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Yeah, the general manager of K r O N T. V. San Francisco. Mr. Harold PC. The film, which you are about to witness, is one of several non entertainment public service programs produced weekly by Koron TV, Channel four, San Francisco. The rights to this film specifically

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prohibit its use for broadcast without the express permission of Koron TV. The management of K R O N TV hopes you will derive some benefits from this presentation, and we solicit your comments. San Francisco is uniquely blessed among American cities. It's hills and surrounding water give

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it an aspect that has helped to determine its character, demanding not only the unusual in housing but also attracting a citizenry of many different racial and cultural backgrounds. Azi neighborhoods developed and change certain characteristics become more apparent, giving the area a particular identity. And the exceptions

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within the area only served to reemphasize. That character, even though much of the middle class has fled San Francisco still has a wide variety of homes, and housing is different is the people who occupied them. Houses themselves sometimes strongly suggest the personalities of the people inside.

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This is assignment for a weekly award winning report to the West. Produced in the community. Interest by the News and Documentary department of K. R. O N T. V. Tonight Where San Francisco live. Ah, look at the city's homes and neighborhoods, old and new, rich and

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poor. Now they're changing under the impact of private and public initiative. Long after the downtown area of the city was built, much of San Francisco was still country in 18 65 or thereabouts on artist named Samuel Morriston Brooks build a farmhouse on the steep hill known

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as Vernal Heights. Appropriately, he raised goats. Brooks was one of the founders of the Bohemian Club. The farmhouse and the old goat pasture now provide a home and work area for another artist, sculptor C. B. Johnson. This neighborhood overlooking the Mission District has attracted many artists

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and architects and their families who are buying the old homes and rehabilitating them. What very well may be the oldest house in San Francisco there is some dispute about it is the Abner Phelps house, named after the original owner. He had it brought to San Francisco

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from New Orleans and reassembled it here, now surrounded by homes. It originally was in a 160 acre homestead that we now call the Panhandle. Another very old home dating back to gold Rush days is on the slope of Russian hill. It was a minor shack that

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is, the men came back from the goldfields to spend the winters in it. In San Francisco, a new front shipped from Massachusetts was added in 18 50 and the second floor in the 19 thirties. This stately home, also on Russian hill, was built in the timbers

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of ships abandoned in San Francisco Bay. History tells us that some of these ships once were beached and served as the first shops in the city. His home was remodeled on plans by Gardner Daily. Various parts of the city are studded with old homes that have

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defied the passage of time, some with more style than others. The Tampa ran cottages in the mission not far from Mission Dolores, are very old and once belonged to the family, which owned Tampa and Racetrack on Potrero Hill Victorian building with a curiously southern feeling but

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made of redwood for captain Charles Adams, who could spot his whaling ships in the harbor from his route in those days. 100 years ago, Potrero Hill was almost an island surrounded by water in the area known as Glen Park stands one of the many homes once

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owned by Mary Allen Pleasant. Mammy, Pleasant, as she was known, was a brothel keeper and abolitionist who sometimes called the mother of civil rights in California. She bought the house for Theresa Bell, widow of millionaire banker Thomas Bell, whose mysterious death scandalized San Francisco. Mammy Pleasant

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had been Bells housekeeper. San Francisco's building lots were laid out by Spaniards in Mexico City. A 50 vera homestead lot translated into American terms is 137 and a half feet by 137 and a half feet. This is a generous size by present standards, but some still

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exist in San Francisco on the grounds have been made into the city's most beautiful private garden. Behind high hedges, trees and plants from all over the world surround walks and sitting areas, making islands of quiet steps away from the cities clamor. The homes that go with

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these gardens, some very old, some built since the fire, are among the city's final. This is gardening, raised to the level of landscape architecture, a tradition that began in Mesopotamia and Egypt and was further developed by the Roman Empire. A creative hand and I, sensitive to

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space and form, uses trees and shrubs and grass. Fill that space harmoniously way. I don't know. Mhm. Edgewood Avenue on Lee, two blocks long, is a neighborhood in itself. The dead end streets have intensified the neighborly feeling of the people

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who lived there, and the Edgewood Avenue Association was born to speak for them. When the old cobblestones were taken out of the street, the association won the right to have brick paving instead of basketball. The association also battled to keep developers from taking over Sutra Forest.

