General Plan.
Market street is the widest and the longest, starting at the water front, half a mile east of the old City Hall, and slightly ascending through eight or nine blocks, it runs thence southwesterly on a nearly level grade beyond the city limits. Its western end is yet unfinished. A mile and a half from the water it cuts through a moderately high and immoderately rocky hill, beyond which it stretches away toward the unfenced freedom of the higher hills, and the dead level of the western beach beyond, at which it will probably condescend ultimately to stop. Its surface presents every variety of natural conformation ingeniously varied with artificial distortion. Plank, rubble, McAdam, cobble, Nicolson, gravel, Stow foundation, gravel, adobe, sand, and finally undisguised dirt, offer their pleasing variety to the exploring eye. From two to four horse-railroad tracks diversify its surface with their restful regularity, while the steam cars from San José follow their locomotive a short distance up its western end.
Stately blocks, grand hotels, massive stores, lofty factories, tumble-down shanties, unoccupied lots and vacant sand-hills form its picturesque boundary on either hand. When the high summer winds sweep easterly down its broad avenue, laden with clouds of flying sand from vacant lots along its either margin, it becomes a decidedly open question whether the lots aforesaid really belong in the department of real estate, or should, properly enter the catalogue of "movable property."
We have dwelt thus at length upon this street, not only on account of its central position and superior dimensions, but because it is a representative street. Others are like it as far as they can be. They would resemble it still more closely, did length, width and direction permit. It is fast becoming the great business street of the city, and, spite of the roughness and crudeness necessarily attaching to all the streets of a new and fast-growing city, it unmistakably possesses all the requisites of the future "Grand Avenue" of the Pacific metropolis.
On the northeast of Market street, through the older portion of the city, the streets run at right angles with each other, though neither at right angles or parallel with Market. One set runs, in straight lines, nearly north and south. The other set, also straight, crosses the former at right angles, that is, running nearly east and west. The principal of these streets, as one goes from the bay westerly, back toward the hills, and, in fact, some distance up their slopes, are Front, Battery, Sansome, Montgomery, Kearny, Dupont, Stockton, Powell, Mason, Taylor, and a dozen others, of which those nearer the bay are gradually growing into importance as business streets, especially along the more level portions of their southern blocks, near where they run into Market street. Beyond these, that is, west of them, the streets are chiefly occupied by dwelling houses, among which are many expensive residences of the most modern construction and elegant design.
Between Front street and the bay run two shorter streets, Davis and Drumm, along which, as well as upon the northern part of Front street, are several of the principal wharves, piers, docks and steamboat landings.
At right angles with these streets, running back at an acute angle from Market street, and at a right angle with the water front as well as the streets already named, are Geary, Post, Sutter, Bush, Pine, California, Sacramento, Clay, Washington, Jackson, Pacific, Broadway, with a dozen or more others still further north, and a score or so south.
Along the eastern blocks of these streets, that is, within five or six squares of the water, stand many of the leading business houses, hotels, newspaper offices, etc.
A sufficient variety of pavement diversifies the surface of all these streets—from the primitive, original and everlasting cobble, destroyer of quiet, destruction to wheels and death on horses, to the smooth-rolling Nicolson and the beautifully level Stow foundation, blessed bane of all the above abominations, and not a specially bad thing for the contractors. The sidewalks generally have a liberal breadth. They are commonly covered with plank, asphaltum or brick, and, near the corners and in front of the numerous rum-holes, with gangs of bilks or crowds of loafers, who have only, as Sydney Smith once said of a certain vestry in London, to lay their heads together to make a first-class wooden pavement.
South of Market street, that is, in the newer and more rapidly growing portion of the city, the streets were laid out under a new survey, and, of course, have an angle and direction of their own. One set runs parallel with Market, that is, nearly southwest and northeast. Their names, in receding order from Market, are Mission, Howard, Folsom, Harrison, Bryant, Brannan, etc. These streets are generally wider than those of the older, northern part. Southeast of them are seven or eight parallel streets, gradually growing shorter as they come nearer the Mission Bay, ending in South street, less than a block and a half long, lying along the water front. The lower or eastern ends of nearly all these streets run down to piers and wharves, upon which are the leading lumber and coal yards of the city, the largest hay and grain barns and sheds, and the immense docks of the great Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Nearly two miles back from the water front all these streets "swing around the circle" far enough to bring them into an exactly north and south line, and creep southward down the peninsula, a block or two farther south every season.
The streets running at right angles with Market street, beginning at the water front and reckoning back southwesterly, are named by their numbers, First, Second, etc., up to Thirtieth, and even beyond. Between First street and the present water front, some six or seven blocks have been filled in and are occupied chiefly by gas works, lumber yards and large manufactories. The new streets thus formed are named, in receding order from First street, Fremont, Beale, Main, Spear, Stuart and East. To reduce blocks to miles, one has only to know that in the older part of the city the blocks, reckoning east and west, number twelve to the mile, including the streets between. From north to south they are shorter, numbering sixteen to the mile. South of Market street the blocks are about one seventh of a mile long from east to west, and one ninth of a mile wide. In both the older and newer parts of the city, the regular standard blocks are frequently subdivided by one, and sometimes two, smaller streets, running through them each way. Near the city front, the first six blocks, reckoning back from the water, have from one half to two thirds the standard size. Bearing these dimensions in mind, one can readily reduce blocks to miles, and calculate distance and time accordingly.