Stroll along the Mission's wide avenues
and you'll be struck by the profusion of taquerias, pupuserias,
produce markets, Salvadoran bakeries, salon de bellezas (beauty
salons), auto-repair shops and check-cashing centers that
post rates for wiring money to Guatemala and Nicaragua --
all evidence of the Central American and Mexican families
that have been settling the Mission en masse since the 1950s.
You'll also notice plenty of cafés, thrift shops and
used-book stores that cater to the college grads, artists,
activists and other alterna-types that until recently have
been drawn to the Mission for its cheap rents. Note that "until
recently," because with the Internet boom, even the Mission
rents have shot up. Latinos and bohemians have been increasingly
displaced by San Francisco's influx of highly paid young professionals,
while trendy restaurants and boutiques have sprung up in what
used to be the neighborhood's darkest corners.
The Mission has always been home to different ethnic and socioeconomic
groups. The area was originally inhabited by a tribe called
the Ramaytush that died of smallpox and various other ailments
when the Spanish settlers corraled them into the rancherias
surrounding Mission Dolores (established in 1776). After the
missionaries came brawling Yankee squatters in the 1840s,
a wave of German and Scandinavian immigrants in the 1860s
and rich local merchants who built the Victorian mansions
on South Van Ness and Liberty Hill in the 1870s (right before
Pacific Heights became the place for the rich to live.)
After the 1906 quake destroyed several blue-collar neighborhoods,
Irish and Italians relocated to the quickly expanding Mission.
The neighborhood was far enough from downtown and becoming
populous enough to support a large number of stores, restaurants
and bars. In the early years of the 20th century, Mission
residents developed a distinctive accent that allegedly sounded
much like Brooklyn's.
Since the turn of the century there's been a steady trickle
of Central American immigrants to the Mission, in part because
of San Francisco's trade links with Central America. Since
the 1950s, the Latino population in the Mission has doubled
every 10 years, lending the neighborhood much of its current
flavor.
The Mission is large, and it's crawling with things to see
and do. We've broken it down into four areas. While the flavor
of the neighborhood changes subtly from block to block, bear
in mind that these areas are contiguous and you can easily
walk from one to the other. Generally speaking, the 24th Street
area is the culturally rich heart of the Mission, the stretch
from Dolores Street through to Valencia Street is young and
upscale, the area around 16th and Valencia streets hops with
nightlife and the industrial area near Bryant Street is full
of hip, trendy new restaurants.
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