Jackson Square, San Francisco


Jackson Square is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, bounded by Broadway, Washington St. on the south, Columbus Ave. on the west and Battery St. on the east with any number of nearby satellite buildings and residents outside the bounds that truly belong to the neighborhood.

History

Jackson Square encompasses the northeastern part of the former Barbary Coast red light district. It was built largely during the mid-late 1800s. The district contains the sole surviving buildings of the early central business district of San Francisco. During the 1850s this newly filled area which directly adjoined the piers to the east was populated by merchants, banks, places of entertainment, professional and government offices, and assembly halls.

Character

is one of the oldest commercial neighborhoods in San Francisco. Buildings on Jackson between Montgomery and Sansome retain cast iron shutters as protection against fire, but when the city burned, in one case, a warehouse's contents turned out to be more significant in saving the building in the 1906 earthquake and fire:
For decades this was the interior designer's district