StreetSmARTS covers the History of Bayview

Palou and 3rd Street
Bayview

Titled the History of Bayview this is a 2011 Street SmArts mural by Bryana Fleming.

Panel 1 and 3: Originally dominated by grassland and tidal marshland, Bayview-Hunters Point has a unique history for its transformation into an urban industrial neighborhood while segregated from the metropolitan area. Slaughterhouses and their associated industries in the 1800s and shipbuilding in the 1900s drove its urbanization.

Panel 2: Constructed in 1888, the Bayview Opera House Ruth Williams Memorial Theatre (known affectionately as “the Opera House” or the “BVOH”) is located at 4705 Third Street in the heart of the Bayview Hunters Point district.  The Opera House is San Francisco’s oldest theater and a registered historical landmark.

Mr. Sam Jordan was born in Diboll, Texas, and served in the U.S. Navy before coming to San Francisco. Soon after his arrival here in 1947, Mr. Jordan became a regular on the city’s boxing scene. He grew popular as “Singing Sam” because he sang the national anthem and other songs before and after his fights. His first year in the city, he fought in the light heavyweight championships of the San Francisco Golden Gloves Tournament, winning the diamond belt.

In 1959, he opened his bar on Third Street, known to most as Sam’s or Sam Jordan’s, a popular spot for more than four decades where neighborhood regulars, politicians and city leaders dropped by before or after a trip to nearby Candlestick Park.

Sam Jordan died in 2003, the bar is up for SF Landmark status.

If you lived on Quesada Avenue in Bayview Hunters Point before the Queseda Gardens Initiative, you would have pulled down the blinds and dreaded the inevitable dash to the bus stop or your car. But that changed in 2002 when Annette Smith and Karl Paige started planting flowers and vegetables here and there around the block.  Other residents jumped in to help them, and to create art, share history, organize block events, and commit to working together to strengthen the community where they live.  Together, they formed the Quesada Gardens Initiative, changed their world, and inspired all those around them.