Ingleside

Ingleside is one of the last affordable neighborhoods in San Francisco. It's a cute area in transition (read: gentrifying). It has predominate middle-class, working family roots. Given how hot the real estate market is right now, lots of properties are being bought left and right in Ingleside. There's lots of updating and renovating going on. Ocean Ave is getting nicer, and even has art fairs and the like now. It's come a long way, but still has a ways to go. The new, sleek Ingleside library is gorgeous. And the Whole Foods was much needed. Being bordered by BART, Muni, and bus lines is really convenient. And it's generally a neighborhood trending upwards.

Even though the largest campus of City College of San Francisco borders its northern end, Ingleside lacks the tree-lined streets, charming houses, and quaint main street typical of many college towns. (Granted, City College doesn’t have the ivy-draped buildings and acres of park-like landscaping of many such institutions of higher learning, either.) Instead, the neighborhood sits to the west of a major freeway (Interstate 280); its main road, Ocean Avenue, is an often deserted, sterile stretch (especially at its eastern end) with a streetcar line running down the middle and only a couple of shops, fast-food franchises, mom-and-pop eateries, and automotive services offering any commercial interest. Worse yet, the vast parking lots of the college lie inertly to one side, imparting the aspect of a huge factory rather than a place of academic activity. If the adjoining neighborhoods of Ingleside Terrace and Westwood Park look like twin sisters of spruce suburban order and cleanliness, Ingleside itself seems much like their older, dowdier sibling: showing its age, with more blemishes and a disheveled look overall.

These initial visual impressions could be a holdover from Ingleside’s somewhat dubious past: the area served in the late 19th century and early 20th as a collection of shadowy pursuits on the fringes of the law, including boxing rings, shooting ranges, tawdry saloons, and, at the east end of what was then called Ocean Road, a jail to deal with all the miscreants, while on the west end, a popular roadhouse (the Ingleside Inn) did a roaring business and ultimately lent the neighborhood its name. The land, once a vast prairie sweeping up the side of a hill and covered with wildflowers many months of the year, attracted few people other than farmers. Early developers (including Adolph Sutro) trumpeted its views (you can stand at certain points here and see both the ocean and the bay) and went so far as to try to rename today’s Ocean Avenue “Grand Ocean Boulevard.”

Yet Ingleside was never fully settled until after World War I, when improved transportation and the increased demand for housing at last attracted residents, who built modest homes or moved into blocks where developers had anticipated their eventual arrival. The card rooms and gaming saloons on Ocean Avenue gave way to more sedate shops, stores, and gas stations and garages. The jail was transformed into City College, and entertainment venues featured more innocent fare such as ice cream and movies. The area also experienced the white flight to the suburbs in the late 1950s and early ’60s that changed it from predominantly white to a mix of races.

Ingleside is today a neighborhood in transition. Many of its properties, which had become slightly unkempt, are being bought up by first-time homeowners and given needed repairs and facelifts. This explains the somewhat hodgepodge look of the houses, comprised of a number of architectural styles as development proceeded through the decades, only to be updated with faux surfaces and facades (stone, stucco, half-timber, even streamline moderne). In spite of all the renovation and modernization, a few of the area’s old cottages and more substantial single-family homes still stand, and these have been in many cases appropriately restored (notable examples lie along Grafton Avenue). Young people (many of them students of either City College or nearby San Francisco State University) occupy the marginally legal “granny” or “in-law” units that have been attached to the houses (or built from existing structures, such as storage rooms off a garage) over the years.

The population of Ingleside—roughly 11,000—is a mix, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with nearly 50 percent Asian, 20 percent white, 20 percent African American, and the remaining 10 percent a mix of two or more races. The people are middle class (median annual household income is $60,000), and most of them (about 65 percent) own their homes.

Ocean Avenue harbors most of the area’s shops and stores, which are more prevalent the farther west you travel, especially beginning at Granada Avenue and continuing on till Faxon Avenue, where there is an attractive collection of shops centered around the former branch of the public library. The new Ingleside Branch of the SFPL, a sleek and modern facility noted for its teen and children’s sections and a good collection of Chinese-language books, opened in 2009 at Ocean and Plymouth avenues and is one of the bright spots along this somewhat depressing, outdated commercial strip. The city has in the last few years undertaken some street improvements here, installing vintage streetlamps and planting more trees, but the old storefronts have a tired rather than appealingly old-fashioned look and are prime candidates for some sprucing up. There are a few businesses, markets, and shops that cluster along Holloway Avenue, but most residents go to the nearby Stonestown Mall or even farther afield to do their major shopping.

