Barbary Coast, San Francisco, California
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Barbary Coast was a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. The neighborhood began as a popular hangout for the rich during the California Gold Rush (1848 - 1858). It was known for gambling, prostitution and crime. Prostitution in the neighborhood ended in 1917 when the San Francisco Police blockaded the neighborhood in response to the California Red-light Abatement Act [1]. Since then, the neighborhood has basically been forgotten. It is now overlapped by Chinatown, North Beach, and the Financial District.
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[edit] Geography
The hub of the Barbary Coast District was the corner of Pacific Avenue and Columbus Avenue, then named Montgomery Avenue [2]. Pacific Avenue, one of the earliest streets to be cut through the hills, led directly from the wharf at Clark's point to the center of town, near Portsmouth Square.
[edit] History
The Barbary Coast was an outgrowth of Sydney town, the area at the foot of Broadway and Pacific Street formerly inhabited by the Sydney Ducks. The neighborhood acquired its new name sometime around 1860 from the name of the coast of North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt) where Arab pirates attacked Mediterranean ships. The name Barbary is derived from the Berbers.
"The Barbary Coast is the haunt of the low and the vile of every kind. The petty thief, the house burglar, the tramp, the whoremonger, lewd women, cutthroats, murderers, all are found here. Dance-halls and concert-saloons, where blear-eyed men and faded women drink vile liquor, smoke offensive tobacco, engage in vulgar conduct, sing obscene songs and say and do everything to heap upon themselves more degradation, are numerous. Low gambling houses, thronged with riot-loving rowdies, in all stages of intoxication, are there. Opium dens, where heathen Chinese and God-forsaken men and women are sprawled in miscellaneous confusion, disgustingly drowsy or completely overcome, are there. Licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, loathsome disease, insanity from dissipation, misery, poverty, wealth, profanity, blasphemy, and death, are there. And Hell, yawning to receive the putrid mass, is there also."[1]
The Barbary Coast rose from the massive infusion of treasure seeking argonauts during the Gold Rush. Men from Europe, Asia, South America, and the eastern United States sailed into San Francisco Bay bound for the Mother Lode, many only staying in the gold fields briefly before returning to San Francisco with saddle bags full of nuggets and gold dust.
At the end of 1849, out of a population of between 20,000 and 25,000, only about 300 were women and an estimated almost two-thirds of those were prostitutes.[citation needed] Miners, sailors, and sojourners hungry for female companionship and bawdy entertainment continued to stream into San Francisco in the 1850s and 60s becoming the Barbary Coast's primary clientele. As The City exploded with the new arrivals, some with shady pasts, soon a wide variety of land sharks, con artists, pimps, and prostitutes staked out an area designed to pluck the gold and silver from the pockets of men through liquor, lust, laudanum-laced libations, or just a hard knock on the head.
Sailors in particular had cause to dread the area because the art of shanghaiing was perfected. Many a sailor woke up after a night's leave to find himself unexpectedly on another ship bound for some faraway port. When there was a shortage of sailors for departing ships any able-bodied man who wandered into the wrong saloon, or drank with the wrong companion, could wake up with a mysterious hangover onboard a ship. Crime in the streets and corruption in the government offices plagued San Francisco in the 1850s.
[edit] See also
- The Infamous Australian Bushranger Frank Gardiner also lived in this area after his exile from Australia
