Historic Walking Tour Guide: Bush Street-Cottage Row Landmark District

One-sheet walking tour for the Bush Street-Cottage Row in San Francisco. Features eight stops: 1717 Webster Street, 1717-1719 Webster Street, 2115-2125 Bush Street, 2105-2101 Bush Street, 1942 Sutter Street, 2109 Bush Street, 1785 Webster St., Cottage Row. From introduction: "The Bush Street-Cottage Row Landmark District is a remarkably intact group of 22 architecturally significant Italianate and Stick residences constructed between 1870 and 1885. Constructed with these buildings is a small walkway and park. The district demonstrates the different modes of speculative housing constructed during the late nineteenth century. The Real Estate Associates (TREA) was San Francisco’s largest builder of housing in the 1870s, having built nearly 1,000 houses based on designs by architect John Remer. Only about 200 remain today. TREA pioneered quality low-cost housing in what were then outlying areas. TREA built the houses on Bush Street and two residences on Sutter Street. The six houses on Cottage Row were built by small investors, John H. Smyth and Charles L. Taylor, as rental housing. Taylor himself chose the name “Cottage Row”. All of the residences are two-story wood-frame buildings designed in either an Italianate or early Stick architectural style. Buildings have channel rustic wood siding, double-hung windows, and paneled entry recesses. They are tall, narrow buildings with tall, narrow openings balanced by heavy, bracketed cornices on patently false fronts. The Bush Street residences are characterized by angled bay windows popularized by TREA. In the 1930s, the walkway was popularly called “Japan Street,” because the district was primarily inhabited by Japanese-Americans until their forced internment during World War II. During this time, the residents grew vegetables in their tiny rear yards, which they offered for sale at an informal public market held every Saturday along the Row." Funding for this project was provided in part through a 2010 Preserve America grant to the City of San Francisco (grant number 06-10-AP-5034) for the Market and Octavia Historic Resource Preservation Project. The grant was administered by the State, Tribal, and Local Plans and Grants Division, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Preserve America is a federal initiative that encourages and supports community efforts to preserve and enjoy our priceless cultural and natural heritage. The goals of the program include a greater shared knowledge about the nation's past, strengthened regional identities and local pride, increased local participation in preserving the country's cultural and natural heritage assets, and support for the economic vitality of our communities.

Historic Walking Tour Guide: Bush Street-Cottage Row Landmark District

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