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Chinatown

974 decisions the Board of Supervisors took about Chinatown, between 1906 and 2026, read from its own minutes and each linked to the scanned page; often about clinics and hospitals, hotels and rooming houses, streets closed for a day.

Open Chinatown on the map, with its record →

Its busiest streets

Stockton St120+ · Washington St120+ · Sansome St120+ · Sacramento St120+ · Clay St120+ · Grant Ave120+ · Jackson St120+ · Pacific Ave94

What keeps coming up

  • Clinics and hospitals53Clinics, health centres and hospitals.
  • Hotels and rooming houses52Hotels and rooming houses, concentrated in a handful of neighbourhoods.
  • Streets closed for a day48Parades, street fairs, block parties, ground-breakings, festivals.
  • Taxis and garages44Taxicab stands and public garages, as the car arrived in the city.
  • Liquor licences26Bars, shops and restaurants — the licence following the address as it changes hands.

Decade by decade

Newest first. Each decade shows its most notable decision; the line opens the scanned page.

  1. 2020s75
    Public Library to rent 950 Grant Avenue for $168,000 a year · 2024
  2. 2010s75
    772 Pacific Avenue bought for $5M for affordable housing · 2017
  3. 2000s36
    Appeal filed against the Central Subway under Fourth and Stockton · 2008
  4. 1990s68
    729 Filbert Street leased for an outpatient mental health clinic · 1993
  5. 1980s101
    Commercial Street closed to cars for a pedestrian mall · 1987
  6. 1970s59
    Kearny Street site approved for 150 low-rent homes · 1976
  7. 1960s52
    Land taken to widen Washington Street between Sansome and Battery · 1966
  8. 1950s30
    North Beach library site on Columbus Avenue clears its first vote · 1955
  9. 1940s32
    $33,850 paid for land for the Commodore Stockton School playground · 1942
  10. 1930s75
    Tunnel proposed under Broadway from Larkin Street to Mason Street · 1938
  11. 1920s199
    Hee Suey Law Jessie's Washington Street land bought for schools, $3,750 · 1926
  12. 1910s127
    $120,800 Oriental School ordered built at 929 Clay Street · 1914
  13. 1900s45
    Clerk to offer Whitmore, Schmieden and Gobey money for jail land · 1908

The most notable decisions

Where this comes from

This page carries the 12 most notable decisions of each decade, 156 of the 974 on record; the rest are on its streets. Every line is written from one item in the minutes of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city council, and links to the page it was printed on at the Internet Archive or in the Clerk's own files. Many of the Board's decisions name no street at all, and only the ones that do can be placed here. How the record was read · The whole city