San Francisco (USA, California)
The city of San Francisco was the center of San Francisco County from 1849 till 1856. But since the population of the city was too unproportional to the population of the entire County, the government of California decided to split the County up. The boundary ran across the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula just north of San Bruno Mountain. Everything south of that line became the new San Mateo County with the capital in Redwood City, while everything north of the line became part of the new consolidated City-County of San Francisco.
In fall of 1855, a ship arrived at San Francisco with refugees from the Far East on its board, from the territories exposed to a cholera epidemic. Just like during the Gold Rush, an increase of the population was far ahead of the development of infrastructure, including sanitary provisions; that is why this serious epidemic of cholera became the number one problem. Sisters of Mercy helped solve the problem; they worked in the first hospital in San Francisco County, but as early as 1857, a new free hospital was opened, which is functioning to this day. It is located on Stanyan Street.
In the 1890s, San Francisco suffered from corruption and machine politics; the city was ripe for reforms and changes. Adolph Sutro, a member of the Farmers Populist Party, became mayor of the city in 1894. Basically, apart from building a complex of swimming pools Sutro Baths, he blundered all of his attempts to improve the city.
The next mayor, James D. Phelan, elected in 1896, was more successful. He introduced a new system that enabled to increase the city’s funds through bond issues. It helped him build a new sewer system, seventeen new schools, two parks, a hospital and the central library. After Phelan left the mayor’s office in 1901, he became interested in rebuilding the city into a big and modern “Paris of the West”. When the San Francisco Association of Arts asked him to turn in a plan of decorating the city, he hired a famous architect Daniel Burnham. Burnham’s and Phelan’s plan was ambitious: they proposed a fifty year long attempt to rebuild the city by enlarging diagonals of boulevards and making open spaces and parks. Some items of the plan were eventually carried out, including the building of an Opera to the north of the City Hall, a metro line under Market Street and Embarcadero Boulevard surrounding the city.
In 1900, a ship arrived in San Francisco with rats infected with bubonic plaque. Mistakenly thinking that corpses buried in the ground were the source of infection, the authorities of the city forbade burying bodies in the city limits. Cemeteries were moved to a then undeveloped zone, south of the city, where now the town of Colma is situated. Fifty blocks of Chinatown were under quarantine, while the authorities were arguing how to solve the situation. The outbreak of the plaque ended in 1905. The problem with the cemeteries location and a deficit of land, however, remained. In 1912, all the cemeteries were moved to Colma where the dead now by number exceed the living – more than a thousand dead people to one living person. But the mausoleum of San Francisco stayed in town as a historic monument to Mission Dolores epoch.
On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake occurred caused by the rupture of 1,300 kilometer of the San Andreas Fault, from San Juan Batista city to Eureka city, having its center immediately offshore of San Francisco. According to data recorded by the Geological Service of USA the earthquake had the magnitude of 7.8 on Richter scale. The entire city was flooded, then fires broke out which destroyed supposedly 80% of the city, including almost the entire area of downtown. Many dwellers were caught in a trap between the flood and the growing fire reaching their districts; a decision was made to carry out evacuation across the bay, which saved many people’s lives. Refugee camps were situated in Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach and other undeveloped parts of the city. Even three years after the earthquake, many refugee camps still functioned. During that time the alarming chime of church bells rang 478 times, yet according to the statistics of 2005 officially over three thousand people died. With the number of population being 410,000, up to 300,000 of the dwellers remained without shelter.
Almost immediately after the quakes and devastating fire, designs of rapid reconstruction of the city began to be considered. One of the most outstanding and ambitious designs turned in was made by a famous city designer Daniel Burnham. His bold plan included construction of avenues and boulevards in Haussmann Style; besides, the main transport highway was supposed to run across the whole city. The project consisted of designs of constructing a massive civil complex with classical structure that was supposed to become the biggest city park in the world. It would have stretched from the Twin Peaks Hills to the Merced Lake. But this design was not accepted, and it was postponed until better times; many people to this day criticize it for being not practical in spending the city’s reserves and being unrealistic in its demands towards the buildings. Private owners and the Real Estate industry were against this idea because the city had to purchase a lot of land to realize this plan. When the initial street grid was restored many items of Burnham’s design received the green light, such as a neo-classical civic center complex, wider streets, arterial thoroughfares, a sub-way under Market Street, a Fisherman’s Wharf and a monument on Telegraph Hill, the Coit Tower.
In 1915, San Francisco hosted Panama Pacific Exhibition; it was an official festival dedicated to the opening of the Panama Channel; by then the city was fully rebuilt after the earthquake. After the exposition was closed its grandiose buildings were destroyed, except for the Palace of Arts which lives to these days, although having changed its shape.