In 1903, the Dewey Monument was completed, adding a spire with the 9-foot-tall Goddess of Victory at the top, and a much needed centerpiece for the park.It provided the first major retail anchor for the square, offered architectural panache that set the tone for the future, and helped give the square its high-end cachet. In 1896, the City of Paris department store built a Beaux Arts building at Geary and Stockton.Three major structures helped shape Union Square as we know it today: ![]() The park was bustling, but little about it was grand or dashing. The Salvation Army Brass Band performs Christmas music in Union Square. ![]() Chronicle ads in the early 1870s are filled with notices of bands playing at the square, dignitaries meeting there and public feasts at low cost. In a short period from the early 1850s to 1870, Union Square transformed dramatically, from a scrubby patch of land to the premier meeting place for the working class. Several large churches emerged around the square, along with a few small mansions. Union Square was named in the 1860s, reportedly after supporters of the Civil War who met in the park for pro-Union rallies, although there’s no newspaper record of that. 21, 1928, Chronicle article, the term “sand lot baseball” came from those Union Square games.įitzhamon wrote: “One grand feature of that early Union Square baseball must have been that there were no windows to break and extremely few near-enough houses from which, with the score tied in the eighth, could issue the authoritative maternal clarion cry of ‘Jim-mee-ee! Come home - I need you!’” ![]() The land was designated as a park in 1855, and the sand hills were leveled off for a recreation field, where the city’s first class of hardscrabble baseball players learned the game. Later, some of the houses in the area had to be destroyed, because they were built in the middle of a street. Sand dunes caused natural detours in the street grids, and the few squatters who lived nearby paid no attention to the boundaries. But it began as a Mad Max-style wasteland, used as a dumping site. Union Square has a quarry-like feel now, surrounded on all sides by tall buildings that alternately project grand history or the sleek future. In a city where most public spaces have interesting past lives, Union Square’s story might be the best. But the past 100 years of change amount to small tweaks, after the biggest makeover in San Francisco history. Union Square is the Horatio Alger story of San Francisco neighborhoods, an undesirable scrub of land that through determination and marketing genius became a high-end retail center, tourism mecca and movie location favorite.Ĭhronicle readers may remember a rough patch for the square in the 1970s and 1980s some may even remember shopping in the less congested area before the 1940s parking garage was built. “On maps made in the early 1850s the vacant sand waste is merely marked ‘Public Square,’” The Chronicle reported years later. For years, no one bothered to give the space a name. There was almost no recreation, and just a few tents. John White Geary, later the first mayor of San Francisco, in 1849 donated 3 acres of windswept and flea-ridden sand dunes to the city. Union Square was presented as a gift, but it seemed like more of an insult.Ĭol. Gary Fong / The Chronicle Show More Show Less Neiman Marcus near the end of its construction in Union Square. Don Lau/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 7 of9 Union Square Christmas tree decorations 1950 Duke Downey/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 8 of9Ī lovely May day in 1949 Show More Show Less 9 of9 ![]() 28, 1972: Robert Shields, right, and Lorene Yarnell marry in Union Square. Susan Ehmer/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 6 of9 Oct. 13, 1979: A group of young men joke around in Union Square in 1979. John W Geary at the plaque designating Union Square a California landmark Gordon Peters / The Chronicle Show More Show Less 5 of9 Jan. Noon at Union Square, May 23 1950, San Francisco Duke Downey / The Chronicle Show More Show Less 4 of9 Chronicle photo, but unknown photographer Show More Show Less 2 of9 April 1, 1963: Herb Caen and Alfred Hitchcock have fun in Union Square talking about Hitchcock's new movie "The Birds." Chronicle file/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of9
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