129-627: George M. Rush Stadium formerly Rams Stadium was renamed in 2015 and is a multi-purpose football stadium in San Francisco, California . Located on the campus of City College of San Francisco the stadium has a capacity of 5,000. Football, as well as track and field, use the Stadium. A new FieldTurf soccer practice field has been built north of the stadium. Teams from the Academy of Art University and Lick-Wilmerding High School also lease
258-460: A "topless bikini " or "unikini", was designed by Rudi Gernreich in 1964, consisting of only a brief, close-fitting bottom and two thin straps; it was the first women's topless swimsuit . Gernreich's revolutionary and controversial design included a bottom that "extended from the midriff to the upper thigh" and was "held up by shoestring laces that make a halter around the neck." Some credit Gernreich's design with initiating, or describe it as
387-442: A 103-foot (31 m) tall cross built in 1934. Dominating this area is Sutro Tower , a large red and white radio and television transmission tower reaching 1,811 ft (552 m) above sea level. The nearby San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, although neither physically passes through the city itself. The San Andreas Fault caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on
516-623: A common place to live for people employed in Silicon Valley companies such as Apple and Google . The early 2020s featured an exodus of tech companies from Downtown San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and struggles with homelessness and public drug use. Although some observers have raised the possibility that office vacancies and declining tax revenues could cause San Francisco to enter an economic doom loop , other sources have refuted this broad-based characterization of
645-647: A flood of treasure seekers (known as "forty-niners," as in "1849"). With their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia , raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of wealth was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships , saloons , and hotels; many were left to rot, and some were sunk to establish title to
774-425: A form of "cultural critique" insofar as it transgresses societal conventions. Manuel Castells claims that the online communities, which emerged (from the 1980s) around early bulletin-board systems, originated from the ranks of those who had been part of the counterculture movements and alternative way of life emerging out of the sexual revolution. Lynn Hunt points out that early modern "pornography" (18th century)
903-458: A fort on Alcatraz Island to secure San Francisco Bay. San Francisco County was one of the state's 18 original counties established at California statehood in 1850. Until 1856, San Francisco's city limits extended west to Divisadero Street and Castro Street, and south to 20th Street. In 1856, the California state government divided the county. A straight line was then drawn across the tip of
1032-484: A gourmet marketplace. San Francisco has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb , Trewartha : Csll), characteristic of California's coast, with moist winters and dry summers. San Francisco's weather is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean on the west side of the city, and the water of San Francisco Bay to the north and east. This moderates temperature swings and produces
1161-525: A lake. This film, as well as Bergman's Sommaren med Monika ( The Summer with Monika , 1951) and Tystnaden (The Silence , 1963), caused an international uproar, not least in the United States, where the films were charged with violating standards of decency. Vilgot Sjöman's film I Am Curious (Yellow) , also was very popular in the United States. Another of his films, 491 , highlighted homosexuality. Kärlekens språk ( The Language of Love )
1290-538: A land area of 46.9 square miles (121 square kilometers) at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula , making it the second-most densely populated major U.S. city behind New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county , behind four of New York City's boroughs . Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022. San Francisco anchors
1419-566: A large African American population after World War II . The Western Addition is usually divided into smaller neighborhoods including Hayes Valley , the Fillmore , and Japantown , which was once the largest Japantown in North America but suffered when its Japanese American residents were forcibly removed and interned during World War II. The Western Addition survived the 1906 earthquake with its Victorians largely intact, including
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#17327984810041548-656: A light rail and bus network , in tandem with the BART and Caltrain systems, connects nearly every part of San Francisco with the wider region. San Francisco, which is Spanish for "Saint Francis," takes its name from Mission San Francisco de Asís , which in turn was named after Saint Francis of Assisi . The mission received its name in 1776, when it was founded by the Spanish under the leadership of Padre Francisco Palóu . The city has officially been known as San Francisco since 1847, when Washington Allon Bartlett , then serving as
1677-599: A magnet for America's counterculture movement . Beat Generation writers fueled the San Francisco Renaissance and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s. Hippies flocked to Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, reaching a peak with the 1967 Summer of Love . In 1974, the Zebra murders left at least 16 people dead. In the 1970s, the city became a center of the gay rights movement , with
1806-491: A popular movie for heterosexual couples. The movie played all over America and was the first porn movie to earn a gross of a million dollars. Pornography was less stigmatized by the end of the 1980s, and more mainstream movies depicted sexual intercourse as entertainment. Magazines depicting nudity, such as the popular Playboy and Penthouse magazines, won some acceptance as mainstream journals, in which public figures felt safe expressing their fantasies. Some figures in
1935-440: A port and naval base, post-Conquest San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. Situated at the tip of a windswept peninsula without water or firewood, San Francisco lacked most of the basic facilities for a 19th-century settlement. These natural disadvantages forced the town's residents to bring water, fuel and food to the site. Its 1847 population was said to be 459. The California gold rush brought
2064-424: A regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. The city constructed an auxiliary water supply system and has repeatedly upgraded its building codes, requiring retrofits for older buildings and higher engineering standards for new construction. However, there are still thousands of smaller buildings that remain vulnerable to quake damage. USGS has released
2193-555: A remarkably mild year-round climate with little seasonal temperature variation. Sexual revolution The sexual revolution , also known as the sexual liberation , was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the developed Western world from the 1960s to the 1970s. Sexual liberation included increased acceptance of sex outside of traditional heterosexual, monogamous relationships (primarily marriage). The normalization of contraception and
