribal status today.
The building property lies on the edge of what used to be a small lake or Sausal (swampy marsh). The Spanish called it Lago Dolores. The Sausal covered a five block diameter from around South Van Ness to Guerrero Street, and from 15th to 20th street. Remnants of the Sausal still exist as the building requires 24 hour a day dewatering on the north and south sides. According to the last building manager, the water coming into the building was from Isis Creek.
The Redstone is located at 2940 16th Street between South Van Ness, formerly Howard Street, and Capp. The building is situated on the very edge of what used to be an industrial zone, with large industrial facilities like the U.S. Steel facility, now a MUNI facility. The city also built a large armory two blocks away as part of the city's politically divisive labor history.
The North Mission District was a working-class neighborhood from around 1870 up until the 1960s. The neighborhood continues to have a large number of ornate Victorian houses nearby. The North Mission was built and mostly populated by Irish Americans, but also included a Greek community as well. Early neighbors included Woodward Gardens and an Insane asylum on Howard and 15th.
The Redstone building is within a few blocks of the Mission San Francisco de Asís, the Victoria Theater, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, which was originally the Mack Truck company, that was then replaced by a regional St Vincent DePaul center, and Roxie Theaters in the Mission District. What is currently a Walgreens store used to be a boxing arena.
Read more about this topic: Redstone Building
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)