Thursday, December 15, 2016

Ships Under San Francisco

A recent post on BoingBoing (via FoundSF) shows this map of ships buried under San Francisco's streets.
https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ron-filion-01.jpg?w=1977
The area that is now the Financial District was once Yerba Buena Cove, a busy harbor teeming with ships during the Gold Rush. Many of were abandoned as the harbor began to be filled in. Recent construction projects have uncovered some of these ships. Here is an 1851 map from the FoundSF page showing the harbor being filled in. The original coastline is depicted as well as the old wharves.
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:Downtwn1$1851-cove-map-closeup.jpg
The original map is from 2000 by Roy Fillon. FoundSF does not give details about the source for Fillon's map but they do show a nice, retro-looking adaptation of the map by Sam Manera.
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Ships_under_Financial_District
The FoundSF article includes links to pages about two of the ships that were converted to other uses, one as a hotel and another as a jail.
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=File:Aframer1$niantic.jpg



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