2322-603: A significant portion of the Comstock Lode 's gold and silver mines, establishing a virtual monopoly. Using his incredible clout, Ralston was able to generate millions of dollars for San Francisco during its heady boom years. He founded the Bank of California , the first bank in the Western United States, and built the opulent Palace Hotel, a symbol of San Francisco's newfound prosperity and the largest hotel in
2451-465: A spacious public park, resulting in plans for Golden Gate Park . San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. By 1890, San Francisco's population approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest city in the United States at the time. Around 1901, San Francisco
2580-602: A symbol of, the 1960s sexual revolution. The court decisions that legalized the publication of Fanny Hill had an even more important effect: freed from fears of legal action, nonfiction works about sex and sexuality started to appear more often. These books were factual and in fact, educational, made available in mainstream bookstores and mail-order book clubs to a mainstream readership, and their authors were guests on late-night talk shows. Earlier books such as What Every Girl Should Know ( Margaret Sanger , 1920) and A Marriage Manual (Hannah and Abraham Stone, 1939) had broken
2709-545: A total of 21.9 million visitors. It is known for its steep rolling hills and eclectic mix of architecture across varied neighborhoods , its Chinatown and Mission districts, its cooling summers, fog , and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge , cable cars , and Alcatraz . The city is home to a number of educational and cultural institutions, such as the University of California, San Francisco ,
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#17327984810042838-484: A wave of " Manhattanization " that lasted until the late 1980s, a period of extensive high-rise development downtown. The 1980s also saw a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people in the city, an issue that remains today, despite many attempts to address it. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused destruction and loss of life throughout the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the quake severely damaged structures in
2967-566: A year later as Our Bodies, Ourselves ). Though not an erotic treatise or sex manual, the book included frank descriptions of sexuality, and contained illustrations that could have caused legal problems just a few years earlier. Alex Comfort 's The Joy of Sex : A Gourmet Guide to Love Making appeared in 1972. In later editions, Comfort's exuberance was tamed in response to AIDS. In 1975 Will McBride's Zeig Mal! ( Show Me! ), written with psychologist Helga Fleichhauer-Hardt for children and their parents, appeared in bookstores on both sides of
3096-523: Is a 1934 book by English social anthropologist J. D. Unwin concerning the correlation between a society's level of "cultural achievement" and its level of sexual restraint. The book concluded with the theory that as societies develop, they become more sexually liberal, accelerating the social entropy of the society, thereby diminishing its "creative" and "expansive" energy. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Alfred C. Kinsey published two surveys of modern sexual behavior. In 1948 Kinsey published
3225-494: Is essentially their original form, but most of the city's natural watercourses, such as Islais Creek and Mission Creek , have been partially or completely culverted and built over. Since the 1990s, however, the Public Utilities Commission has been studying proposals to daylight or restore some creeks. An Historical Center of San Francisco monument, where the 1899–1906 City Hall was once located,
3354-408: Is gone." Rebuilding was rapid and performed on a grand scale. Rejecting calls to completely remake the street grid, San Franciscans opted for speed. Amadeo Giannini 's Bank of Italy , later to become Bank of America , provided loans for many of those whose livelihoods had been devastated. The influential San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association or SPUR was founded in 1910 to address
3483-583: Is in United Nations Plaza , at 37°46′48″N 122°24′49″W / 37.7800397°N 122.4135943°W / 37.7800397; -122.4135943 The earliest center of San Francisco is Portsmouth Square , in the northeast quadrant of the city anchored by Market Street and the waterfront. Here in the northeast quadrant, the Financial District is centered, with Union Square , the principal shopping and hotel district, and
3612-445: Is marked by a "preponderance of female narrators", that the women were portrayed as independent, determined, financially successful (though not always socially successful and recognized) and scornful of the new ideals of female virtue and domesticity, and not objectification of women's bodies as many view pornography today. The sexual revolution was not unprecedented in identifying sex as a site of political potential and social culture. It
3741-431: Is the source of the widely quoted statistic that 4% of the male population is primarily homosexual. He advocated using this information to reform sex-related laws, which at the time were often draconian (for example two men having consensual sex in private was considered a crime ). Kinsey's books became bestsellers when published, and laid the groundwork for researchers William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson to study
3870-541: The 13th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States , with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area , the fifth-largest urban region in the U.S., had a 2023 estimated population of over 9 million. Prior to European settlement , the modern city proper was inhabited by the Yelamu , who spoke a language now referred to as Ramaytush Ohlone . On June 29, 1776, settlers from New Spain established
3999-591: The Age of Enlightenment —approximately the 18th century—as a major period of transition in the United Kingdom. During this time, the philosophy of liberalism developed and was popularized, and migration to cities increased opportunities for sex and made enforcement of rules more difficult than in small villages. Sexual misconduct in the Catholic Church undermined the credibility of religious authorities, and
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4128-638: The Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma and the beginning of the U.S. Conquest of California , American forces from the USS Portsmouth under the command of John B. Montgomery captured Yerba Buena on July 9, 1846, with little resistance from the local Californio population, raising the American flag over Yerba Buena plaza (later renamed Portsmouth Square in commemoration of this event). Following
