San Francisco’s Painted Girls: The Historic Homes of Alamo Sq.
I visited San Francisco for under three days, a short stopover on my method residence to the Philippines after spending 5 months in New Orleans. I performed vacationer to the max; I biked throughout the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and took the ferry going again, ate at Fisherman’s Wharf, hopped on a cable automotive, tried to go on a day journey to Yosemite Park (the tour I booked by no means picked me up), and met up an previous good friend.
In fact, I additionally walked round and checked out town’s Painted Girls. Since I by no means acquired to put in writing about my go to, right here’s a visitor put up from fellow blogger Karen Warren.
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One of many pleasures of San Francisco is its historic structure. In fact, town is stuffed with the spectacular trendy buildings that you’d anticipate in any American metropolis.
Nonetheless, there are additionally rows of effectively preserved Victorian homes. They appear to be in every single place, on the lengthy avenues and nestling between the distinctive buildings of Japantown. However among the finest locations to see historic homes is round Alamo Sq., residence of the well-known Painted Girls.
Victorian Homes on Alamo Sq.
The gold rush in California led to an enormous growth in home constructing within the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Virtually 50,000 properties have been constructed throughout this era. Many of those have been destroyed within the 1906 earthquake, and others have been subsequently pulled down, however a number of nonetheless stay.
Top-of-the-line locations to discover Victorian home structure is Alamo Sq., a historic district filled with largely unspoiled mansions. The homes have been designed by many alternative architects, giving rise to a wide range of kinds. Most of those buildings are multi-storeyed with basements, reflecting the life-style of rich households on the flip of the twentieth century.
The Sq. is on the high of Alamo Hill, named for the only cottonwood, or alamo, tree that after stood there. This space was as soon as a watering gap for path horses, however in 1856 a public park was created on the summit of the hill. There may be nonetheless a park right here, highly regarded with canine walkers and with vacationers who can benefit from the spectacular views throughout town (on a transparent day you may even see the highest of the Golden Gate Bridge).
San Francisco’s Painted Girls
A lot of San Francisco’s Victorian and Edwardian homes have been painted in brilliant colours (one critic described them as “loud” and “uncouth”). Nonetheless they regularly wanted repainting and over time most of them have been coated with battleship gray (utilizing Navy-surplus paint left over from the First World Warfare).
It was not till 1963 that the artist Butch Kardum painted his personal home in brilliant shades of blue and inexperienced. Different artists began to repeat him and the “colorist motion” was born.
Essentially the most well-known of those coloured homes are the so-called Painted Girls on Steiner Avenue, alongside one aspect of Alamo Sq.. It is a group of homes constructed within the Eighteen Nineties, now every painted in a distinct colour. Generally often called “Postcard Row”, the Painted Girls have come to be seen as a logo of San Francisco.
Look intently at these homes and you will note that they don’t seem to be in reality an identical. They boast a wealth of authentic architectural particulars, subtly completely different in every home. The Painted Girls have typically featured in movies, adverts and TV applications, together with the sequence Full Home. Like the entire historic properties of Alamo Sq., these homes recall a long-forgotten age.
Featured photograph by Aleah Taboclaon.
