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The story of San Francisco's
Marina District is the story
of land and water repeatedly
and dramatically altered by
nature and by human
development.
Eight thousand years ago,
American Indians lived on
the dunes and near the tidal
marshlands that today are
the sites of apartment
buildings, luxurious homes
and some of the city's
trendiest shops and
restaurants. When the
Spanish arrived here in 1776
and established the Presidio
-- on the Marina's western
border -- the marshlands
looked pretty much the same
as they would over a century
later, in 1906, when the
city of San Francisco was
shaken and then burned by
its first devastating
earthquake and the resulting
fire. view of gg bridge
It wasn't until the
aftermath of the big quake
that major development began
in the Marina. Tons and tons
of brick and rock rubble
from destroyed downtown
buildings were brought over
and dumped into the Marina's
marshlands, forming an
initial (and unstable)
foundation for development.
A few years later, when the
site was chosen as the
location of the 1915
Panama-Pacific International
Exposition, San Francisco
had the impetus it needed to
turn what began as a
haphazard dumping ground
into a breathtaking exhibit
of architectural beauty.
The Panama-Pacific, and its
iconic surviving building
the Palace of Fine Arts,
introduced the city to the
commercial and residential
development possibilities of
the recently formed prime
waterfront real estate. In
the decades following the
exposition, apartment
buildings, homes and
businesses sprouted up
rapidly and in great numbers
until the Marina had become
one of San Francisco's most
desirable places to live,
work and visit. Until 1989,
that is, when another
earthquake rocked the city
and sparked 27 fires
citywide, including the
devastating Marina blaze,
and many of the area's
poorly supported buildings
collapsed atop the unstable
ground. The Loma Prieta
earthquake was a wake-up
call for Marina developers;
the reconstruction effort
brought with it new
standards of
earthquake-sturdy
construction, and within a
decade the Marina had been
rebuilt and revamped with a
shiny new face and s
stronger bone structure.
Today the apartment
buildings, shops and
restaurants seem to be
bursting at their seams with
beautiful, young and fit 20-
and 30-somethings. The
singles scene is hopping on
Friday and Saturday nights,
with lots of fresh-faced
postgrads with cocktails in
one hand and cell phones in
the other. Union is arguably
the best street in the city
to window-shop the hours
away on a sunny Saturday
afternoon, and, a few blocks
down, Chestnut has an
incredible variety of
high-quality restaurants
catering to every palate.
If you're looking for
diversity or an edgy or
progressive feel, the Marina
probably isn't your
neighborhood -- unless you
count Fort Mason, which
hosts a bounty of cultural
museums and nonprofits.
Overall, this is the land of
SUVs, chic fashion and
killer spa treatments. Love
it, or leave it to the
pretty young things who call
it home or
home-away-from-home.
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