4257-578: The California earthquake forecast which models earthquake occurrence in California. San Francisco's shoreline has grown beyond its natural limits. Entire neighborhoods such as the Marina , Mission Bay , and Hunters Point , as well as large sections of the Embarcadero , sit on areas of landfill . Treasure Island was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from
4386-501: The Marina and South of Market districts and precipitated the demolition of the damaged Embarcadero Freeway and much of the damaged Central Freeway , allowing the city to reclaim The Embarcadero as its historic downtown waterfront and revitalizing the Hayes Valley neighborhood. The two recent decades have seen booms driven by the internet industry. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated
4515-605: The Obelisk Press in Paris and copies were smuggled into the United States. In 1961 Grove Press issued a copy of the work, and dozens of booksellers were sued for selling it. The issue was ultimately settled by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1964 decision in Grove Press, Inc. v. Gerstein . In 1963 Putnam published John Cleland 's 1750 novel Fanny Hill . Charles Rembar appealed a restraining order against it all
4644-649: The Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate , and the Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, both named for Francis of Assisi . The California gold rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, transforming an unimportant hamlet into a busy port, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time; between 1870 and 1900, approximately one quarter of California's population resided in
4773-474: The Surrealist movement . The counterculture wanted to explore the body and mind, and free the personal self from the moral and legal sexual confines of modern America, as well as from the 1940s–50s morals in general. The sexual revolution of the 1960s grew from a conviction that the erotic should be celebrated as a normal part of life and not repressed by family, industrialized sexual morality, religion and
4902-501: The Tenderloin nearby. Cable cars carry riders up steep inclines to the summit of Nob Hill , once the home of the city's business tycoons, and down to the waterfront tourist attractions of Fisherman's Wharf , and Pier 39 , where many restaurants feature Dungeness crab from a still-active fishing industry. Also in this quadrant are Russian Hill , a residential neighborhood with the famously crooked Lombard Street ; North Beach ,
5031-1197: The University of San Francisco , San Francisco State University , the San Francisco Conservatory of Music , the de Young Museum , the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , the San Francisco Symphony , the San Francisco Ballet , the San Francisco Opera , the SFJAZZ Center , and the California Academy of Sciences . Two major league sports teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Golden State Warriors , play their home games within San Francisco proper. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) offers flights to over 125 destinations, while
5160-416: The counterculture , the women's movement, and the gay rights movement. The counterculture contributed to the awareness of radical cultural change that was the social matrix of the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution was initiated by those who shared a belief in the detrimental impact of sexual repression, a view that had previously been argued by Wilhelm Reich , D. H. Lawrence , Sigmund Freud , and
5289-506: The feminist movement, such as Andrea Dworkin , challenged the depiction of women as objects in these pornographic or "urban men's" magazines. Other feminists such as Betty Dodson went on to found the pro-sex feminist movement in response to anti-pornography campaigns. In India, an organization named Indians For Sexual Liberties is advocating the legalization of the porn business in India. The organization's founder, Laxman Singh, questioned
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5418-466: The 1910s, a wave of Central American immigrants settled in the Mission and, in the 1950s, immigrants from Mexico began to predominate. In recent years, gentrification has changed the demographics of parts of the Mission from Latino, to twenty-something professionals. Noe Valley to the southwest and Bernal Heights to the south are both increasingly popular among young families with children. East of
5547-465: The 1920s in the United States. His conception of a primary sexual drive that would not be ultimately curbed by law, education or standards of decorum spelled a serious challenge to Victorian prudishness , and his theory of psychosexual development proposed a model for the development of sexual orientations and desires; children emerged from the Oedipus complex , a sexual desire towards their parent of
5676-541: The 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence . The U.S. Post Office confiscated copies sent through the mail. Lawyer Charles Rembar sued the New York City Postmaster, and won in New York and then on federal appeal. Henry Miller 's 1934 novel, Tropic of Cancer , had explicit sexual passages and could not be published in the United States; an edition was printed by
5805-725: The 1966 decision "the end of obscenity". Only books primarily appealing to "prurient interest" could be banned. In a famous phrase, the court said that obscenity is "utterly without redeeming social importance"—meaning that a work with any redeeming social importance or literary merit was arguably not obscene, even if it contained isolated passages that could "deprave and corrupt" some readers. Swedish filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman and Vilgot Sjöman contributed to sexual liberation with sexually themed films that challenged conservative international standards. The 1951 film Hon dansade en sommar ( She Danced One Summer AKA One Summer of Happiness ) displayed explicit nudity, including bathing in
5934-456: The Atlantic. Appreciated by many parents for its frank depiction of pre-adolescent sexual discovery and exploration, it scandalized others and was pulled from circulation in the United States and some other countries. The book was followed in 1989 by Zeig Mal Mehr! ("Show Me More!"). The somewhat more open and commercial circulation of pornography was a new phenomenon. Pornography operated as
6063-535: The Bay Area a center for trade. Catering to the needs and tastes of the growing population, Levi Strauss opened a dry goods business and Domingo Ghirardelli began manufacturing chocolate. Chinese immigrants made the city a polyglot culture, drawn to "Old Gold Mountain," creating the city's Chinatown quarter. By 1880, Chinese made up 9.3% of the population. The first cable cars carried San Franciscans up Clay Street in 1873. The city's sea of Victorian houses began to take shape, and civic leaders campaigned for
6192-705: The Birdman of Alcatraz. San Francisco later celebrated its regained grandeur with a World's fair , the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939–40, creating Treasure Island in the middle of the bay to house it. During World War II , the city-owned Sharp Park in Pacifica was used as an internment camp to detain Japanese Americans . Hunters Point Naval Shipyard became a hub of activity, and Fort Mason became
