Richmond District

The Richmond District, commonly known as "the Richmond," is a large residential neighborhood occupying the northwest corner of San Francisco, California. Located on the West Side of the city, it is bordered by Golden Gate Park on the south, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Lincoln Park, Mountain Lake Park, and the Presidio of San Francisco to the north. In the 1800s, the area was known as the "Outside Lands" because it lay outside the original city boundaries when California became a state in 1850; originally held by Mexico, it was annexed by the United States in 1848 and officially made part of San Francisco in 1866. Today the Richmond is one of the city's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, with a rich layering of Irish, Jewish, Russian, and Chinese communities that have shaped its character over more than a century.

Geography and Sub-Districts

The Richmond District lies between the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, and runs west from Lone Mountain to Ocean Beach in the northwest part of San Francisco. The western portion, known as "Outer Richmond," and the eastern portion, known as "Inner Richmond," are divided by the major thoroughfare Park Presidio Boulevard (California State Route 1). Geary Boulevard is a major east–west thoroughfare that runs through the Richmond and connects the neighborhood to downtown.

San Francisco's Richmond District encompasses a range of smaller sub-neighborhoods, including Anza Vista, Inner Richmond, Lake Street, Lands End, Laurel Heights/Jordan Park, Lincoln Park/Fort Miley, Lone Mountain, Outer Richmond, Presidio Terrace, Sea Cliff, and Sutro Heights. Inner Richmond is historically Asian-American and rich in Chinese shops, food, and businesses. Central Richmond maintains a balance of residential solitude and thriving retail, while the Outer Richmond lends itself toward a more laid-back atmosphere, being closer to the coast.

Technically, the Farallon Islands, about 30 miles to the west of mainland San Francisco, are also considered part of the Richmond District.

History

Indigenous and Early Settlement

For most of San Francisco's recorded history, what is now the Richmond District remained in a natural state. When the Spanish first arrived on this isolated peninsula, they recorded that the area was a windswept expanse of rolling sand dunes with a sparse covering of chaparral. Before European settlement, the Yelamu Tribe, part of the Ohlone Nation, frequently visited the coast here and had a village in the area that would become the Richmond. In June 1846, while the Bear Flag Rebellion was being acted out in Sonoma, the last Mexican governor, Pio Pico, granted Rancho Punta de los Lobos—encompassing what is now the Richmond—to a man named Benito Diaz.

Cemeteries had been established around Lone Mountain in the 1850s and 1860s, but very few people lived west of them in the foggy sand and scrub. In 1863, the Point Lobos Toll Road and Cliff House were built, bringing traffic and some roadhouses, racetracks, and dairymen to the area. Long before Richmond was open for development, the wide open spaces had attracted dairy farmers and several ranches. The dairymen built the first roads in the 1860s to help transport farm produce to market.

Development and the Name "Richmond"

The most prominent early resident in the district was George Turner Marsh (1857–1932), who in 1876 built his home at what is now the corner of 12th Avenue and Clement Street. He named it "Richmond House" to commemorate his place of birth, Richmond, Australia. In 1890, the Board of Supervisors voted to officially designate the area the Richmond District of San Francisco.

One of the first residential neighborhoods to emerge in 1880 was along Clement Street, between Arguello and 6th Avenue. The 1906 earthquake and fires further encouraged the development of the area, with an influx of displaced San Francisco residents looking for a new place to call home. By the late 1920s, the Richmond District was largely built out as the last remaining infill lots were developed, and the neighborhood became one of San Francisco's most urban suburban neighborhoods.

By the 1910s, a local improvement group, worried the neighborhood would be overshadowed by the rise of the city of Richmond in the East Bay, had the neighborhood's official name changed to "Park Presidio." The name appeared in newspapers and many city records throughout the 1920s, but "Richmond" stuck with residents. In 2009, the Richmond District was officially re-designated by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors through ordinance #2309.

Amusement, Recreation, and Adolph Sutro

Adolph Sutro was one of the first major developers in the area. In the early 1880s, he bought the Cliff House and built the Sutro Baths nearby, close to Ocean Beach. Sutro Heights Park, the former site of silver magnate Adolph Sutro's estate, is located in the Outer Richmond District above the Cliff House.

