International Settlement (San Francisco)

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Coordinates: 37°47′50″N122°24′14″W / 37.79722°N 122.40389°W / 37.79722; -122.40389

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Looking west down Pacific Street from Montgomery Street during the 1940s. (San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library) International Settlement 1940s San Francisco Pacific Street FaceWest Crp1.jpg
Looking west down Pacific Street from Montgomery Street during the 1940s.
(San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)

International Settlement was a relatively short lived entertainment district within San Francisco, located along a one block stretch of Pacific Avenue between Kearny and Montgomery Streets, whose popularity lasted from 1939 to 1960.

San Francisco Consolidated city-county in California, United States

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

History

Pacific Avenue went through many transformations since its early days of the 1860s when it was a main thoroughfare for the vice-ridden Barbary Coast, and was then lined with brothels and violent saloons. International Settlement was the third major transformation of the Pacific Street district of San Francisco.

Barbary Coast, San Francisco human settlement in California, United States of America

The Barbary Coast was a red-light district during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in San Francisco which featured dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels. Its nine block area was centered on a three block stretch of Pacific Street, now Pacific Avenue, between Montgomery and Stockton Streets. Pacific Street was the first street to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove.

Early Pacific Street and the Barbary Coast

During the late 19th and early 20th-centuries within San Francisco, the Barbary Coast was a red-light district which contained dance halls, concert saloons, bars, jazz clubs, variety shows, and brothels. [1] The Barbary Coast was the first transformation of Pacific Street, and was born during the California Gold Rush of 1849 when the population of San Francisco was growing at an exponential rate due to a rapid influx of tens of thousands of miners trying to find gold. The early decades of the Barbary Coast would be marred by persistent lawlessness, gambling, administrative graft, vigilante justice, and prostitution. [2]

Red-light district

A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. Areas in many big cities around the world have acquired an international reputation as red-light districts.

California Gold Rush gold rush from 1848 until 1854 in California

The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy, and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and resulted in a precipitous population decline from disease, genocide and starvation. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory, to having one of its first two U.S. Senators, John C. Frémont, selected to be the first presidential nominee for the new Republican Party, in 1856.

Graft, as understood in American English, is a form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain. Similarly, political graft occurs when funds intended for public projects are intentionally misdirected in order to maximize the benefits to private interests.

Pacific Street received its second transformation after the earthquake and fire of 1906, when most of its buildings were destroyed. The city's financial boosters then invested heavily in reconstruction and within three months over a dozen dance halls and a dozen bars were rebuilt and operating. This era of Pacific Street was nicknamed 'Terrific Street' by musicians in describing the quality of music at Pacific Street's clubs, and indeed the first jazz clubs of San Francisco would occur there. This new transformation of Pacific Street was gentrified and tame compared to the lawless pre-earthquake version of the Barbary Coast, and Terrific Street became a tourist mecca for middle-class youth. [3] Archived photos of Terrific Street's clubs like Spider Kelly's show neatly dressed couples enjoying a harmless night of dancing.

1906 San Francisco earthquake major earthquake that struck San Francisco and the coast of Northern California

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area. Devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. Thousands of homes were dismantled. As a result, up to 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed. The events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest earthquakes in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history and high in the lists of American disasters.

Terrific Street human settlement in San Francisco, California, United States of America

Terrific Street was a short-lived entertainment district on San Francisco's Barbary Coast during the early 20th century. It consisted of dance halls, jazz clubs, and various kinds of drinking establishments. Terrific Street was centered upon a single block of Pacific Street, which was one of the earliest the streets to cut through the hills of San Francisco, starting near Portsmouth Square and continuing east to the first shipping docks at Buena Vista Cove. The district was located between Kearny and Montgomery streets on Pacific Street.

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".

However Terrific Street's dominance was short lived, and would slowly come to and end by 1921 after the momentum of a reform movement and a newspaper’s crusade caused dancing and women to be forbidden from its many dance halls and cafes. [4] The final blow to Terrific Street's popularity came when Prohibition was passed in 1920 and stopped the flow of alcohol to its dance halls and saloons. After prohibition that block lost much excitement and its dance halls and cabarets were gradually replaced by offices, hotels, and warehouses.

