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pOinTs OF ORiGin • 35 briefly enjoyed commercial prominence as the “new market street” during the rebuilding period. nearby in the mission District, social class tempered a Western Addition–style encounter with calamity. in this area, residents stayed and fought the flames, knowing it was their best chance at preserving their way of life. The Mission District Florence Sylvester was on duty at the San Francisco Maternity Hospital when the earthquake struck. “It was a long, wavy back and forth movement, nothing jerky about it” was how she described the seismic event. This was a community, not an individual, experience. “South of Mission Street propriety would not over-rule fear as it might in other parts of the city, and the women stood around in front of their doors half dressed, with a big shawl, or warm petticoat and kerchief around their head, talking and gesticulating, and telling of their experiences.”133 Soon these Mission District residents banded together to protect their neighborhood from fire as well as shelter their friends and relatives escaping South of Market. The mission District, like south of market, had pockets of made ground. The ill-fated valencia street hotel was built on swampland at valencia and eighteenth streets. After the first seismic tremors, the hotel sank three stories into the earth, leaving only the fourth floor aboveground. The few survivors who escaped onto the roof said that at least two hundred others were trapped below.134 James D. phelan, former san Francisco mayor, witnessed the horrific scene.135 But there was nothing that could be done for anyone on the first few floors. Fortunately, most of the mission District was built on solid ground, making the neighborhood more vulnerable to fire than earthquake. The encroaching inferno posed a serious threat to the mission District. Firefighters tried dynamite, but to no avail. “i saw the fire at mission and 15th streets,” recalled James phelan. “Dynamite was being used to blow up buildings in the path of the flames, on the south east side of mission street, but the dynamiting was done too close to the actual fire, and the wreckage, caused by the dynamite, soon ignited, and the fire went on.”136 local residents did a better job. Thousands of volunteers used water and wet sacks to stop the fire from crossing Dolores street. Residents passed milk cans filled with water and broke down small houses along Twentieth street to create an invaluable firebreak.137 Their ability to work in unison to stop the fire had everything to do with the neighborhood in which they lived. The mission District was a few blocks west of south of market and a step up for irish and German working-class families. By 1902, streetcars running up mission street allowed families to venture farther from work to buy or rent single-family and two-family homes. Despite sharing its western border and many relatives with the south of market District, the mission was a different 36 • ChApTeR 1 sort of neighborhood. skilled jobs in the trades or low-level white-collar positions brought more money in the door for many residents. most families could afford to live on their own, avoiding the overcrowding that came with sharing mortgage or rent costs. Working-class families forged new lives as they moved out of south of market and into the mission. There was a high proportion of two-parent households (81 percent) in which most women did not need to work for wages. As in south of market, residents had everything they needed within walking distance: schools, churches, fraternal halls, and social clubs. But here the schools were a little nicer and the parks a little bigger. Although Catholics constituted a religious majority in the mission District, the area included a variety of churches. This was a place for families. not only were there fewer single men than in south of market, but they were of higher economic standing. For the most part, single men in the mission were downtown professionals who were busy saving money before starting a family. Thus the mission District offered a different male social world. instead of regular meetings at the local saloon, for example, men gathered at the local fraternal or masonic hall.138 Unlike the Western Addition’s experience, in the mission District the active social networks checked the spread of fire. neighbors met in the street to share personal experiences and decide how to protect their neighborhood from further damage. mission District resident...

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