Happy Holidays 🙂
By Carl Nolte, Columnist Dec 7, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
It was one of those beautiful warm days we sometimes get in December, a gift from the weather gods. A perfect time to take another look at San Francisco’s island neighborhood. That would be Treasure Island, a place that keeps changing, almost every week.
It’s an intriguing place where the past, present and future are mixed up on a 400-acre artificial island, a small town in a big city.
I hadn’t been to the island for nearly two years. It was a bit of a construction zone the last time. There were trucks and cranes all over, barricades on the streets, a couple of mountains of dirt. The 22-story Isle House apartment building — the island’s newest landmark — wasn’t finished. It felt like coming to a neighborhood block party two hours early.
But new tenants have moved into Isle House, the three restaurants on Treasure Island have more customers, and the place seems more alive. “It’s amazing watching this little city grow,” restaurateur Linda Edson told Chronicle reporter J.K. Dineen earlier this year. Edson runs Aracely, one of three Treasure Island restaurants. Even with the new high-rise and earlier apartment units, Treasure Island is one of the city’s smallest neighborhoods, with about 2,800 full-time residents.
My guide to the island the other day was Anne Schnoebelen, a historian who is vice president of the Treasure Island Museum. We walked and drove around the island, seeing the sights.
It’s a combination of old and new, odd pieces of San Francisco here and there, and historic art hidden away.
S.F.’s treasure: An island with a rich history and bright future
Greg