Prohibition in the United States constitutional ban on alcoholic beverages

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933.

Pacific Street after the End of Prohibition

After Prohibition was repealed in 1933 and liquor was again available, an attempt was made to revive its entertainment scene. Restaurateur and capitalist, Pierino Gavello, initiated Pacific Street's third transformation and was responsible for starting the enterprise to redevelop the block between Montgomery and Kearney streets back into an entertainment district. [5] The buildings were stream-lined with stucco facades and gleaming windows, and the block was renamed as International Settlement in an attempt to attract the servicemen of World War II. [6] To further revitalize its entertainment business, two pairs of towers were constructed, on either end of that Pacific Avenue block, and those towers would support two large signs overhead which read: International Settlement. [6] A number of African American jazz bands played at these night spots, and continued Pacific Street's involvement with America's jazz scene. [7]

The saloons, wine dens, and dance halls of the old Barbary Coast era would now be replaced with restaurants and night clubs. Some of the night clubs and restaurants of International Settlement were the Arabian Nights cocktail lounge (592 Pacific), the Gay 'N Frisky club (590 Pacific), House of Pisco (580 Pacific), Monaco (560 Pacific), The Barn (539 Pacific), The Hurricane (533 Pacific), the Lucca restaurant, House of Blue Lights, Spider Kelly's, Moulin Rouge, Sahara Sands, and the Barbary Coast club with its iconic can-can dancer's leg neon sign. [8]

Bee and Ray Goman's Gay ‘90s was at 555 Pacific Avenue, which was the site of the Old Hippodrome (later as Moulin Rouge) dance hall from the Barbary Coast days. It is currently houses an art store, and its basement still displays an old tunnel from its past.

During 1957 International Settlement received national exposure when a Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak film, Pal Joey, was shot on that block. Within the film, Frank Sinatra plays an unemployed singer who comes to International Settlement's clubs in search of work, and we see him walk the block and enter a number of those actual clubs. That film provides one of the best film records of International Settlement during the 1950s, and many of its outtake photos are available upon some websites. [9]

However, by the late 1950s the area had lost its appeal and began to again have its dance halls and cabarets replaced by offices and warehouses. International Settlement had now become too old-fashioned to compete with the nearby and escalating Broadway and North Beach entertainment scene, which consisted of innovative jazz clubs, comedy clubs, and strip clubs which were much racier than the old-time chorus girl acts of International Settlement. [6]

Though that Pacific Avenue block now appears as a sleepy little street and its two large International Settlement signs have been taken down, the signs' paired towers still remain as a reminder of International Settlement's heyday.

International Settlement Today

Currently the neighborhood is populated with interior design firms, law offices, a movie theater, and an art store inside the Old Hippodrome dance hall, which later housed the Moulin Rouge dance hall. The area is also included on the historical Barbary Coast Trail in San Francisco.

Pop Culture References

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Asbury, Herbert: The Barbary Coast – An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1933, p.104
  2. ↑ Boyd, Nan Alamilla: Creating a Place For Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories, Routledge, 1997, p. 77
  3. ↑ Montanarelli & Harrison: Strange But True San Francisco – Tales of the City by the Bay, PRC Publishing, 2005, p. 111
  4. ↑ Asbury, Herbert: The Barbary Coast – An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1933, p. 302-303
  5. ↑ Federal Writers of WPA: San Francisco in the 1930s – The WPA Guide to the City by the Bay, University California Press, 201, p. 214
  6. 1 2 3 Richards, Rand: Historic Walks in San Francisco, Heritage House Publishers, 2008, p. 180
  7. ↑ Stoddard, Tom: Jazz on the Barbary Coast, Heyday Books, 1982, p. 206
  8. ↑ Tillmany, Jack: Theatres of San Francisco, Arcadia Publishing, 2005, p. 63
  9. ↑ "Pal Joey - International Settlement , reelsf.com, September 2012
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