An upper Noe Valley neighborhood association blog aimed at the care and upkeep of one of San Francisco's 31 natural areas, Billy Goat Hill. This 3.5 acre natural area is home to locally significant native plants and several birds breed here including lesser goldfinches and barn swallows. Hawks are frequently seen hunting on this hill during the fall and winter.
Billy Goat Hill is also the home of the famous rope swing!
Feb 24, 2012
Picture of Billy Goat Hill 1927, 1930, 1940
You can see evidence of Billy Goat Hill's former life as a quarry.
Same View 1930
This 1940 view shows the Gray Brothers Quarry at Left (Picture courtesy of the Greg Gaar Collection)
The gaping maw of the quarry is still plainly visible, as are some structures that used to stand where the big eucalyptus is now.
You can also see the Southern Pacific railroad slicing through the neighborhood, and the shadows of its trestles over the streets (the whole railbed was elevated). You can still see where it used to cut through those blocks: the houses are much newer where the right-of-way used to be, and older on each side of it.
And there's an entire block of houses where the Rec Center is now! Apparently Joan used to live in one of those houses before they were, what, moved? Torn down? I'm dying to hear that story. I cannot imagine an entire block being removed to make way for a park nowadays.
Nice! And don't miss these 1938 hi-res aerial photos:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/dy1j2h
(Zoom in!)
The gaping maw of the quarry is still plainly visible, as are some structures that used to stand where the big eucalyptus is now.
You can also see the Southern Pacific railroad slicing through the neighborhood, and the shadows of its trestles over the streets (the whole railbed was elevated). You can still see where it used to cut through those blocks: the houses are much newer where the right-of-way used to be, and older on each side of it.
And there's an entire block of houses where the Rec Center is now! Apparently Joan used to live in one of those houses before they were, what, moved? Torn down? I'm dying to hear that story. I cannot imagine an entire block being removed to make way for a park nowadays.
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteThat's a great photo. I can clearly see the vacant lot where my house is now (on Miguel St). Hard to imagine that photo was only 75 years ago.