The wealth of Richmond

Walking south along Arguello Boulevard in the Presidio eventually brings travelers along side the Presidio Golf Course. One of the most beautiful golf courses in San Francisco, with well maintained greens and fully grown cypress tress lining the holes. The course became public when the federal government handed over the former military base to the California Park service.

Though it is not expensive itself to play at the Presidio golf course, costing only $12 per golfer, the amount of money that people have around the course is apparent. Taking a quick look at the two Bentleys that are parked in the course lot establishes that there is considerable wealth playing out on the Presidio’s greens.

It is no surprise either if you keep going down Arguello Boulevard appears Presidio Terrace. A small gated community of homes that rest along side the golf course. The homes are over a hundred years old and date their construction back to the 1906 earthquake.

The size and scale of the homes makes them stand out compared to those of the immediate surrounding area. Though the homes in this northern part of the Richmond district are not as large as those in Presidio Terrace they are not small and are not cheep either. The average sale price of a home in Richmond is over $800,000 and the average household income is over $90,000. Compared to a citywide average home cost of just under $400,000 and a average household income of approximately $55,000 it becomes obvious of the wealth that resides in the Richmond district.

Added to the fact that the Richmond district is mostly family based it adds up to a fairly quiet community. There is relatively low crime statistically compared to the rest of the city and it becomes apparent in the fact that there is very little police presence.

Discoverign John Freeman

Early in my adventures around the Richmond district while looking for sources and background information for Street1 and Hood1 I began looking into the history of the District.

What I found was that there was not a wealth of information available on the direct history of the area except for various articles about the area at scattered times over the past 100 years.

In my hunt I found a website, outsidelands.org, that specialized in finding and preserving the history of the Richmond district and other western regions of San Francisco. Upon contacting them for information on the Richmond district I was directed to John Freeman, whom they considered the preeminent historian on the district.

John Freeman turns out not only knew a wealth of information about the Richmond district, but also the history of San Francisco as a whole. He had spent his entire life in the city and had watched it evolved over his 68 years.

He had written articles about how the naming of the streets in the area had changed over the course of the districts history. He gad collected a wealth of historical photos of the area and San Francisco as a whole and taken a great about of time to research the history of the district through old news slides in the library and talking first hand to sources that had seen the district change and evolve over the years. He had also advised on an book published about the history of the Richmond district.

Freeman really helped me understand the history of the area as well as how Richmond played into a larger context for San Francisco as a whole. He described to me how the 1906 earthquake dramatically altered the landscape of the city. Not only because of the massive amounts of damage the earthquake and subsequent fire caused, but how it caused a shift in the desires and intentions of San Francisco’s citizens.

His insight prompted me to want to further investigate the person that he is and with such a deep rooted history in the one of the two districts that I am covering he added up to a likely candidate for the midterm feature story.

As the semester rolled on and I worked on the various other assignments nothing else sparked my interest for a feature topic as Freeman did. Over the course of time he gradually rose to the top of the pile and became my choice candidate to do the feature on.