Jackson Square Historic District is an area in downtown San Francisco, California. It dates back to the city's earliest years and the 1849 gold rush, and is known for its historic commercial buildings in the classical revival and Italianate styles.[1][2]

Jackson Square
Hotaling Place at Jackson St., San Francisco--the historic warehouse that gives the alley its name is hinted at left, and the Transamerica Pyramid appears in the background
Jackson Square Location within Central San Francisco
Coordinates: 37.7964°N 122.402908°W / 37.7964; -122.402908
Country	United States
State	California
City	San Francisco
Jackson Square Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Location	Roughly bounded by Broadway on N, Sansome St. on E, Washington St. on S, and Columbus Ave. on W, San Francisco, California
Area	14.2 acres (5.7 ha)
Architectural style	Classical Revival, Italianate
NRHP reference No.	71000186 [1]
Added to NRHP	November 18, 1971

Definition

Jackson Square Historic District is bounded approximately by Broadway on the north, Washington Street on the south, Columbus Ave. on the west and Sansome Street on the east.[1] Jackson Street runs through it.

According to the 2010 neighborhoods map of the San Francisco Association of Realtors (SFAR), Jackson Square Historic District lies within the Financial District/Barbary Coast neighborhood.[3] However, according to a 2006 definition by the city mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, the area forms part of the North Beach neighborhood.[4]

History

Jackson Square encompasses the northeastern part of the former Barbary Coast red light district. It contains several buildings that survived the 1906 earthquake.[2]

Hotaling Place, a one-block lane near the end of Columbus Avenue that used to lie on the city's shoreline, has been called "San Francisco's oldest alley."[2] It is named after businessman Anson Parsons Hotaling, who maintained a warehouse on the lane for his whiskey, which may have helped saving the building in the 1906 earthquake and fire, as commemorated in a poem by Charles K. Field that today is displayed on a plaque there:

If, as they say, God spanked the town

For being over-frisky,

Why did He burn His churches down

And spare Hotaling's Whiskey? [6][2]

Jackson Square Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, with periods of significance spanning from 1850 to 1924.[1]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jackson Square, San Francisco.