The S.F. Beach Scene Has Certainly Changed

A few days ago, while browsing online for upcoming events in The City, I came across information about a series of book signing and discussion events promoting a new, local book. The non-fiction book details an interesting era in the history of San Francisco's Outer Sunset district.
Outer Sunset is almost universally recognized as San Francisco's least interesting, architecturally uninspiring, and most historically irrelevant neighborhood. Even we, living in the not too distant and not too dissimilar Outer Richmond district, consider the Outer Sunset to be a lesser neighborhood than ours.
So, as I scanned the even listing, the fact that a book had not only been written but also published about the Outer Sunset immediately piqued my interest. I clicked on the link for more information. As it turns out, in the final decade of the 19th century, the Outer Sunset played an interesting role in the history of San Francisco. In the 1890s, S.F.'s transit companies began to sell surplus horse drawn and cable cars to the public. Each carriage sold for a mere $20. Before long, dozens of these sat in the dunes that were then the Outer Sunset.
I told your Mom, Rai, about this interesting historical fact and showed her the photo online. By the next day, we had all but forgotten about it until, while shopping at our local organic market, we came across the book. Your Mom ran over to me excitedly showing me the very book we had talked about the day before. What a coincidence!
Flipping through the book, we learned much more about this little bit of local history. At that time, the Outer Sunset had very few homes. In fact, most of this western end of San Francisco was just sand dunes for miles and miles with just a scattering of beach homes built near the Ocean. With the sale of the cable car carriages, however, these beach homes underwent an exciting transformation. Cable cars were used as additions to existing homes or were the beginning of entirely new homes. Before long, cable car homes and businesses were the norm in the Outer Sunset.
Over the years, many of the businesses set up in the beachfront cable cars took part in questionable activities. Alcohol, prostitution, gambling and more were the norm as thrill seekers escaped the city far away, traveled a long way over miles of dunes to arrive at this oceanfront refuge.
Eventually, a moral witch hunt led to the destruction of most of the businesses that had been run out of the cable cars. In the years that followed, all the homes that had incorporate the cable cars also disappeared. Today, ONLY ONE of the buildings remains. It is a private home which used three of those $20 cable cars and one horse drawn carriage to expand from one story to two. The second story is built from these three carriages put together into one open living space.
We memorized the address of the home. One thing led to another and, before we knew it, we found ourselves standing at the gate to this home. From the outside, the home looked like dozens of similar shingle-covered homes in the neighborhood. It was impossible to tell what a remarkable piece of local history lay inside the walls of this normal looking home.
Your Mom, bold as she is, decided to open the gate. She held you in front of her knowing that we could pretty much get away with anything provided that you were with us. It worked. We were quickly intercepted in the yard by a bearded man. Before he could ask why we had let ourselves into his gated yard, your Mom explained about the book and our keen interest in local history.
Before long, we were inside the home, touring the upper level, the last of the Outer Sunset's cable car homes!
Walking around that living area, we admired how the two large cable cars had been put together, their inner walls removed, in order to create this home. The outer walls were perfectly preserved, all the original woodwork and benches intact. In the small cable car windows hung the original shades. Attached to this main living area was the smaller horse drawn carriage which had been converted into the kitchen and bathroom of the home.
A simple walk had turned into an incredible history lesson and tour. Walking home we remarked on how a normal day can be made amazing so simply and were reminded that every single building and person in this great city has a story to tell. And with all those buildings and people around, we still have several liftetime's worth of stories to hear!

S.F. Chronicle Story: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/08/MNIR1AGBJC.DTL