6321-609: The Freudian interpretation. Hence, the liberation of sexual behavior was considered by them to be a means to social revolution. The 1928 publication of anthropologist Margaret Mead 's Coming of Age in Samoa brought the sexual revolution to the public scene, as her thoughts concerning sexual freedom pervaded academia. Mead's ethnography focused on the psychosexual development of adolescents in Samoa . She recorded that their adolescence
6450-522: The Mission is the Potrero Hill neighborhood, a mostly residential neighborhood that features sweeping views of downtown San Francisco. West of the Mission, the area historically known as Eureka Valley , now popularly called the Castro , was once a working-class Scandinavian and Irish area. It has become North America's first gay village , and is now the center of gay life in the city. Located near
6579-731: The Outer Richmond and Outer Sunset can refer to the more western portions of their respective district and the Inner Richmond and Inner Sunset can refer to the more eastern portions. Many piers remained derelict for years until the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway reopened the downtown waterfront, allowing for redevelopment. The centerpiece of the port, the Ferry Building , while still receiving commuter ferry traffic, has been restored and redeveloped as
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#17327984810046708-531: The Presidio garrison, commanded by Mariano Vallejo , relocated to the Presidio of Sonoma , which was regarded as needing a greater military presence due the proximity of the Russian settlement at Fort Ross . Only a small detachment remained at the Presidio of San Francisco. Mission Dolores sold most of its property in 1836, retaining only the church and related structures. In 1833, Juana Briones de Miranda
6837-709: The San Francisco Peninsula just north of San Bruno Mountain . Everything south of the line became the new San Mateo County while everything north of the line became the new consolidated City and County of San Francisco. The California Gold Rush triggered a wave of entrepreneurial activity as individuals sought to capitalize on the newfound wealth. The discovery of silver deposits, notably the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further fueled rapid population growth and economic expansion. San Francisco, as
6966-457: The San Francisco economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing, design, and sales professionals, changing the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became increasingly gentrified . Demand for new housing and office space ignited a second wave of high-rise development, this time in the South of Market district. By 2000,
7095-564: The Sensuous Woman , with information on exercises to improve the dexterity of one's tongue and how to have anal sex. The same year saw the appearance of David Reuben's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) . Despite the dignity of Reuben's medical credentials, this book was light-hearted in tone. In 1970 the Boston Women's Health Collective published Women and Their Bodies , reissued
7224-455: The Spanish ship San Carlos , commanded by Juan Manuel de Ayala , became the first ship to anchor in the bay. Soon after, on March 28, 1776, Anza established the Presidio of San Francisco . On October 9, Mission San Francisco de Asís , also known as Mission Dolores, was founded by Padre Francisco Palóu . In 1794, the Presidio established the Castillo de San Joaquín , a fortification on
7353-562: The United Kingdom starting with the 1959 Obscene Publications Act and reaching a peak with the Lady Chatterley's Lover court case. Prior to this time, a patchwork of regulations (as well as local customs and vigilante actions) governed what could and could not be published. For example, the United States Customs Service banned James Joyce 's Ulysses by refusing to allow it to be imported into
7482-452: The United States. The Roman Catholic Church 's Index Librorum Prohibitorum carried great weight among Catholics and amounted to an effective and instant boycott of any book appearing on it. Boston's Watch and Ward Society , a largely Protestant creation inspired by Anthony Comstock , made " banned in Boston " a national by-word. In 1959 Grove Press published an unexpurgated version of
7611-560: The Vietnam War , and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States . San Francisco and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area are a global center of economic activity and the arts and sciences, spurred by leading universities , high-tech , healthcare, finance, insurance, real estate, and professional services sectors. As of 2020 ,
7740-464: The area. Further development is taking place just to the south in Mission Bay area, a former railroad yard, which now has a second campus of the University of California, San Francisco and Chase Center , which opened in 2019 as the new home of the Golden State Warriors . West of downtown, across Van Ness Avenue , lies the large Western Addition neighborhood, which became established with
7869-597: The beginning of the assimilation of the Ramaytush people, and the decline of their language and culture. The Spanish Empire claimed San Francisco as part of Las Californias , a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain . The Spanish first arrived in what is now San Francisco on November 2, 1769, when the Portolá expedition led by Don Gaspar de Portolá and Juan Crespí arrived at San Francisco Bay . Having noted
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#17327984810047998-666: The book Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do by James Thurber and E. B. White , has a chapter titled "The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene". According to Konstantin Dushenko , the term was in use in Soviet Russia in 1925. When speaking of the sexual revolution, historians make a distinction between the first and the second sexual revolution. In
8127-635: The book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male . He followed this five years later with Sexual Behavior in the Human Female . These books began a revolution in social awareness of, and public attention given to, human sexuality. Kinsey based his findings in both these books on interviews that he and his team of researchers conducted with thousands of Americans, beginning in the 1930s. The interviews were extensive and could last for several hours; they were supplemented by diaries and other documents that
8256-426: The capture, U.S. forces appointed both José de Jesús Noé and Washington Allon Bartlett to serve as co- alcaldes (mayors), while the conquest continued on in the rest of California. On January 30, 1847, Mayor Bartlett ordained that the city should officially change its name from "Yerba Buena" to "San Francisco", as the former name was only locally recognized and the latter name was in use on international maps. There
8385-400: The city and burned out of control for several days. With water mains out of service, the Presidio Artillery Corps attempted to contain the inferno by dynamiting blocks of buildings to create firebreaks. More than three-quarters of the city lay in ruins, including almost all of the downtown core. Contemporary accounts reported that 498 people died, though modern estimates put the number in
