Portsmouth Square

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Goddess of Democracy statue and a playground in Portsmouth Square.

Portsmouth Square is the first public square established in the community of Yerba Buena, on the peninsula that became the city of San Francisco, California, before the gold rush of 1848. The square is a block long open space bounded by Kearny Street on the east, Washington street on the north, Clay Street on the south and Walter Lum Place on the west.

[edit] History

In 1846, when the Americans were bent on taking California, Commander John B. Montgomery from the United States, sailed his warship, the USS Portsmouth, into San Francisco Bay, fired a twenty-one gun salute and rowed ashore with his Marines to raise the American flag over Yerba Buena.

A marker to commemorate the raising of the first American flag in San Francisco (then Yerba Buena)

A plot of land that began life as a pasture and potato patch, grew to become the original city center of San Francisco, hosting gambling halls, hotels and playhouses uphill from the first waterfront landings.

[edit] Today

The square is now part of Chinatown. A monument to Robert Louis Stevenson sits at the north west corner of the current square, rebuilt over a parking garage.