July Newsletter

Here's to a smooth and hopeful July, with progress where you need it and peace where you can find it. In this month's newsletter you will find

• What's Going On? Events and Activities
• SWNA News: Equitable Shelter Distribution Ordinance
• SOMA Name Dropping: Clementia Street
• Street View: James Lick Baths
• Victoria Manalo Draves Park

This Month's Happenings

7.12 – 8:30-12 pm 
🌳 SOMA Beautification Day Volunteer Event
📍 415 5th St
Join San Francisco Public Works for a day of greening and neighborhood pride in District 6. Learn More

7.19 – 6–8 PM
🥂 SOMA CBD Happy Hour
📍 975 Bryant Street
Enjoy your neighbors company and see the Astella Apartments at this months free Happy Hour.

7.24 – 5–9 PM
🎉 SOMA Nights: Post No Bills
📍 Folsom btwn Hallam & Langton
Join us for SOMA's monthly art, food and cultural block party

View all events for this month

SOMA Shoulders the Burden, But All Districts Can Share the Load

SWNA Executive Committee

A recent policy change gave the Mayor’s office sole authority to approve new supportive housing projects. Since then, four out of five newly announced sites have been placed in Western SOMA. While our neighborhood has long supported these efforts, continued concentration here strains our community and limits options for those the programs aim to help.

Supervisor Mahmood’s Equitable Shelter Distribution Ordinance would prevent new sites from being built within 1,000 feet of an existing one. This would bring meaningful relief to SOMA and ensure a fairer citywide approach.

To support the bill, email Brent.Jalipa@sfgov.org and Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org, and contact Supervisor Matt Dorsey at DorseyStaff@sfgov.org. Hearings begin Wednesday, July 16 at City Hall. Here's a template to send.

SOMA Name Dropping: Clementina Street

By Cindy Casey

There is a colorful anecdote regarding the names of the alleys in SOMA.  It is said that the alleys with female names were all named after Barbary Coast courtesans.  As I said, colorful, but alas, not true.

Sadly, one of the main reasons for this is that streets were often named after powerful men, and women were essentially considered superfluous in those times, so they would hardly have earned a street named after them.  Then, seriously, naming a street after a sex worker in the 1800s? That would be pushing the boundaries of even Gold Rush San Francisco.

Over time, I will attempt to bring you the history of the names of the streets in our little corner of the world, starting with the alleyways with female-sounding names. Without a time machine, it is impossible to know for certain about these stories, but here goes.

Clementina is the first if we go alphabetically, so let’s start there.

In 1847, a whaling ship by the name of Clementina made port in San Francisco.  It would have been one of many if the crew had not been so untrustworthy as to gain mention in the local paper, warning the citizens of San Francisco of their character.

I have no idea if that is where the name comes from, but it is a fun segue.

Click for the full article

James Lick Baths in SoMa

by David Singer

In 1848 the Pennsylvania native James Lick, having sold his piano making business in Buenos Aires, arrived in the village of San Francisco and bought some "worthless sand dunes" on what is now Montgomery Street: and then the gold rush started and he became the richest man in California. He had a stroke in 1874, and decided to give away his fortune through a trust. The James Lick telescope was his major bequest, but in clause 11 he established "baths for the free use of the public under proper and reasonable regulations”, since many in SOMA lived in boarding houses with no plumbing. Despite public urging to construct, and to use salt water, it took the trustees until 1890 to build the baths at 165 10th St, with its own fresh water well; like the Jackson Brewery the building was originally Romanesque, but after being damaged in 1906 was repaired in a lighter style. In 1919 the building was bought by Matsunosuke Tsukamoto who turned it into the People's Laundry, an important center for newly arrived Japanese (and so the building was not one of the gay bathhouses of the district). After the laundry closed in 1973 the building was used for various purposes, including a piano showroom. It is now an office.

Victoria Manalo Draves Park

by Cindy Casey

Some find themselves in SOMA’s Victoria Manalo Draves Park to tend to their public garden. Some come to walk their dog, and others to enjoy the only open space in the Western SOMA CBD area.

To many, the park has always been a constant presence. However, not that long ago, it was a giant slab of black top with Jessie Carmichael Elementary School, housed in a battery of temporary trailers at the back of the two-acre parcel.

Bessie Carmichael School opened as a temporary school in 1954. It served as a school for the SOMA area in its bleak, rundown way for 52 years.

In 1996, then-Mayor Willie Brown and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate a series of property transfers between the agencies for the construction of a new neighborhood park. In February 1997, the Board of Supervisors approved an exchange and lease agreement between the City and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to purchase the Bessie Carmichael School site for a new city park.

It wasn't until 2006 that the reality of a decent school for the neighborhood children and a park for the area was realized.

And yet, who was Victoria "Vicki" Manalo Draves?

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