The Parkside Village

Would you buy property from these guys in 1907-08?

If so, let the buyer beware:

“[R]esidents of Parkside were compelled to walk in utter darkness at night from the [street]cars to their homes, because there were no street lights. If their houses were to take fire they would have to look on hopelessly while the building burned down, for there was no fire protection in the district. If the residents had children the parents would have to anxiously ship their children aboard a streetcar hoping that they would find their way downtown to school and would return safely in the evening for there was no school in the district.” 

The above challenges of a four-year-old San Francisco neighborhood, a collection of cottages on dunes and scrub in today’s southern Sunset District, were described by the San Francisco Call in 1911.

When the first Parkside District homes were constructed on sand dunes in 1907, remote from any settled neighborhood, the pioneer residents were bereft of most basic city services. The next year, property owners met in a building on the corner of 26th Avenue and Taraval Street to form the Parkside District Improvement Club (PDIC).

Volunteer community groups and “improvement” clubs were significant drivers of San Francisco neighborhood development and vitality in the early twentieth century, especially in the city’s outlying areas.

Groups such as the Mission Promotion Association, the Hayes Valley Improvement Club, and the Bay View Boosters had to lobby hard for sewage lines, street lights, and schools.

The importance and relevance of improvement clubs in the 1910s was such that once a week the San Francisco Call dedicated a whole section to the challenges, efforts, and victories of dozens of organizations across the city.

The PDIC formed committees to attack the most pressing needs of the neighborhood. One lobbied for and secured telephone service for the district. Another pressured for mail delivery, as the postal service hadn’t gotten around to assigning anyone to the Parkside.

Residents created their own 25-man volunteer fire company, borrowing equipment from the city’s Fire Commission to store it in a building donated by the Parkside Realty Company.

When the Board of Education dithered on finding a site for a local elementary school, the group secured a donated lot on Taraval Street near 31st Avenue.

By 1911, the Parkside District Improvement Club (PDIC) numbered 75 men (out of about 100 households in the district) and a women’s auxiliary. All met in Williams Hall, an upstairs space above the Parkside’s only market at 32nd Avenue and Taraval (today Gene’s Liquors). 

The women of the auxiliary were just as active as the men, although they tended to focus less on city lobbying and more on practical local issues such as getting a fence constructed around the school to keep out stray dogs. Apparently the women also played a lot less poker at their meetings.

Men and women worked together in a committee to organize dances and music concerts at Williams Hall with a goal to “encourage social relations” among Parkside neighbors.

After securing essential services, the Parkside club served as a binding force in the district for decades and collaborated with other neighborhood groups on citywide issues.

The PDIC weighed in on the proposed location of the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition (the club wanted it at Lake Merced), on the issuance of bonds to create the first public transportation line (the club was against), and on the establishment of a municipal water department (very much for).

By the 1930s, under the leadership of Ray Schiller, the Parkside District Improvement Club became even more dynamic. District celebrations in McCoppin and Parkside Squares, May Day Queen pageants, and parades on Taraval Street drew hundreds of attendees.

The club successfully lobbied for extensions of the L-Taraval streetcar line to 33rd Avenue and eventually through sand dunes to the beach.

PDIC marshaled hundreds of locals to attend numerous city meetings to get Lincoln High School constructed. In the 1940s and 1950s, neighborhood businesswoman Evelyn La Place rose to be PDIC president and one of the city’s most active female voices in civic affairs, serving on the Library Commission and as president of the Central Council of Civic Clubs.

Parkside District Improvement Club’s momentum arose from mutual need in an isolated district, but it also thrived from a village atmosphere present in most city neighborhoods before World War II.

Ray Schiller lived and worked on 28th Avenue. Evelyn LaPlace lived on 32nd Avenue, and ran her gift store and library at 941 Taraval and her dress shop at 1109 Taraval Street. PDIC board member Russell Powell published the Pacific News, the neighborhood’s own newspaper, at 1722 Taraval Street.

Parksiders bought their aspirin at Parkside Pharmacy (28th Avenue and Taraval), their paints at Parkside Hardware (1038 Taraval), and had their breakfast at Parkside Coffee Shop (949 Taraval).

Groceries, cakes, clothing, doctors, dentists—all on Taraval. They went to services at Parkside Gospel Hall or St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church. Children attended Parkside School or St. Cecilia’s parochial school. Men generally had full-time jobs and women generally stayed home, and they all knew their neighbors well. 

Village life sounds pleasant, even idyllic—wouldn’t it be nice to be so neighborly? But you and I likely would feel uncomfortable with its limitations and exclusions. Beyond marriage and motherhood, opportunities for women were extremely restricted: teacher, secretary, clerk at a store, operator at the telephone company.

Single businesswoman Evelyn LaPlace was a notable outlier, called a “Career Girl” in one newspaper headline when she was appointed the city library commission at 42 years old.

And while racist deed covenants weren’t in place across the neighborhood like they were in tonier developments, nonwhite residents and buyers were excluded from the Parkside by acknowledged “understandings” between real estate agents and residents.

Occasionally, the arrangement had to be made plainer. In 1943, the PDIC wrote the Real Estate Association of San Francisco:

“We have received rumors that colored people and Filipinos were attempting to purchase property, namely new homes being erected, in the Parkside and Sunset district. We would appreciate any information you would be able to give us and what we might do to prevent this situation from developing.”

The situation did develop, thankfully, although it was a slow process. By the early 1950s, the Parkside was no longer an isolated island on the dunes, but enmeshed in a residential landscape that stretched in all directions.

The neighborhood’s insularity fractured in the 1960s and 1970s as early residents passed away and their children were attracted to new developments in the suburbs. Non-white families gained footholds in the avenues and today Asian American households make up the majority of the Sunset District west of 19th Avenue.

The PDIC held May Day celebrations into the 1970s and installation dinners for its officers continued to the end of the century, but the club’s power and influence dwindled with its membership. A handful of residents kept it alive into the 2000s, content to hold monthly meetings of no more than a dozen people.

But the club was fortunate to have dedicated archivists and chroniclers of its history, particularly Opal Piercy, who made scrapbooks of club photos, ephemera, meeting minutes, and clippings related to the neighborhood and the PDIC.

Thanks to a little encouragement from me, those scrapbooks are now safe in the San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco Public Library, and copies are kept at the Parkside Branch Library. 

Woody Beer and Coffee Fund 

Thanks to Christopher P. and Julia G. for encouraging sips and quaffs via the Woody Beer and Coffee Fund!

Nancy and I are taking in some Shakespeare in Ashland, Oregon, and then I am off to see an art show by my talented uncle and aunt in British Columbia. If they let me back into the country (this used to be a joke), let's get a beer or coffee!

Friends (maybe you) have already paid for our pleasure. Let us not disappoint them.

Sources

C. F. Adams, “Parkside Club Has Done Wonders in Two Years,” San Francisco Call, March 25, 1911, pg. 21.

San Francisco Call, February 27, 1913, pg. 18.

“West End Clubs Form Federation,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 3, 1909, pg. 12.

“Career Girl Wins Appointment,” San Francisco Progress, November 18-19, 1948.

Copy of letter dated May 17, 1943. PDIC papers, Western Neighborhoods Project Collection.