8514-465: The city as a whole, asserting that the issues of concern are restricted primarily to the urban core of San Francisco. As of March 2024, Union Square was in "sorry shape" and had lost its traditional position as the Bay Area's regional shopping hub to Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose. The Ferry Station Post Office Building , Armour & Co. Building , Atherton House , and YMCA Hotel are historic buildings among dozens of historical landmarks in
8643-414: The city is still home to numerous companies inside and outside of technology, including Salesforce , Uber , Airbnb , X , Levi's , Gap , Dropbox , and Lyft . In 2022, San Francisco had more than 1.7 million international visitors – the fifth-most visited city from abroad in the United States after New York City, Miami , Orlando , and Los Angeles – and approximately 20 million domestic visitors for
8772-416: The city proper. In 1856, San Francisco became a consolidated city-county . After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire , it was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama–Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II , it was a major port of embarkation for naval service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater . In 1945, the United Nations Charter
8901-484: The city's Little Italy and the former center of the Beat Generation ; and Telegraph Hill , which features Coit Tower . Abutting Russian Hill and North Beach is San Francisco's Chinatown , the oldest Chinatown in North America. The South of Market , which was once San Francisco's industrial core, has seen significant redevelopment following the construction of Oracle Park and an infusion of startup companies . New skyscrapers, live-work lofts, and condominiums dot
9030-479: The city's alcalde , renamed it from Yerba Buena (Spanish for "Good Herb"), which had been the name of the first civilian pueblo in San Francisco, as well as the name of Yerba Buena Cove , which the pueblo was on the shore of. Earlier in San Francisco's history, the uninhabited area on the northeastern side of San Francisco was called El Paraje de Yerba Buena , after the herb that was growing abundantly there. The name Yerba Buena continues to be used in locations in
9159-417: The city's population reached new highs, surpassing the previous record set in 1950. When the bubble burst in 2001 and again in 2023, many of these companies folded and their employees were laid off. Yet high technology and entrepreneurship remain mainstays of the San Francisco economy. By the mid-2000s (decade), the social media boom had begun, with San Francisco becoming a popular location for tech offices and
9288-576: The city's southern border, the Excelsior District is one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in San Francisco. The Bayview-Hunters Point in the far southeast corner of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods, though the area has been the focus of several revitalizing and urban renewal projects. The construction of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1918 connected southwest neighborhoods to downtown via streetcar, hastening
9417-571: The city, according to the National Register of Historic Places listings in San Francisco . San Francisco is located on the West Coast of the United States , at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula and includes significant stretches of the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay within its boundaries. Several picturesque islands — Alcatraz , Treasure Island and the adjacent Yerba Buena Island , and small portions of Alameda Island , Red Rock Island , and Angel Island —are part of
9546-865: The city, such as on Yerba Buena Island and in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Yerba Buena Gardens . While people residing outside the San Francisco Bay Area use nicknames including "Frisco" and "San Fran", local residents in the Bay Area sometimes refer to San Francisco as "the City" or "SF". The choice of nickname a person uses is a common way for locals to distinguish long-time residents from tourists and recent arrivals. "San Fran" and "Frisco" are sometimes considered controversial as nicknames among San Francisco residents. The earliest archeological evidence of human habitation of
9675-432: The city. Also included are the uninhabited Farallon Islands , 27 miles (43 km) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. The mainland within the city limits roughly forms a "seven-by-seven-mile square," a common local colloquialism referring to the city's shape, though its total area, including water, is nearly 232 square miles (600 km ). There are more than 50 hills within the city limits. Some neighborhoods are named after
9804-515: The country at the time. His financial empire, however, collapsed in 1875 as a result of the Panic of 1873 , triggering a major economic crisis in San Francisco. Development of the Port of San Francisco and the establishment in 1869 of overland access to the eastern U.S. rail system via the newly completed Pacific Railroad (the construction of which the city only reluctantly helped support ) helped make
9933-683: The development of West Portal , and nearby affluent Forest Hill and St. Francis Wood . Further west, stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean and north to Golden Gate Park lies the vast Sunset District , a large middle-class area with a predominantly Asian population. The northwestern quadrant of the city contains the Richmond , a mostly middle-class neighborhood north of Golden Gate Park, home to immigrants from other parts of Asia as well as many Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Together, these areas are known as The Avenues . These two districts are each sometimes further divided into two regions:
10062-509: The emergence of The Castro as an urban gay village , the election of Harvey Milk to the Board of Supervisors , and his assassination , along with that of Mayor George Moscone , in 1978. Bank of America , now based in Charlotte , North Carolina , was founded in San Francisco; the bank completed 555 California Street in 1969. The Transamerica Pyramid was completed in 1972, igniting
10191-774: The excavation of the Yerba Buena Tunnel through Yerba Buena Island during the construction of the Bay Bridge. Such land tends to be unstable during earthquakes. The resulting soil liquefaction causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake . A few natural lakes and creeks ( Lake Merced , Mountain Lake , Pine Lake , Lobos Creek , El Polin Spring ) are within parks and remain protected in what
10320-520: The fact that there were no churches to be found, prompted missionaries like William Taylor to come to San Francisco where he began preaching in the streets, using an upright barrel as his pulpit. Taylor was able to garner enough generous donations from successful gold miners with which he used to build a church. One of the most influential figures of this era was William Chapman Ralston . A shrewd banker and investor, Ralston amassed considerable wealth and influence in San Francisco. He gained control over
