Potrero Hill

Okay, so Potrero is a little bit like the Bernal Heights area—it is super popular with young couples looking for a relatively close spot to the main areas of the city without supposedly having the crime problems that you expect. If you are a fan of the film, 40 Days and 40 Nights with Josh Hartnett, then this is the hill where the main characters lived (though the other spots were mostly in North Beach and the interiors were shot in Canada—don’t try finding the Laundromat with the hidden Tide—its somewhere in Montreal apparently).

So does Potrero stack to the semi-hype it built up a few years ago?

Rents—Okay, let’s start with rent prices. As far as I can tell from my sampling of rents today, we got the average around $1250/room with a fair number of studios and one bedrooms in the sampling only about 10% with 3 bedrooms.

Crime—Given that the Mission is to the west and Bayview to the south, crime might be a worry and it is especially on the southern low lying end. You’ve got about two thirds the number of crimes reported here as in the Mission. Given that there are only 10,000 residents here, that actually seems to make it worse than the Mission for crime.

A closer look though reveals that the main problem is, as you sadly might expect, on the southern end of the neighborhood bordering Bay View where you have a series of projects. This year, for example, there have been 3 murders in that vicinity. Given that there have only been 32 murders so far this year in the entire city, that means 10% of the murders have occurred in this area.

If you stay on the northern heights you are relatively safe—except for the expected burglaries and break-ins.

So given the crime woes on the south, what does Potrero have to offer?

A Neighborhood Feel—North of the recreation center there is definitely a small neighborhood feel to the tightly packed streets with little corner markets. Like in many areas of the city, the houses cozily push up against one another—but here the combination of the freeway forming a sharp border on the west and the hill creates an even greater feeling of community—sort of like you might get if everyone were living one high rise building.

Restaurants—You can actually find about a dozen or so pretty good restaurants in Potrero. My recommendations would be Pera, a Turkish place (the lamb shish kabob is my favorite); Goat Hill Pizza; and Aperto, an Italian place—all of them around the culinary epicenter of Potrero—Connecticut and 18th.

Bars—As far as the bar scene goes, you will really have to go outside of the neighborhood to find any really great options—but that is no big deal with Dogpatch to the east, SoMa to the north and the Mission to the west. There is of course a dive called Thee Parkside and Bottom of the Hill, both of which feature live music.

Overall?

A good little neighborhood with some quiet nooks that make for a great place to live close enough to the action to jump right in when you feel like it, but not so close that you can never have a rest from it.

They say you never really feel as though you live in San Francisco until you can look at it. If that’s the case, then this neighborhood on a hill by the same name satisfies that requirement—as long as you live on its relatively clear northern half. That side faces downtown, with its skyscrapers jabbing the fog and the waters of the bay floating the scene on a cerulean backdrop. As views go, it’s up there with the best in the city—Twin Peaks, Buena Vista Park, even the one looking back from the Marin Headlands, near Golden Gate Bridge.

But views aren’t all Potrero Hill has to offer--and, truth be told, not all parts of the hill offer a drop-dead perspective of the skyline or the bay or San Bruno Mountain to the south. You come here for the sense of neighborhood, the everyone-knows-someone-else vibe. It is a straightforward place, nothing fancy, but with just enough exclusivity—separated by highways on east and west, warehouses to the north and south—to make it feel as if it were its own little town. Even the big chains that have moved in—the Whole Foods on Rhode Island Street, World Gym on De Haro—make concessions to fit in. No one wants to make a big splash here, and that understated character is what gives Potrero Hill its one-of-a-kind charm.

Today, live-and-let-live is part of the area’s ethos. But this was not always your average feel-good neighborhood. The look and feel of Potrero Hill as a place where everybody gets along are contradicted by a past where race (and its concomitant, racism) were a force in daily life. It started out in the late 1800s less pastoral (as its name—“potrero” means “pasture” in Spanish—would imply) and more plebeian: a jumble of segregated working-class hotels, boarding houses, and ultimately small homes. Heavily masculine, it was populated by European laborers who scaled dozens of wooden steps down the eastern flank of the hill to horse-drawn rail cars that delivered them to back-breaking jobs in iron works and steel mills, where they toiled for 10 or 12 hours a day, six days a week. By the 1880s, San Francisco’s heavy industries had gradually relocated south of Mission Creek, the former bay now filled in and becoming the industrial center of the West. The Spreckels moved their sugar refinery here in 1884. By the early 20th century, Del Monte Fruit had constructed canneries and warehouses with railroad tracks to offload boats bearing tropical fruits that came into San Francisco Bay directly onto railroad cars. Starting with German workers, the Central Waterfront hosted businesses friendly to Irish, Chinese, Russians, and Mexicans. Each group separated into its own subdistrict on the hill; mixing of the different ethnicities and races was rare. When World War II broke out, the waterfront hummed with boatbuilding for the Navy, and hundreds of African Americans from the Southern states settled in, changing the neighborhood’s makeup once again. During the unrest of the 1960s, the neighborhood was the scene of disturbances and unruly crowds protesting police brutality or the insensitivity of the mayor’s office to the neighborhood’s racial minority.

Flash forward, past the dotcom and tech booms of the last decades, which effectively changed the face of the neighborhood again. Today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Potrero Hill is a relatively diverse mix of about 15,000 people, 60 percent of whom are white, 20 percent African American, 10 percent Asian, and the remainder of two races. The residents are on the young side (median age is around 36), and solidly middle class (with a median household income of roughly $70,000 annually). About 40 percent of all residents own their homes, with the remaining opting to rent.

