Thursday’s Portola, I hardly knew Ya’

I have lived in San Francisco for over 30 years and thought I had been to every neighborhood. One day, while riding MUNI bus #9 I went through a neighborhood I’d never seen before. Upon further research I discovered it is called the Portola District. Soon thereafter I returned to explore San Bruno Avenue, the High Street for the area as the British would say.

Portola's San Bruno Ave.

I used to do location scouting in the film business on mostly commercial and print ads and thought I’d scouted every neighborhood in the city, including the Portola District. So, when I went there for the first time, I discovered a vibrant neighborhood with a unique history.

Named after the explorer Gaspar de Portolà, who discovered much of the bay area for the Spanish in the 18th century, the neighborhood was one of the last in the city to be established.

Tucked into the southeastern part of San Francisco it remained largely undeveloped into the twentieth century. Well into the 1930s, many of the roads remained unpaved. In fact, the neighborhood is nicknamed the "Garden District" because of the many farms and nurseries that populated the area at the time.

But like a lot of things in the bay area, the 1906 Earthquake and Fire changed all of that. As refugees spread out from all over the city (Check out the photo of 10,000 makeshift tents in Golden Gate Park), many found a new home in what was once a sleepy little hamlet with dirt roads. Soon it became populated with expatriates from the northern parts of the city.

In an unusually short period of time, it also became one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the city. First Jews found the little shtetl was ideal for relocation and they became the prominent ethnicity, but not the only one. Italians, Greeks, and immigrants from Malta resettled and created their own vibrant communities.

While Sam Spade looked for the Maltese Falcon in downtown San Francisco, Maltese immigrants moved into the area.

The community was so prevalent in the Portola District that the first Maltese consulate was located on San Bruno Avenue. Today, many of those aforementioned ethnicities have a footprint in the neighborhood.

However, with American involvement Asian and Latin American conflicts over the twentieth century the area became a new home for these modern refugees. Latinos, Southeast Asians, and Filipinos became the newest residents. Many South Pacific Polynesians found a home there as well.

The businesses on San Bruno Avenue reflect these new residents. Vietnamese Banh Mi cafes, Taquerias, and Chinese restaurants pepper the main drag. The South Pacific Polynesian community is represented with a Hawaiian cuisine restaurant as well.

Bound by the San Bruno Avenue business district to the east and the city's second largest park (John McLaren Park) to the west, nature and cultural diversity are easily accessible in this one square mile section of San Francisco.

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