10449-497: The famous " Painted Ladies ," standing alongside Alamo Square . To the south, near the geographic center of the city is Haight-Ashbury , famously associated with 1960s hippie culture. The Haight is now home to some expensive boutiques and a few controversial chain stores, although it still retains some bohemian character. North of the Western Addition is Pacific Heights , an affluent neighborhood that features
10578-532: The field for their use. San Francisco, California San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco , is a commercial, financial , and cultural center within Northern California . With a population of 808,988 residents as of 2023, San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California behind Los Angeles , San Diego , and San Jose . It covers
10707-426: The field, though it has spurred critical developments in the humanities. Two anarchist and Marxist proponents of Freud, Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich (who famously coined the phrase "Sexual Revolution"), developed a sociology of sex in the 1910s through the 1930s in which the animal-like competitive reproductive behavior was seen as a legacy of ancestral human evolution reflecting in every social relation, as per
10836-610: The first land grant in Yerba Buena: to William Richardson , a naturalized Mexican citizen of English birth. Richardson had arrived in San Francisco aboard a whaling ship in 1822. In 1825, he married Maria Antonia Martinez, eldest daughter of the Californio Ygnacio Martínez . Yerba Buena began to attract American and European settlers; an 1842 census listed 21 residents (11%) born in the United States or Europe, as well as one Filipino merchant. Following
10965-484: The first sexual revolution (1870–1910), Victorian morality lost its universal appeal. However, it did not lead to the rise of a "permissive society". Exemplary for this period is the rise and differentiation in forms of regulating sexuality. Classics professor Kyle Harper uses the phrase "first sexual revolution" to refer to the displacement of the norms of sexuality in Ancient Rome with those of Christianity as it
11094-518: The gateway to the goldfields, experienced a surge in population and commercial activity. However, the influx of fortune seekers also brought challenges. Lawlessness was rampant, and the Barbary Coast district became synonymous with vice, attracting criminals, prostitutes, and illicit activities, including but not limited to prostitution, bootlegging , and gambling. The rapidly growing population, with its lawlessness, gambling and other vices, and
11223-457: The hill on which they are situated, including Nob Hill , Potrero Hill , and Russian Hill . Near the geographic center of the city, southwest of the downtown area, are a series of less densely populated hills. Twin Peaks , a pair of hills forming one of the city's highest points, forms an overlook spot. San Francisco's tallest hill, Mount Davidson , is 928 feet (283 m) high and is capped with
11352-562: The homes built by wealthy San Franciscans in the wake of the 1906 earthquake. Directly north of Pacific Heights facing the waterfront is the Marina , a neighborhood popular with young professionals that was largely built on reclaimed land from the Bay. In the southeast quadrant of the city is the Mission District —populated in the 19th century by Californios and working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Scandinavia. In
11481-418: The interviewees were willing to have copied, and sometimes film of them masturbation or having sex with others, if they volunteered and it was practical. Kinsey found in the course of these interviews that many sexual behaviors which had previously been seen as marginal or "abnormal" were in fact more common than previously recognized and were part of the normal spectrum of human sexual behavior; for instance, he
11610-538: The larger Port of Oakland . The city began to lose industrial jobs and turned to tourism as the most important segment of its economy. The suburbs experienced rapid growth, and San Francisco underwent significant demographic change, as large segments of the white population left the city, supplanted by an increasing wave of immigration from Asia and Latin America. From 1950 to 1980, the city lost over 10 percent of its population. Over this period, San Francisco became
11739-518: The metropolitan area, with 4.5 million residents, ranked 5th by GDP ($ 874 billion) and 2nd by GDP per capita ($ 131,082) across the OECD countries, ahead of global cities like Paris , London , and Singapore . It is the fourth-largest by aggregate income and economic output, with a GDP of $ 729 billion in 2022 . The wider San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland Combined Statistical Area is the nation's fifth-most populous, with around nine million residents, and
11868-539: The mid to late 1950s. There was an increase in sexual encounters between unmarried adults. Divorce rates were dramatically increasing and marriage rates were significantly decreasing in this time period. The number of unmarried Americans aged twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 4.3 million in 1960 to 9.7 million in 1976. Men and women sought to reshape marriage by instilling new institutions of open marriage, mate swapping, swinging , and communal sex. Sigmund Freud of Vienna believed human behavior
11997-414: The mid to late 1950s. It brought about profound shifts in attitudes toward women's sexuality, homosexuality, pre-marital sexuality, and the freedom of sexual expression. Psychologists and scientists such as Wilhelm Reich and Alfred Kinsey influenced the changes. As well, changing mores were both stimulated by and reflected in literature and films, and by the social movements of the period, including
12126-419: The missions were made to divest themselves of their extensive landholdings and emancipate the indigenous people under their control. As part of the process of secularization, Governor José Figueroa opened up San Francisco to civilian settlement. Prior to secularization, the only settlements in San Francisco had been the military settlement at the Presidio and the religious settlement at Mission Dolores. In 1835,
12255-405: The nature and scope of sexual practices among young Americans. Their books, Human Sexual Response and Human Sexual Inadequacy , published in 1966 and 1970 respectively, were also best-sellers, and are now considered classic texts in the field. In the United States in the years 1959 through 1966, bans on three books with explicit erotic content were challenged and overturned. This also occurred in
12384-419: The opposite sex. The idea of children having their parents as their early sexual targets was particularly shocking to Victorian and early 20th-century society. According to Freud's theory, in the earliest stage of a child's psychosexual development, the oral stage , the mother's breast became the formative source of all later erotic sensation. Much of his research remains widely contested by professionals in
