San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The real S.F.? A quiet piece of the west side
Which corner of San Francisco best reflects the city as a whole?
It could be the sliver of North Beach where wild parrots swoop over Caffe Trieste. Or the bustling streets of the Mission dotted with colorful murals and pupuserias. Or the western edge of the city, where you can see surfers and seagulls through the fog.
But according to The Chronicle’s top numbers cruncher, the real answer isn’t found in guidebooks. If you took everybody in San Francisco and looked at their income, race and age, and then found one neighborhood that best matches those demographics, you’d land in Census Tract No. 156.
It’s a mostly residential neighborhood in the Inner Richmond bordering Golden Gate Park to the south and Geary Boulevard to the north. It’s shaped like an upsidedown L bounded by Arguello Boulevard to the west and Parker Avenue and Stanyan Street to the east.
That’s the most San Francisco slice of San Francisco?
When data editor Dan Kopf told me he’d examined the city’s census data and had come up with this location, I had my doubts. Especially because he said he’d previously used a similar strategy to determine the world’s most average country and came up with Azerbaijan.
But when editors suggest an assignment, you’re obligated to do some research. And after hours traipsing around Census Tract No. 156, I was convinced. It is a lot like a tiny version of San Francisco.
First, the demographics. For better or worse, Census Tract No. 156 most closely matches the city. Like the city, its households on average bring in six figures each year. Like the city, half of its residents are white, and just over onethird are Asian. Like the city, it has few kids — just 13.8% of residents are younger than 18.
Walking around the neighborhood showed some similarities that can’t be found in the data. It has public transit that works — hello, 5Fulton! — and transit that’s still sadly suspended 16 months after the onset of the COVID19 pandemic.
The Muni shelter at Turk Street and Arguello Boulevard, which used to serve as a stop for the 31Balboa, has turned into a graffitied windbreak for a large blue tent. A male voice inside declined to be interviewed.
Then there are the views of Sutro Tower. The dense fogbank in the distance. Lots of dog walkers. Beloved small businesses like Arguello Market and its “world famous turkey sandwich,” which I’d somehow never heard of before. Pigeons picking at trash on the sidewalk. Shattered glass in a gutter. Yep, seems like San Francisco, all right.
Also like the larger city, Census Tract No. 156 has an international vibe, with sushi, ramen and Thai restaurants as well as the Indian Consulate, where a line of people waited on the front steps to apply for visas.
Told he was standing in the most San Francisco neighborhood in all of San Francisco, the consulate’s security guard, Billy Burke, was surprised. Which one would he have guessed?
“Mine!” the 72yearold city native said. That would be Lower Pacific Heights, where he still lives in his childhood home.
Mary Kamath was also surprised, although she couldn’t spend much time dwelling on census data as she chased her toddler, Mithali, who was determined to run and push her doll in a tiny toy stroller at the same time. Kamath and her husband have lived next to the Indian Consulate for four years.
“We love it,” she said, noting that it’s close to Golden Gate Park, the Presidio and the shops on Clement Street “It feels like a small town in a big city. We’ve made lots of friends here.” The Kamath family plans to stay, but Allison Ponce de Leon isn’t so sure. She and her husband have debated leaving the city for eight years, but haven’t gotten further than just talking about it. (And yes, her husband is a descendant of Juan Ponce de Leon, who sought the Fountain of Youth but landed in Florida, now retiree central, instead.)
“It definitely feels like a hard city to raise kids in,” Ponce de Leon said as she and her son, Tomas, 9, walked their dog, Mila. She would like to be able to afford a larger house and has grown tired of summer fog.
“But our kids are city kids, and they don’t want to leave,” she said.
Tomas said he loves San Francisco even if a thief swiped his backpack during a recent car breakin. He lost nothing valuable, he said. Just his homework.
“I like biking around the neighborhood, just exploring,” Tomas said. “It’s so big, you can never explore the entire thing.”
Nearby in Rossi Playground, Eden Von Treskow, 6, played soccer with her mom and older sister. She said one of her favorite parts of living in the neighborhood is its proximity to the Skatin’ Place in Golden Gate Park. She recently chatted there with David Miles Jr., the Godfather of Skate, and whispered afterward to her mom, “I feel famous!”
Carol LacarWilliams sat on her front steps on Stanyan Street, chatting with her sister. LacarWilliams is Filipina, and her husband is Black, Japanese and Filipino.
They’ve lived in the neighborhood since 1999 and lament that it doesn’t seem as safe as it used to. Almost everybody has Ring home security cameras, she said, and her husband installed thick wire inside their garage windows to prevent breakins, like some kind of MacGyver.
Mail carrier Daniel Xu walks the neighborhood almost every day and said it’s safer than many other routes in the city. He said 90% of people are friendly and he wasn’t surprised that the area’s demographics most closely match the city’s.
“There are all kinds of races here, all kinds of nationalities,” he said. “Here you see everybody — Japanese, Korean, Black, white, any race you can imagine.”
Of course, no neighborhood could be the most like San Francisco itself without something weird and whimsical, and I found two examples in Census Tract No. 156. One is the Jefferson Airplane House at 2400 Fulton St., a 20room mansion the band bought in 1968 for use as its office, home and site of extravagant parties.
A few blocks away at the end of a culdesac called Loraine Court sits the Columbarium, established in 1898 and one of the few spots left in the city to serve as residents’ final resting places after San Francisco ordered decades ago that graves be moved to Colma.
Spencer Kuroiwa, the Columbarium’s receptionist, discussed the most famous people memorialized there, among them Carlos Santana’s parents and music promoter Chet Helms, dubbed the father of the Summer of Love. Harvey Milk is memorialized there, though his ashes were scattered in the ocean. Chinatown power broker Rose Pak’s ashes are there alongside her San Francisco Chronicle security badge from when she worked as a reporter.
Marian and Vivian Brown, the famous twins who delighted tourists and residents alike in their jaunty matching outfits, are also there, their ashes in matching skyblue floral urns. A photo rests in front of the urns showing them in matching white coats and hats signed, “Twincerely, Marian and Vivan Brown.”
Kuroiwa said neighbors often walk past for years without realizing exactly what the Columbarium is and all the history inside it. It’s significant, yet easy to ignore. Kind of like Census Tract No. 156 itself.