Historic Photos Show Herculean Relocation of Victorian Houses in San Francisco in the 1970s

Redevelopment of the Fillmore District displaced thousands of Black residents

At Ellis and Divisadero. This building was formerly located at 3875–79 Sacramento Street. Photo: Dave Glass via Flickr, used with permission

Rare and detailed Victorian homes are synonymous with San Francisco. When you pass one of these houses on the street, it’s natural to assume they’ve sat on the same piece of land since their construction. But some have made onerous journeys to be where they are today, including 12 homes in the Fillmore District that were rescued from certain demolition under the Western Addition redevelopment plan. More than 2,500 other Victorians in the neighborhood were not so lucky.

By the late 1940s, invigorated by nationwide postwar efforts to modernize America’s cities, San Francisco set its sights on “improving” the Western Addition — code for pushing out Black residents from the area to make room for white families. Dating back as early as 1880, many parts of San Francisco barred Black people from owning — and sometimes even renting — homes under racial covenants and deed restrictions. Decades of this exclusion led to a concentrated majority of San Francisco’s Black and Japanese populations in the Western Addition neighborhood, where they were able to find exemptions. This led to a cultural renaissance in the Fillmore during the first half of the…