Public transportation consists of the “K” streetcar along Ocean Avenue and a bus line (the No. 29) that goes east and west along Grafton Avenue. The No. 54 bus also cuts a circuitous path through the neighborhood’s eastern section. The area is also served by BART (at the Balboa Park station on the area’s eastern fringe) as well as by numerous connections to the city’s Muni streetcars and buses at that same Balboa Park transit hub.

Although parking close to City College can be difficult during the day (explaining why the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic has issued “V” residential stickers and established two-hour time limits on streets ), finding a space in the rest of the neighborhood is generally a snap, owing to the fact that most homes have garages.

Schools are, curiously enough, private. Two—one sectarian, the other not—are located near City College: San Francisco Adventist School (a K-8 elementary on Geneva Avenue) and Lick-Wilmerding High School, a nonsectarian college prep that shares some athletic facilities with City College. Stratford School is a private K-8 housed in the former St. Emydius Grade School building (next to the twin-spired Mission revival Catholic Church of the same name on De Montfort Avenue).

Crime here is moderate to high, with burglary, robbery, and assaults leading the way in a recent three-month period, according to San Francisco Police Department records. (Iron bars on windows and across entryways attest to the prevalence of property theft.) Graffiti vandalism and disturbing the peace are also fairly common, and the neighborhood suffers as well from the rash of vehicle thefts and auto break-ins that have plagued most of San Francisco over the last couple of years. There has been one homicide in the last three years.

The real estate boom that swept the city in the last ten years missed Ingleside to a great degree, which has meant that the area never faced a big slide in the recent economic downturn. Still, according to Trulia, home prices in the neighborhood have jumped 26 percent in the 2009-2010 period, owing to recent characterizations of the area as a bargain-hunter’s trove—which was a function of the number of foreclosed homes and bank repossessions. Many single-family homes, which predominate in the area, sell in the $400,000 to $500,000 range (a refurbished three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on Capitol Avenue recently listed for $399,000). Rentals, driven to a degree by students and young families, are reasonable if somewhat rare: a simple studio can go for under $1,000, while one- and two-bedroom apartments start at $1,200 to $1,500 a month.

Although Ingleside provides few amenities in the way of parks or first-rate shopping, it is considered affordable for students, young families, and first-time homeowners—all of whom can overlook its paltry features and lack of “college town” charm for the appealing bottom line: in an increasingly expensive city, it’s a cheap place to hang your hat.

Ingleside is a great residential neighborhood. I have a cousin who lives in the area so I’ve been in Ingleside for a good time. There isn’t much to do in this neighborhood itself, you’ll have to go towards Ocean Avenue to find something fun to do and some restaurants to eat at. Basically, Ingleside is just another one of those neighborhoods where you would have a good time living at for a long time with a family. The streets are fairly clean and the homes are big, nice, modern-styled, and colorful.

Quite frankly, I don’t really pay attention to the homes much as I look for the fun and things to do in the neighborhood. However, the homes here would be great for several college students rooming together for those who are going to City College of San Francisco. Riordan High School is also just north of Ingleside. A really good burger shop you should visit when in the area is Beep’s Burger just right off Lee and Ocean Avenue. Transportation is easily accessible as there are local MUNI bus and train stops nearby as well as BART stops. There are several parks and a recreation center nearby where you can occasionally go to for relaxation, however, I think the Ingleside is quiet enough for relaxation.

Ingleside has some of the brightest colored houses I have ever seen. I suppose when the fog sets in and weather is blustery and dark, the best thing to do is paint your house, right? The brighter the better in this community. The homes in Ingleside are also every shape and size and are generally not that well kept and let go.

If you are looking for something grand and palatial this is not the place for you. Let’s put it this way, you need to be good-hearted and very tough to live in this neighborhood.

There are couple ornate churches in Ingleside that are spectacular to view. St. Emydius Catholic Church on Ashton and De Montfort in particularly is a stunning piece of architectural art.