A drive or stroll around the neighborhood reveals a number of activity centers, each influenced by geography, population, and the surrounding businesses. On the northern side, the walls of warehouses along 16th and 17th streets offer a busy medley of cafes, bars, clubs (especially the rock-’n’-roll seven-nights-a-week Bottom of the Hill) nonprofits, outlets, and a gallery or two, including the California College for the Arts’ Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (a bit off 16th, at Eighth and Irwin). Two landmark businesses—Anchor Brewing Co. (maker of the now-famous steam beer) and the San Francisco Bay Guardian (the area’s first alternative weekly newspaper)—make their homes in this somewhat scruffy area.

As the streets climb up Potrero Hill from 16th, the residential character of the neighborhood becomes apparent, as lofts and workspaces give way to condos and homes built anywhere from 5 to 50 to 100 years ago (the farther uphill, the newer and more modern the architecture, though there remain some impressive 1800s period pieces). Victoria Mews is an example of the changing neighborhood; it’s a square-block condo complex (between 19th and 20th and Carolina and Wisconsin) made up of townhouse units that are frequently rented out.

The blocks around 18th and Connecticut form a vortex of sorts for the area, serving as a kind of town center, with restaurants (Aperto, Goat Hill Pizza), shops (including Christopher’s Books), bars (Blooms Saloon), and coffeehouses (Farley’s is a longtime fixture, noted for its community-centered events) clustering in the few blocks here, most of them serving a hip, laid-back clientele. The trend repeats on 20th Street, with a couple of groceries, a deli, and a branch of the public library centered around Connecticut. Not far from here is the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House, a landmark building designed by Julia Morgan (of San Simeon Hearst Castle fame) that serves as a community center, with programs geared toward disadvantaged youth and seniors.

The character of the area changes abruptly after the crest of the hill, however, with the southern slope dominated by anonymous housing developments (much built recently and classified “affordable”) and blocks of declining public housing (the Terrace-Annex projects, on the hill’s southeast flank). Built in 1941, their facades are today uninviting, the yards devoid of vegetation other than dried grass, the balconies a forbidding collection of peeling paint and boarded-up windows. The projects are slated to be rebuilt by 2013 as part of city hall’s Hope SF program.

The parks of Potrero Hill are geared toward residents who enjoy team sports. Jackson Park in particular is committed to baseball (with two diamonds), but also has tennis and basketball courts and a sand-filled kids’ playground. The Potrero Hill Recreation Center (built mainly for the residents of the nearby Terrace-Annex projects) has a baseball diamond, basketball and tennis courts, and a children’s play area with swings and other equipment. The center also has an indoor basketball court and hosts a number of afterschool activities. McKinley Square is small park with particularly pleasant, newly constructed play areas for children and some steep trails on its western side. The stretch of Vermont Street that snakes down from McKinley Square—with its six sharp curves (two less than the more famous one on Lombard in Russian Hill)—is an off-the-beaten-path jewel. Though skinnier and steeper than its more famous relative, it is fun and much less frequented (except for the annual Big Wheel tricycle race in the spring).

Two public elementary schools (K-5) serve neighborhood kids: Starr King on the south side and Daniel Webster on the north; both got a 2 out of 10 GreatSchools rating. There’s also an alternative junior high/high school on DeHaro Street, International Studies Academy (which earned a 3 out of 10 GreatSchools rating). Additionally, Live Oak School (K-8) is an independent elementary school on Mariposa. Adults so inclined can seek out an interesting assortment of places to go for higher learning of all types: California Culinary Academy (where chefs go to get a degree); San Francisco Center for the Book (all about printing and binding books); California College of the Arts; and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

As for public transportation, four bus lines crawl up and down and all around the hill: the No. 10 skirts the southern and eastern sides; the No. 19 goes pretty much right up the middle; the No. 22 works the northern edge; and the No. 48 goes along the southern base. For quick access to downtown, many residents walk down the hill to Dogpatch and take the “T” streetcar on Third Street.

Because many (if not most) houses have garages (which require curb-diminishing entries), and owing to the steep streets, residents often prefer to drive, so parking can be difficult, even on the most vertically inclined streets. As the neighborhood has become more crowded, the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has issued “X” and “W” residential parking permits, though the streets on which they are valid vary widely.

Crime on Potrero Hill is moderate and tends to be localized: frequent disturbing the peace and noise violations around bars and clubs; less common are assaults and vandalism near parks and empty lots; occasional robberies on deserted streets, with burglaries in secluded areas with poor lighting. The most common crime in any three-month period in the last years has been car break-in and vehicle theft, with a high number here, particularly on the hilltop and south side. Though the neighborhood is generally considered safe, there have been at least six homicides committed in the last three years.

As for real estate, the area has bounced back from the 2009 slump by about 12 percent, according to Trulia. Single-family homes range from $849,000 (two bedroom/one bath) to more than $1 million for multiple bedrooms/baths. Lofts are generally priced in the $550,000 to $625,000 range, with condos starting from $400,000, especially on the south side of the hill. Rentals, commonly thought of as a bargain here, have been creeping up lately, too: a rare studio can fetch about $1,000, while one-bedrooms start for $1,600 a month and two bedrooms ask $2,200 and up. As for the coveted view, that will cost: expect to add $200 to $500 a month for such an “amenity.” But apartments here generally have a bit more square footage than elsewhere in the city, so you get a little room with your view on Potrero Hill.