Hunters Point, San Francisco, California
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Hunters Point or Bayview-Hunters Point is a neighborhood in the southeastern portion of San Francisco, California, zip code 94124.
The neighborhood
Image:Black sf1.gif Hunter's Point is a neighborhood strung along the main artery of Third Street from India Basin to Candlestick Point. The neighborhood's population has changed considerably over the years -- a declining African American population has moved to other Bay Area cities, notably Antioch, Oakland and Richmond while Latinos, Asians, and whites represent a growing part of the neighborhood.
Murals featuring African American pride are common in Hunters Point.
Prostitution and illicit drug sales occur on the streets and gun violence is common. Of the 130 homicides committed in San Francisco in 2003 and the first seven months of 2004, 25 -- or 19 percent -- occurred in Bayview-Hunters Point. [1]
Babies in Hunters Point are 2.5 times more likely to die in their first year than those in other areas of San Francisco. [2]
One of the city's current projects with this neighborhood is the Third Street Light Rail Project, expanding mass transit system into less serviced neighborhoods.
Hunters Point also has a unique microclimate - the warmest in all of foggy San Francisco, often never experienced by most of the city's residents.
Many community groups, such as the India Basin Neighborhood Association work with community members, other organizations and city wide agencies to strengthen and improve this diverse part of San Francisco.
History of the Shipyard
Template:Main Hunter's Point as a community grew up around the two graving docks purchased and upbuilt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by the Union Iron Works, owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, located at Potrero Point. The original docks were built on solid rock. In 1916, the drydocks were thought to be the largest drydocks in the world, for the time. At a length of over 1000 feet, they were said to large enough to accommodate the largest warships and passenger steamers afloat. Soundings showed an off shore depth of sixty-five feet. The Navy used the docks as a mid-site between San Diego and Bremerton, Washington. Much of the shoreline was extended by landfill extensions into the San Francisco Bay during the early 20th century. The Navy recognized the importance of shipbuilding and repair in the San Francisco bay and began negotiating for use and apropriation of the Hunter's Point Drydocks during World War One. A Congressional hearing on Pacific Coast Naval Bases was held in San Francisco in 1920 at San Francisco City Hall wherein city representatives, Mayor Rolph and City Engineer O'Shaughnessy and others testified on behalf of permanently siting the Navy in the Hunter's Point.
The land was again appropriated by the United States Navy at the onset of World War II and became one of the major shipyards of the west coast. Many workers, including African Americans, moved into the area to work at this shipyard and other wartime related industries in the area. After the war, the area remained a naval base and commercial shipyard, as many blue collar industries moved here. The Navy closed the shipyard and Naval base in 1994 and gave it back to the city. Right now, there is a renaissance of the Hunters Point Shipyard.
As in most industrial zones of the era, Hunter's Point has had a succession of coal and oil fired power generation facilities, and these have left a legacy of pollution, both from smokestack effluvients and leftover byproducts that were dumped in the vicinity.
External links
- Bay View Newspaper
- Historic Hunter's Point in pictures
- India Basin Neighborhood Association
- Map of Hunters Point gangs circa 2004
- Map of India Basin
- Hunters Point infant mortality rate is comparable to Bulgaria
- Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment
- 1966 Hunter Point riot
- Review of a documentary film about Hunters Point
- Property values in 94124