Playland was a beloved amusement park by the beach in the neighborhood. It began as a series of food stands in the 1880s, which expanded to include ten attractions such as a carousel by 1921. The Big Dipper roller coaster arrived in 1923.

Between humble working-class cottages filling the rolling sand dunes, two of San Francisco's most prestigious residential enclaves were also created. Baldwin & Howell developed Presidio Terrace off Arguello Boulevard starting in 1905, and the John Brickell Company worked with a number of firms to develop Sea Cliff beginning in 1913.

Demographics and Cultural Communities

For many years, the Richmond's families were primarily of Irish and German ancestry, with a large Jewish population. That ethnic composition began to shift dramatically in the twentieth century.

The Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war brought many anti-Communist White Russian and Orthodox Russian refugees and immigrants into the neighborhood. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia briefly made its headquarters at the Holy Virgin Cathedral on Geary Boulevard. While there had been a "White Russian" community in the district for over sixty years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the Russian community in the Richmond swelled.

In the 1950s, and especially after the lifting of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1965, Chinese immigrants began to replace the ethnic Jewish and Irish-Americans who had dominated the district before World War II. People of Chinese birth or descent now make up nearly half of residents in the Richmond.

Formerly a predominantly Irish-American area, the district has evolved into a neighborhood where no ethnic group constitutes a majority, although a sustained influx of Chinese immigrants has given many parts of the neighborhood a heavily Asian influence. The Richmond has a robust commercial presence, with "New Chinatown" running along the early blocks of Clement Street, and Geary Boulevard housing businesses up and down its well-traveled blocks.

57,328 people live in the Richmond District, where the median age is 43 and the average individual income is $84,564.

Architecture

Architecturally, the Richmond is nearly as varied as its population. Several hundred nineteenth-century cottages, interspersed throughout the district, hint at its rural, agricultural past. Today the Richmond District is a thoroughly urbanized, densely developed neighborhood with commercial corridors along Geary Boulevard and Clement Street, and rows of spec-built Edwardian-era flats and single-family dwellings fanning out toward the Presidio and Golden Gate Park.

The district remained largely unchanged until the 1960s, when it began to experience an influx of immigrants from China and Russia. During the 1960s and 1970s the Richmond was one of the few neighborhoods in San Francisco to gain population. Although this added to the neighborhood's vitality, it also resulted in the demolition of many historic buildings as higher population densities led to the replacement of small cottages and bungalows with larger three-family "Richmond Specials."

Parks, Landmarks, and Points of Interest

The Richmond District is surrounded and interspersed with significant green spaces, cultural institutions, and landmarks that draw visitors from across the city and region.

Lincoln Park and its golf course are located in the Outer Richmond, and are also home to the California Palace of the Legion of Honor art museum. The Lincoln Park Golf Course offers views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the surrounding area and is a par-68 course that opened in 1928.

Mountain Lake Park was constructed around a recently restored small lake near the Park Presidio entrance to the Presidio. Mountain Lake is the only natural lake in the entire 80,000-acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and it feeds the Presidio's Lobos Creek.

The historic Fort Miley Military Reservation on Point Lobos is now within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. A portion houses the large San Francisco VA Medical Center.

The Holy Virgin Cathedral is a Russian Orthodox church in the neighborhood notable for its gold-covered domes with richly colored murals on the exterior. Inside, the cathedral features multicolored stained-glass windows and art including frescoes depicting the Stations of the Cross.

University of San Francisco, a Jesuit institution, sits at the southeastern edge of the Richmond on Lone Mountain. The private university is not to be confused with the larger public institution, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). It is a Jesuit school with around 6,000 students, and one of the highlights of its 55-acre campus is St. Ignatius Church.

Planning and Community Goals

The Richmond District Strategy was initiated by former District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar, in collaboration with San Francisco Planning, as part of the city's Invest in Neighborhoods initiative. In 2014, San Francisco Planning conducted an analysis of existing data on topics such as demographics, zoning and land use, housing, small businesses, development trends, transportation, public space, and community facilities. The results were published in an Existing Conditions Report in September 2015.

The community goals developed through this process include maintaining a family-friendly character, preserving racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, and offering a variety of housing types that meet the needs of all households from single-person to multi-generational families. Since 1980, the Richmond District has seen slow population and housing growth.