Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

The climate is so mild and so favorable that the productions of California embrace those of both temperate and semi-tropical latitudes. The sand hills of San Francisco were found, with the help of irrigation to produce plentifully of both fruits and flowers, and the suburbs of the city display many greenhouse plants growing in the open air. Roses bloom every month in the year, and strawberries ripen from February to December. In San Francisco the mean temperature in January is 49° and in June 56°. The average temperature of the year is 54°.

The California market, between Kearney and Montgomery streets, extending through from Pine to California streets, displays all the fruits, vegetables and grains of the northern States, raised in the immediate neighborhood of the city, while oranges, lemons and pomegranates are sent from further south. The tenderer varieties of grapes flourish in the open air, and the State produces raisins which command a price but little below those of Europe. The thrift of the fruit trees of California is most remarkable. Most trees begin bearing on the second year from the slip or graft, and produce abundantly at three or four years of age. Their growth and the size of their productions are unequaled on the continent. The above mentioned market is one of the sights of the city, and should not be missed by the visitor.

Irrigation has been found necessary to render the sand hills about San Francisco productive, and windmills have become familiar objects in the landscape, their long arms revolving in the ocean breeze, while little streams of water trickling here and there vivify the earth. As a result, though trees are scarce, what few there are being mostly stunted live oaks, whose long roots extend down deep into the soil, there are flowers everywhere. On one side of a fence will be a sand-bank, white with shifting sand, on the other, flourishing in the same kind of soil, will be an al fresco conservatory, brilliant with color and luxuriant in foliage.

Montgomery street is the leading thoroughfare, broad and lined with handsome buildings. Toward the north it climbs a hill so steep that carriages cannot ascend it, and pedestrians make their way up by means of a flight of steps. From this elevation a fine view is obtained of the city and bay. Kearney and Market streets are also fashionable promenades, containing many of the retail stores. The principal banks and business offices are found on California street, and the handsomest private residences are on Van Ness avenue, Taylor, Bush, Sutter, Leavenworth and Folsom streets, Clay street Hill and Pine street Hill. The city extends far beyond its original limits, having encroached upon the bay. Solid blocks now stand where, in 1849, big ships rode at anchor. It is laid out with regularity, most of its streets being at right angles with one another. The business streets are generally paved with Belgian blocks or cobble stones, and most of the residence streets are planked. The city does not present the handsome and showy architecture of many cities of the east, though here and there are fine edifices. It is yet too new, and too hurriedly built, to have acquired the substantiality and grandeur of older cities. Between fine brick or stone structures several stories high are sandwiched insignificant wooden houses of only two stories, the relics of a past which is yet exceedingly near the present. The public buildings, especially those belonging to the United States, are fine.

The City Hall will, when finished, be surpassed by few structures in the country. The Palace Hotel, at the corner of Market and New Montgomery streets, is a vast building, erected and furnished at a cost of $3,250,000. It is entered by a grand court-yard surrounded by colonnades, and from its roof a birds-eye view of the whole city can be obtained. Baldwin's Hotel, at the corner of Marshall and Powell streets, is another palatial structure, costing a quarter of a million more, for building, decorating and furnishing, than the Palace Hotel. The Grand Hotel, Occidental, Lick House, Russ House and Cosmopolitan are all established and popular hotels.

The largest and finest church edifice on the Pacific Coast is that of St. Ignatius, Roman Catholic, in McAlister street. The finest interior is that of St. Patrick's, also Roman Catholic, in Mission street between Third and Fourth. The First Unitarian church, in Geary street, is one of the finest churches in the city, remarkable for the purity of its architectural design and the elegance of its finish. The Chinese Mission House, at the corner of Stockton and Sacramento streets, will prove interesting to strangers. The Roman Catholics, who number among their adherents all the Spanish citizens, make no concealment of their intention to gain a majority of the population. But though they are a power in the community, and have many churches, the different Protestant sects are largely represented. Indeed, San Francisco is thoroughly tolerant in matters of religion. Not only do Catholics and Protestants find their own appropriate places of worship, but the Jews have two Synagogues, and the Chinese Buddhists three Temples or Joss Houses.

There is but one road leading out of the city, but within the city limits there are many modes of conveyance. Cars propelled by endless wire cables, which move along the streets without the assistance of either horse or steam power, intersect the city in every direction. Omnibuses run out on the Point Lobos road to the Cliff House; and he who has not ridden or driven thither and watched the seals on Seal Rock, has not seen all of San Francisco. This is the one excursion of the city; its one pet dissipation. Everybody goes to the Cliff. A drive of five or six miles, on a good road, over and through intervening sand hills, brings the visitor to the Cliff House. This road leads by Laurel Hill, or as it was formerly called, Lone Mountain Cemetery, two and one-half miles west of the city, within whose inclosure a conical hill rises to a considerable height above the surrounding level country. On its summit is a large wooden cross, a prominent landmark, and within the cemetery are several fine monuments, conspicuously that of Senator Broderick, and a miniature Pantheon, marking the resting place of the Ralston family. The Lone Mountain possesses an unrivaled outlook over city, bay, ocean and coast range.

The Cliff House is a large, low building, set on the edge of a cliff rising abruptly from the ocean, and facing west; and from it you have a grand view of the Golden Gate, while oceanward you strain your eyes to catch some glimpse of China or Japan, which lie so far away in front of you. But you see instead, if the day be clear, the faint but bold outlines of the Farallon Islands, and the white sails of vessels passing in and out of the Golden Gate.

Late in the year of 1876 I completed my horseback journey across the continent, dashing with my horse into the surf to the westward of the Cliff House. A long and wearisome, but at the same time interesting and reasonably exciting ride, was at an end, and after viewing San Francisco, I was free to enjoy those luxuries of modern civilization, the railway cars, on my homeward route.

SEAL ROCKS, FROM THE CLIFF HOUSE, NEAR SAN FRANCISCO.