12513-484: The period of Mexican rule , although it was not until 1833 that the missions would be secularized. Agricultural land became largely privatized as ranchos , as was occurring in other parts of California. Coastal trade increased, including a half-dozen barques from various Atlantic ports which regularly sailed in California waters. With the enactment of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833 ,
12642-503: The pill , public nudity , pornography , premarital sex , homosexuality , masturbation , alternative forms of sexuality , and the legalization of abortion all followed. Several other periods in Western culture have been called the "first sexual revolution", to which the 1960s revolution would be the second (or later). The term "sexual revolution" itself has been used since at least the late 1920s. The term appeared as early as 1929;
12771-533: The primary port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater of Operations . The explosion of jobs drew many people, especially African Americans from the South , to the area. After the end of the war, many military personnel returning from service abroad and civilians who had originally come to work decided to stay. The United Nations Charter creating the United Nations
12900-686: The quality of housing after the earthquake. The earthquake hastened development of western neighborhoods that survived the fire, including Pacific Heights , where many of the city's wealthy rebuilt their homes. In turn, the destroyed mansions of Nob Hill became grand hotels. City Hall rose again in the Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915. During this period, San Francisco built some of its most important infrastructure. Civil Engineer Michael O'Shaughnessy
13029-447: The reasoning behind deeming as illegal the depiction of legal acts. In 1953, Chicago resident Hugh Hefner founded Playboy , a magazine which aimed to target males between the ages of 21 and 45. The coverpage and nude centerfold in the first edition featured Marilyn Monroe , then a rising sex symbol . Featuring cartoons, interviews, short fiction, Hefner's "Playboy Philosophy" and unclothed female "Playmates" posing provocatively,
13158-515: The rise of urban police forces helped distinguish crime from sin . Overall, toleration increased for heterosexual sex outside marriage, including prostitution, mistresses, and pre-marital sex. Though these acts were still condemned by many as libertine , infidelity became more often a civil matter than a criminal offense receiving capital punishment. Masturbation , homosexuality , and rape were generally less tolerated. Women went from being considered as lustful as men to passive partners, whose purity
13287-542: The several thousands. More than half of the city's population of 400,000 was left homeless. Refugees settled temporarily in makeshift tent villages in Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, on the beaches, and elsewhere. Many fled permanently to the East Bay . Jack London is remembered for having famously eulogized the earthquake: "Not in history has a modern imperial city been so completely destroyed. San Francisco
13416-456: The silence and, by the 1950s, in the United States, it had become rare for women to go into their wedding nights not knowing what to expect. The open discussion of sex as pleasure, and descriptions of sexual practices and techniques, was revolutionary. There were practices that some had heard of, but many adults did not know if they were realities or fantasies found only in pornographic books. The Kinsey report revealed that these practices were, at
13545-543: The southern side of the Golden Gate , which later came to be known as Fort Point. In 1804, the province of Alta California was created, which included San Francisco. At its peak in 1810–1820, the average population at the Mission Dolores settlement was about 1,100 people. In 1821, the Californias were ceded to Mexico by Spain. The extensive California mission system gradually lost its influence during
13674-417: The state. The development of the birth control pill in 1960 gave women access to easy and more reliable contraception . Another likely cause was a vast improvement in obstetrics , greatly reducing the number of women who died due to childbearing, thus increasing the life expectancy of women. A third, more indirect cause was the large number of children born in the 1940s and throughout the 1950s all over
13803-576: The strategic benefits of the area due to its large natural harbor, the Spanish dispatched Pedro Fages in 1770 to find a more direct route to the San Francisco Peninsula from Monterey , which would become part of the El Camino Real route. By 1774, Juan Bautista de Anza had arrived to the area to select the sites for a mission and presidio . The first European maritime presence in San Francisco Bay occurred on August 5, 1775, when
13932-493: The territory of San Francisco dates to 3000 BCE. The Yelamu group of the Ramaytush people resided in a few small villages when an overland Spanish exploration party arrived on November 2, 1769, the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay . The Ohlone name for San Francisco was Ahwaste , meaning, "place at the bay." The arrival of Spanish colonists, and the implementation of their Mission system, marked
14061-493: The third-largest by economic output, with a GDP of $ 1.32 trillion in 2022 . In the same year, San Francisco proper had a GDP of $ 252.2 billion, and a GDP per capita of $ 312,000. San Francisco was ranked fifth in the world and second in the United States on the Global Financial Centres Index as of September 2023 . Despite a continuing exodus of businesses from the downtown area of San Francisco,
14190-505: The time, these films, by virtue of being made by directors who had established themselves as leading names in their generation, helped delegitimize the idea of habitually demanding that films should avoid overtly sexual subject matter. The films eventually progressed the public's attitude toward sex, especially in Sweden and other northern European countries, which today tend to be more sexually liberal than others. The monokini , also known as
14319-402: The underwater lot. By 1851, the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870, Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land. Buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850, and the U.S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate and
14448-529: The very least, surprisingly frequent. These other books asserted, in the words of a 1980 book by Irene Kassorla , that Nice Girls Do – And Now You Can Too . In 1962, Helen Gurley Brown published Sex and the Single Girl : The Unmarried Woman's Guide to Men, Careers, the Apartment, Diet, Fashion, Money and Men. In 1969 Joan Garrity , identifying herself only as "J.", published The Way to Become
14577-467: The way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. In Memoirs v. Massachusetts , 383 U.S. 413, the court ruled that sex was "a great and mysterious motive force in human life", and that its expression in literature was protected by the First Amendment . By permitting the publication of Fanny Hill , the U.S. Supreme Court set the bar for any ban so high that Rembar himself called
