North Beach Place, Bounded by Bay Street, Mason Street, Francisco Street, & Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA

Significance: North Beach Place was a public housing project that occupied two city blocks in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco for 50 years. Designed in 1941-42, delayed by WWII, and constructed 1950-52, it was one of the early housing projects in the city. Originally, occupancy was intended to be restricted to Caucasians, according to neighborhood patterning policy then in place; but a successful lawsuit by the NAACP overturned this policy. For many years the housing project was occupied by a mix of Asian, African-American, and Caucasian residents. Generally harmonious relations existed among residents, staff, and the surrounding neighborhood until the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid-1980s. The project has long had ties with a non-profit service organization, the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center...
Survey number: HABS CA-2727
Building/structure dates: after. 1950- before. 1952 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: after. 2001- after. 2003 Demolished