Market & Octavia Area Plan Historic Context Statement

Publication Date: December 2007

The Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan Area (Plan Area) is located at the heart of San Francisco, a place where downtown San Francisco encounters the industrial South of Market and the Gilded Age streetcar suburbs. The Plan Area is not a historically defined neighborhood, but rather a conglomeration of sections of several distinct neighborhoods, including Duboce Triangle, the Lower Haight, Hayes Valley, the Western Addition, Civic Center, South of Market, Inner Mission, Eureka Valley, and the Market Street Corridor. Due to its large size and diversity of building types, the architectural and historical significance of the Market and Octavia Neighborhood Plan Area is difficult to neatly summarize. The boundaries of the Plan Area were determined in part on the basis of proposed changes in land use and density within a swath of land on both sides of Market Street, between the Civic Center and the Eureka Valley/Castro district. The northern and southern boundaries were determined by what is generally considered to be an “easy walk” from Market Street.

The Plan Area is home to an astounding variety of ethnic and income groups, and may be considered a microcosm of the city as a whole. Since World War II, the Plan Area has experienced considerable change related to the widespread use of private automobiles. The area has also been the site of major infrastructure projects designed to suit regional needs. In the recent past, the area has been characterized by its activism, which led to—among other things—the preservation of the Fallon Building and the replacement of part of the Central Freeway with a redesigned Octavia Boulevard.1 The demolition of the Central Freeway viaduct in the late 1990s (following damage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake) helped revive the economic vitality of the area and attracted new residents from elsewhere in the city, and indeed the world. Along with the internet economy and ensuing real estate boom of 1998-2005, this revitalization has put pressure on long-term residents (particularly renters) and working-class San Franciscans.