Michele's Essay Portion

Noriega is located in a place called the Sunset.  The Sunset received its name in

1889 from a company called Easton, Eldridge, and Co. At first the Sunset area was

covered in san dunes and barely inhabited.  Around the 1900’s the Sunset area

transformed into somewhat of a suburbia.  Houses ranging around 5,000 to 10,000

dollars replaced the sand dunes and many families started to migrate into the Sunset

Area.  In the beginning not many lived in the Sunset area, “There were only four homes

on our end of the street when my family moved in about 1947” (The Outside Lands)

Over time more and more houses started to be built and thus the booming residential

area we know today as The Sunset was created. 

     Noriega, although a small neighborhood has been transforming and changing by

the decade.  From what we know of it today as mostly an asian community, it was first

predominately a white community. When looking at the numbers and how this

transformation occurred the census is one of the main sources of information that can

be used.  According to the 1940 census, only about 39,556 Chinese inhabited

California, and about 93,717 Japanese, any other asian race was dumped in the other

segment.  In 1940 San Francisco, its total population was 634,536.  Of the 634,536,

301,692 were white.  So, 50% percent of its population was white, and the asian

population wasn’t even calculated, all other races besides african america were dumped

again into the other segment.  The other segment being 18,288, and of this, one can

figure that that asian population was indeed a small one.  With all that being said, many

of San Francisco’s new and upcoming neighborhoods had been bought out and moved

in by its wealthy class, the white community and Noriega was one of these

neighborhoods.


    Although not many sources can be found specifically on Noriega dated back to

the 1940’s through the 1960s, a list of business’s and pictures were found specifically

on Noriega.  Through Noriega’s listed business’s one can assume that many of these

business's were directed mostly towards the Caucasian community.  These business’s

include:  Nineteenth Avenue Liquors (a small business around as early as 1966),

Pioneer Investor Savings, Big Daddy Hamburgers (around in 1970s). Sunset

Restaurant (Irish owned, all american food served here), Saxe Reality,  Hibernia

Bank, White Lumber Company, Seabright Market, Carriage Market, Green House

Pharmacy, Bagdad Bowl (according to my sources: “ [A] dark, smokey interior and the

unique sounds of a bowling alley. [A] hang out for teenagers who were trying to escape

from their parents, but still obeyed a stated curfew. [It later] became a savings and loan

office in the early 1980s” ), Bank of America, Safeway, Taffy’s Liquors, House of Bagels

& Gilbert’s Kosher Deli, Bino’s Restaurant, The Blanket Company, True Value

Hardware, Polly Ann Ice Cream, and Chicken Delight.   Out of all the past business’s in

the early 70s and 80s only two were asian owned: Tien Fu: a Chinese Restaurant, and

Fay Cleaners: dry cleaning.   Today only one of these business’s still stands: Poly Ann

Ice Cream, which is still very popular business, and withstood the rebuilding of its

original building in the late 1990’s.

    Today Noriega has little white influence and only when walking towards the very

end of the street the remains of the white community can be picked out. Noriega’s

transformation can mainly be pointed to the immigration act in the 1960s (this will be

touch upon in more depth later on in this report).   Noriega just like many of its other

brother and sister streets in Sunset has taken a transformation, and in its place a new

 community has surfaced.



Sources: 


"CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING 1940 Census." U.S. Census Beraeu . N.p., n.d. Web. 7 May 2011. <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1940.html>.
and
Dunnigan , Frank . "Strettwise-Noriega Neighbors ." (2010 ): 1 . Web. 7 May 2011. <http://www.outsidelands.org/streetwise-noriega.php>.