14706-543: The western world—the " Baby Boom Generation "—many of whom would grow up in relatively prosperous and safe conditions, within a middle class on the rise and with better access to education and entertainment than ever before. By their demographic weight and their social and educational background, they came to trigger a shift in society towards more permissive and informalized attitudes. The discovery of penicillin led to significant reductions in syphilis mortality, which, in turn, spurred an increase in non-traditional sex during
14835-415: Was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill , and a thriving arts scene. The first North American plague epidemic was the San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 . At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck San Francisco and northern California. As buildings collapsed from the shaking, ruptured gas lines ignited fires that spread across
14964-621: Was adopted throughout the Roman Empire. Romans accepted and legalized prostitution, bisexuality , and pederasty . Male promiscuity was considered normal and healthy as long as masculinity was maintained, associated with being the penetrating partner. In contrast, female chastity was required for respectable women, to ensure the integrity of family bloodlines. These attitudes were replaced by Christian prohibitions on homosexual acts and any sex outside marriage (including with slaves and prostitutes). History professor Faramerz Dabhoiwala cites
15093-552: Was also concern that a new town being planned by General Vallejo on the Carquinez Strait was to be called "Francisca", after the first name of his wife. After the name change to "San Francisco", the name of Vallejo's town was changed to Benicia , after his wife's middle name. Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Alta California was ceded from Mexico to the United States . Despite its attractive location as
15222-470: Was an informative documentary about sex and sexual techniques that featured the first real act of sex in a mainstream film. From these films, the myth of "Swedish sin" (licentiousness and seductive nudity) arose. The image of "hot love and cold people" emerged, with sexual liberalism seen as part of the modernization process that, by breaking down traditional borders, would lead to the emancipation of natural forces and desires. In Sweden and nearby countries at
15351-662: Was at the height of the Great Depression that San Francisco undertook two great civil engineering projects, simultaneously constructing the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge , completing them in 1936 and 1937, respectively. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz , a former military stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone , and Robert Franklin Stroud ,
15480-464: Was centered on a plaza that is now Portsmouth Square . A land survey of Yerba Buena was made by the Swiss immigrant Jean Jacques Vioget as prelude to the city plan. Francisco de Haro , a non- Californio Mexican native, became the first alcalde of Yerba Buena. The second alcalde José Joaquín Estudillo was a Californio from a prominent Monterey family. In 1835, while in office, he approved
15609-598: Was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers . Urban planning projects in the 1950s and 1960s involved widespread destruction and redevelopment of west-side neighborhoods and the construction of new freeways , of which only a series of short segments were built before being halted by citizen-led opposition . The onset of containerization made San Francisco's small piers obsolete, and cargo activity moved to
15738-437: Was granted a small rancho at El Polín Spring , near the Presidio, founding the first non-indigenous civilian household in San Francisco. In 1834, the pueblo of Yerba Buena was founded. Yerba Buena Cove (named after a native herb ) was already a favored anchorage spot and the new settlement and trading post was founded by its shores. Yerba Buena was located in what is now the city's Chinatown and Financial District and
15867-837: Was hired by San Francisco Mayor James Rolph as chief engineer for the city in September 1912 to supervise the construction of the Twin Peaks Reservoir, the Stockton Street Tunnel , the Twin Peaks Tunnel , the San Francisco Municipal Railway , the Auxiliary Water Supply System , and new sewers. San Francisco's streetcar system, of which the J , K , L , M , and N lines survive today, was pushed to completion by O'Shaughnessy between 1915 and 1927. It
15996-665: Was important to reputation. Commentators such as history professor Kevin F. White have used the phrase "first sexual revolution" to refer to the Roaring Twenties . Victorian Era attitudes were somewhat destabilized by World War I and alcohol prohibition in the United States . At the same time the women's suffrage movement obtained voting rights, the subculture of the flapper girl included pre-marital sex and "petting parties". Indicators of non-traditional sexual behavior (e.g., gonorrhea incidence, births out of wedlock, and births to teenagers) began to rise dramatically in
16125-525: Was motivated by unconscious drives , primarily by the libido or "Sexual Energy". Freud proposed to study how these unconscious drives were repressed and found expression through other cultural outlets. He called this therapy " psychoanalysis ". While Freud's ideas were sometimes ignored or provoked resistance within Viennese society, his ideas soon entered the discussions and working methods of anthropologists, artists and writers all over Europe, and from
16254-414: Was not, in fact, a time of "storm and stress" as Erikson's stages of development suggest, but that the sexual freedom experienced by the adolescents actually permitted them an easy transition from childhood to adulthood. Mead's findings were later criticized by anthropologist Derek Freeman , who investigated her claims of promiscuity and conducted his own ethnography of Samoan society. Sex and Culture
16383-446: Was signed in San Francisco, establishing the United Nations and in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers . After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, significant immigration , liberalizing attitudes, the rise of the beatnik and hippie countercultures, the sexual revolution , the peace movement growing from opposition to United States involvement in
16512-458: Was suggested that the interchangeability of bodies within pornography had radical implications for the meaning of gender differences, roles and norms. In 1971 Playboy stopped airbrushing pubic hair out of its centerfold picture spreads; this new addition caused the magazine to hit its all-time peak circulation of more than seven million copies in 1972 and men started having more choices when it came to magazines. In 1972 Deep Throat became
16641-410: Was the O'Shaughnessy Dam , Hetch Hetchy Reservoir , and Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct that would have the largest effect on San Francisco. An abundant water supply enabled San Francisco to develop into the city it has become today. In ensuing years, the city solidified its standing as a financial capital; in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash , not a single San Francisco-based bank failed. Indeed, it
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