By Peter Hartlaub, Culture Critic July 11, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
Every time someone writes an article or personal essay declaring San Francisco dead and over, I think of my own barometer:
As long as Red’s Java House is still serving cheeseburgers along the Embarcadero, and the Hells Angels remain headquartered in Dogpatch, this city’s soul is probably intact.
Dogpatch has long been the perfect blend of old and new in San Francisco. The 25-square-block neighborhood east of Potrero Hill has rolled with the changes surrounding it — new Mission Bay neighborhood and Warriors sports arena included — because the neighborhood’s entire history has been about radical change.
Dogpatch has seen steel manufacturing, a sugar refinery and even a whaling station come and go. Today, it’s home to breweries, art warehouses and the Letterform Archive.
Another reason to love Dogpatch: It has the coolest name of any neighborhood in the city.
I had taken that name for granted until I was hosting an event for Total SF newsletter subscribers, and Chronicle reader Manuel Solis asked if I knew the etymology. He conceded that his question came from a place of mistrust, as he wondered whether real estate agents came up with it to sell condos and avoid saying Bayview or Hunters Point. (“The cynicism comes with age,” Solis told me. “You don’t have to pay extra for it.”)
I spent more than an hour that night researching, and then continued in the following days. Here’s what I found.
How did San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood get its name? The story starts with a murder
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