Streets of San Francisco: The Origins of Street and Place Names

Rating:
Summary: The Quickest Introduction To San Francisco History.
Review: One of the reasons I like this book is that the author mentions me on his acknowledgments page; a generous trade off for some quick research on Mormon history. But the reason you may like to get a copy of the Streets of San Francisco is that it will enable you to look up the story behind many of our street sign names. This kind of information won't get you to your destination any quicker the first time, but it might the second time you come around, because establishing reference points is the best way to remember anything. This book is put together like a dictionary and provides about six sentences on each street. Nowadays few of us, especially tourists, really have a chance to read history books on the run, but you can get a basic idea of what San Francisco's past is all about by just quickly looking up the names you encounter. What you figure out will transfer over to other things very quickly. If I was going to try improve this book, I would do so by listing people who should have gotten a street named after them, people whose names adorn other places, such as Moscone Center being named for the assassinated mayor, or Hallidie Plaza being named for the developer of our world famous street car system. Yes, that would probably mean changing the title to the Streets and Public names of San Francisco, but that works for me. And perhaps fewer people would confuse the book's present title with the old Streets of San Francisco television show, as I have seen happen a few times. Another limitation is that this book does not have enough names, so the more serious historians among us simply use this in conjunction with other books on local historical sites; such as the unsurpassed and encyclopedic San Francisco Almanac by Gladys Hansen. Anyway, nearly every book store in San Francisco does sell the Streets of San Francisco, and some like to display its especially nice cover right next to the check-out counter.