The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-01-27

ETC., the only additional fund set aside for its
| betterment is the insignificant amount OF
this we have the immense allowance OF
SOS, 800 for care and improvement OF parks
and squares in the other parts OF the City, and
this does not take into consideration at all the
levy of about $500 900 for Golden Gate Park.
While no one begrudges money honestly ex-
pended for improving or beautlfy1ng the City,
still oil these benefits should not be confined
to any particular section. The money derived
from each part of the City should be returned
to il again, as nearly as possible, in benefits,
and where there arc no parks and squares TO
beautify, the streets should be improved and
kept in order. What the south side of the City
needs, especially, is well-paved streets con-
Meeting the water front with the main outlets
from the CITY. The cost of one proposed street
is only $4,000, and would be but small por
ton of the money paid by this section into the
Tax Collectors Office
The parks, such as Columbia square and
Holly Park, can be allowed to remain for an
other year If this money is spent for thor
oughfare, but when the appropriation is made
next year an equitable portion of the levy
should be spent on this side, which is the most
populous section of the whole City. One-half
OF the funds In the Street Department should
be used here, in fact for the next two years
should justice be done the greater part of the
fund should be used in this section.
TO show how the southern suburbs feel about
the justice done them in the way the money is
spent may be cited the disappointed Holly
Park petitioners, who asked that $4,000 be
spent IN retaining and improving their park,
and who received through their petition one
solitary policeman to guard them.
During the past few years the popula-
ton of the suburbs of the Mission district
III the vicinity of Castro and Thirtieth
streets has increased wonderfully, and
hundreds of houses have been built and
many streets have been graded and sew
cred, observed A. S. Baldwin in speaking
OF suburban improvements:
The Castro-street Land Company, for in
stance, have expended pretty well on to
$4,000 in improving their big subdivision in
TINS section OF the City, continued Mr.. Bald
WIN, and 1t is this display of public spirit
that has caused the southwestern limits of the
City to grow month by month and make
pretty favorable comparison with other
suburbs of San Francisco. The growth of the
City in this direction has reached a point
which a few years ago would have been con-
sldered remote, and it now looks if in a very
snort ume Castro-street Addition will be Gov
cred with houses.
The streets have all been graded and severed
and macadamlzed, and water mains are laid
throughout the tract. The petition of the Fair
mount improvement Club for q boulevard
across this addition to Golden Gate Park has
been granted, provided the Stanford Heights
Lana Lana company Will continue the driveway
through their subdivision. In the agita ton OF
Mission residents for park the directors of the
CaStTO-Street Land Company have taken the
lead by reServlng about eighty acres for recrea-
ton grounds, on which it is the intention in a
month or two 10 plant out 70 900 shade trees
1t Is reported that at the next tax levy an
appeal viii be made for an appropriation to
improve paramount square, which belongs to
the City, and which has always been an eye
sore. SunnySide, Castro-street Addition and
the district lying beyond are to have school
mouse. While the schoolhouse is being erected
temporary building is to be used. Educa-
tlonal advantages viii not be lacking from
this time on in this neighborhood. 1t was
about year ago that the citizens in the south
western portion of San Francisco's suburbs be-
gan TO make themselves heard and they have
ever since Kept their district before the public.
Thomas Magee's views of the extension
OF the suburbs are tersely expressed in the
following statement by him:
Newspapers talk of the narrow space into
which the hundreds of thousands of people of
New York City and the millions of London are
squeezed, as If 1t were solemn duty for us to
follow their example, and pen our people up
ike swine. They forget that if the people of
New York were properly housed the city would
spread over three times as much space as it
now occupies. We trust that it always will be
true that San Francisco covers q greater pro-
portionate space than any other of the large
commercial cities OF the world, so that we may
always have elbow room and fresh air. Toliye
IN London or New York tenements is almost TO
forget what sunlight looks like or how fresh
air feels. The people of San Francisco may
be thankful that they have not been, and are
never likely to be, thus closely huddled to-
gether.
H. A. Whitley of the Real Estate and
Development Company, when interviewed
on the Potrero Improvements, gave the fol-
lowing report:
The past year has been an active one in the
Potrero district, many thousands of dollars
having been expended in permanent improve
ments to the public thoroughfares. Below is
given list OF the principal improvements
accomplished, giving location, character and
approximate estimate of cost of work:
Indiana street, between Twentieth and
Twenty grading $40 600
Twenty-second street, between Kentucky
and laying granite curbs - 2,1oo
Twenty-second street, between Tennessee
and Minnesota, sewer. ........... 400
Crossing OF Tennessee and Mime ota
streets, paying with bitumen ...-....... 1850
Eighteenth street, Kentucky to Texas, paw
ing with basalt blocks and laying granite
Eighteenth street, Texas to Connecticut, -'''0
matchmaking and redwood curbs in
Guiding crossing with granite curbs..:.... 1,4oO
Missouri street, Eighteenth to Twentieth,
wood curbs. $500
Nebraska street. between Fifteenth and
sixteenth, sewer ;............::............ 800
Sixteenth, grading. ....:................... 5000
Utah street, between Seventeenth and
Mariposa, grading. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. $500
Sixteenth street, Harrison to Hampshire
regarding 5000
street, regarding. 1000
street, sewer. 1900
nue., sewers, curbing, cesspoos, culverts
and crossings. .,............. 5000
Mississippi street and crossing OF Nine
teenth and Mississippi, matchmaking.
granite curbs, culverts, cesspools and
plank sidewalks. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 1900
Total. $50, 45o
Add to this the cost of finishing the grading
OF Army street eastward to Kentucky, and of
Iowa street, from Nevada to Yolo, and Pennsyl-
vania avenue, from Yolo TO Army street
which work was completed during 1895
makes total of over 100000 spent for street
improvements alone in the Potrero for the past
year.
1t is a very difficult matter to secure accurate
and reliable data as to the cost of street i'm
provements, especially when it is attempted to
cover an entire district for period of a year
but the above Is fairly accurate and is below
rather than above the actual COST as there NAV
be minor items and private contract work
which has been overlooked.
A necessary and important work that has re-
Gently been accomplished in that section of
the City is the surveying and planning of
sewer system in the district bounded on the
north by Sixteenth street, west by Protrero
avenue, east by Missouri and Connecticut
streets. and south by the summit OF the hills;
also another sewer system in the district
bounded by Missouri, Minnesota, Sixteenth
and twentieth streets. This work was done by
the CITY Engineer, in accordance with an order
OF the Board OF Supervisors.
BY having comprehensive drainage system
esta Dllshed, property-owners will now be ena-
Dled to carry out many needed improvements
with knowledge that the work is being done