Kearny Street in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

 runs north from Market Street to The Embarcadero, with a gap on Telegraph Hill. Toward its south end, it separates the Financial District

Financial District, San Francisco, California

The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, that serves as its main central business district. The nickname "FiDi" is occasionally employed, analogous to nearby SoMa.-Location:...

 from the Union Square

Union Square, San Francisco, California

Union Square is a plaza of bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton Streets in San Francisco, California. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district that surrounds the plaza for several blocks. The area got its name because it was once used for rallies and...

 and Chinatown

Chinatown, San Francisco, California

San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants to the United States and North America...

 districts. Further north, it passes over Telegraph Hill

Telegraph Hill, San Francisco

Telegraph Hill refers to a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills."-Location:...

.

History

Kearny Street was originally named "La Calle de la Fundacion" by the Spanish. Translated, this means "street of the foundation." The origin of the present name, Kearny Street, is generally assumed to be Stephen Watts Kearny, the first military governor of California under U.S. rule. Another possible namesake includes General Philip Kearny

Philip Kearny

Philip Kearny, Jr., was a United States Army officer, notable for his leadership in the Mexican-American War and American Civil War. He was killed in action in the 1862 Battle of Chantilly.-Early life and career:...

.

At Kearny and Clay, the first cable car

Cable car (railway)

A cable car or cable railway is a mass transit system using rail cars that are hauled by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed. Individual cars stop and start by releasing and gripping this cable as required...

 in America, invented by Andrew S. Hallidie on August 2, 1873, climbed five blocks up the Clay Street hill.

From the turn of the twentieth century until 1977 the area around the intersection of Kearny and Jackson Streets was home to a large Filipino population, and earned the nickname Manilatown. Located at 848 Kearny Street, the International Hotel

I-Hotel

The I-Hotel, officially known as the International Hotel, was built in 1907 after the devastating 1906 earthquake and was a low-cost residential hotel located at the corner of Kearny and Jackson Streets in the Manilatown section of San Francisco...

 served as the heart of Manilatown. In its heyday of the 1920s and 1930s the estimated population of Manilatown was between 20,000 and 40,000 people.
In 1968 the hotel was sold to developers intending to replace it with more profitable commercial property. After a protracted court battle, the remaining two hundred odd tenants were forcibly evicted on 4 August 1977. The hotel and other buildings to the south of it on that block were quickly torn down, after which the land lay vacant for over a a quarter of a century. On 27 July 2004, a two block stretch of Kearny Street was officially declared to be Manilatown.

Landmarks

Landmarks along Kearny Street include Lotta's Fountain

Lotta's Fountain

Lotta's fountain was dedicated in 1875 at the intersection of Market Street where Geary and Kearny Streets connect in downtown San Francisco, California....

 at Market Street, where 1906 Earthquake

1906 San Francisco earthquake

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...

 commemorations are held; 555 California Street, the city's second tallest skyscraper; the location of the old Hall of Justice

Hall of Justice

A Hall of Justice is an occasional term for a city's police headquarters, and exists in cities across the United States. In some cases, the facility may also house courts as well as jails...

 at Kearny and Clay Streets now occupied by the Hilton San Francisco Financial District

Hilton San Francisco Financial District

Hilton San Francisco Financial District is a 27 story hotel located Chinatown's Portsmouth Square in San Francisco, California at 750 Kearny Street. Formerly the Holiday Inn San Francisco, the hotel re-opened in January 2006 after a renovation....

; the Lusty Lady

Lusty Lady

The Lusty Lady is the name of a peep show establishment in the North Beach district of San Francisco. It was also the name of another now-defunct location in downtown Seattle...

, the nation's first worker-owned peep show

Peep show

A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. Though historically a peep show was a form of entertainment provided by wandering showmen, nowadays it more commonly refers a presentation of a sex show or pornographic film...

; the eastern border of Portsmouth Square

Portsmouth Square

Portsmouth Square is a one-block park in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, that is bounded by Kearny Street on the east, Washington Street on the north, Clay Street on the south, and Walter Lum Place on the west....

, the original Plaza

Plaza

Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...

 of the pueblo

Pueblo

Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...

 of Yerba Buena

Yerba Buena

Yerba buena is a rambling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from maritime Alaska southwards to Baja California Sur...

; and Coit Tower

Coit Tower

Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 at the request of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the city of San Francisco; Coit bequeathed one-third of her estate to the city "to be expended in an...

, at the top of Telegraph Hill.

See also

• O'Brien, Robert, This is San Francisco. 1948. 1994 Chronicle Books ISBN 0-8118-0578-6