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If San Francisco
neighborhoods can be thought
of as people, places like
the Mission, the Castro, the
Haight, Russian Hill, etc.,
are pretty much adults. They
have identities. They have
relatively well-defined
boundaries. They have names.
The area of Market Street
from Franklin to Guerrero,
and then south down Valencia
to 14th, on the other hand,
is something of a teenager
with an identity crisis,
caught in the middle of
several established
neighborhoods. At times it's
informally been called the
Deco Ghetto, the Hub and
just Mid-Market, but nothing
has quite put it on the map.
Yet this area has lots of
local flavor, and it's
growing up before our eyes.
With a surprising number of
cafés, shops and bars and a
brand-new freeway off-ramp
and a widened boulevard on
the way, this San Francisco
neighborhood is coming into
its own, cutting the apron
strings of the surrounding
hoods.
So, why the name Deco
Ghetto? Because for some
reason, there's a bunch of
Art Deco furniture stores
clustered here. It all
started about a generation
ago with a few antique
stores (Beaver Brothers was
one of the first) seeking
reasonable rents and high
visibility. And then, as
best as anyone seems to
know, antiques attracted
Deco, and Deco attracted
more Deco. The store owners
wanted to give a name to the
random phenomenon, and a
name to the neighborhood
that might make people want
to come shopping.
"The Hub" goes back a few
years, when some locals
started a movement to have
the area christened for the
old Muni turnaround near the
Valencia/Market
intersection. Many in the
area still know of the name,
but it never really caught
on outside the neighborhood,
especially when the Muni
line was extended up to the
Castro.
Regardless of what it's
called, the area is going to
be getting a lot more
attention with the
completion of the Octavia
Boulevard project, which has
freeway traffic spilling
onto Market Street and the
newly-widened, tree-lined
boulevard. The area will be
further enhanced by
affordable housing, parks
and retail space. Shop
owners are looking forward
to more traffic, mostly of
the walking variety, in the
area.
Rarely do we get the chance
to witness the coming of age
of a neighborhood, but this
stretch of Market and the
surrounding area is evolving
rapidly. Once the
construction cranes on
Octavia are removed and the
orange traffic cones are put
away, maybe, finally, this
young neighborhood will
begin a life of its own.
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