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The street dead ends at the border of the 14 acre woodland, which now is owned by the city. The home's air highly individual in style, but many are faced with gray or brown shingles. Dix air. Used extensively in steps and entryways. The street is lined with

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plum trees, which bloom every year around Washington's birthday, a big event on Edgewood Avenue. Many of the residents are doctors from the nearby University of California Medical Center. The turn of the century brought a new spurt in residential architecture in San Francisco. This double residents, built

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in 1900 has an elegance that seems timeless. In 1965 it's near the corner of Presidio on Pacific A street, which visiting architect often are taken to see an opportunity to see several fine homes in one block. Most of these houses were built between 1901 and 1913

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by such architects as Bernard May Beck and others. They've grown old gracefully and remain among the most desirable properties in the city. Pacific Street here is just on the other side of the Presidio wall. One of San Francisco's most fashionable neighborhood in the same vicinity, is

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a large private home designed by May Beck, in which he borrowed the English technique of half timbering, then used it as a starting point for an interpretation that made it uniquely his own. Hidden almost in a jungle like thicket of trees and shrubs of every kind,

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including redwoods, is the Allen House on Golf Street. The area, almost an acre, is to be made into a city park, but the debate is underway on whether the house should be kept or removed. The home, nearly 100 years old, was built by a former mayor

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from birth, and it gets its name from his granddaughters, who were born in it. Frank Taylor, director of the Smithsonian Institution, calls the home a rare survival of San Francisco heritage. And, he adds, its preservation is of concern to all. The house is an excellent condition.

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Next door to the Allen House is the Octagon House, built in the 18 fifties and remodeled 100 years later. It's maintained by the National Society of Colonial Dames, and it's open to the public for a slight admission charge every 2nd and 4th Thursday afternoon. In a

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moment, more of our stories, San Francisco has almost nowhere to grow but up, which in terms of homes means the high rise apartment. One of the earliest on Russian hill was the Bel Air, built in 1930 and still elegant and distinguished. It has since been joined

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by several others of varying architectural merit. As yet, the tall multiple dwellings, some of which contained rental units, others being cooperatively owned have not crowded out all the low rise apartments and homes from the hill. But arguments over height limits have become increasingly heated as residents

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see their views of the bay being blocked by tall new buildings. One of the newest and most interesting architecturally of the high risers on Russian hill is the Summit on Green Street. This is, frankly, luxury construction on some of the most expensive land in the city.

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A two story penthouse in this building with views so commanding is to be almost overwhelming will rent for $3000 a month. After that, any rental down in the mere hundreds of dollars we'll see. Modest The depression slowed down all kinds of building, which is unfortunate because

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it was a time of much experimentation and creation. In architectures on Telegraph Hill, Richard Neutra in 1939 built a residence in the international style, strong on geometric lines and angles and devoid of ornamentation. There's since been a reaction against this kind of simplicity and boldness, but

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the forward progress it represented has never been lost. Thes same clean lines characterized some of the other new buildings on Telegraph Hill, where the vistas are so spectacular that housing was built to take utmost advantage of the sight lines. San Francisco was not only built house

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by house by architects and private custom builders. It also was built by developers who are still with us. They took over the Sunset District, which then consisted mainly of sand dunes, and build a Siris of role houses that have stood the test of time amazingly well.

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With the privacy of one's own home and a small yard and back, they were priced when new at a rate that families of modest income could afford. The neighborhood remains an attractive one. The Marina section of San Francisco offers mawr variety in family income and home

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size, but the typical marina home is probably a flat or in a park. Some of the flats are remarkably comfortable and spacious, with three bedrooms, a living room, the dining room, perhaps a fireplace and duplicate them at today's prices would put them beyond the reach of

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today's rental market. Many of the flats and apartment houses are on streets that form cul de sacs, shutting out through traffic and giving the neighborhood mawr leisurely nous instability. Chinese now live in many parts of San Francisco, besides Chinatown, but that colorful neighborhood is no less

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crowded. Many Chinese air force by their low pay to live in small, dark rooms behind fire escapes, looking down into narrow alleys. This overcrowding represents a health hazard, but economic circumstances keep many in this neighborhood, although they might prefer to find larger and more comfortable quarters

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elsewhere. If you live in Seacliff, you have tow like fog. The mist sweeping regularly in see sometimes blanket the neighborhood day and night. But then comes a sparkling clear day on the view back towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Cleaning above the blue water makes the wait

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worth. While one of the earliest planned residential areas of the country Waas Saint Francis Wood, the planners of this community west of Twin Peaks, where John Galen Howard and Frederick Armstead Armstead planned New York Central Park, Howard was the first head of the University of California

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School of Architecture and Design. Many of the buildings there. Their plan for Saint Francis Wood was approved in 1912 more than half a century ago. Another old but still handsome neighborhood is Forest Hill, with substantial homes suitable for large families. The area includes two homes designed

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by Bernard May Beck between 1915 and 1920 one neighborhood now undergoing a process of change is the Haight Ashbury district. And just how these changes will reshape the areas. Character may yet be too early to say. There's one pull to make the area a new bohemia

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of jazz clubs, poetry readings and radical ideas in politics and morals. The spiritual home of these people a generation ago was Telegraph Hill. The other pull is for people with steady jobs and a savings account who do not want to leave the city. They bought many

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of the old homes in the neighborhood and are slowly refurbishing them inside and outside into comfortable dwellings. Young and unmarried San Franciscans, especially new arrivals, often lived first in a guesthouse, also known as a residence club. On the first job out of school without a lot

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of money to spend on housing, the newcomers find room and board at modest prices and a chance to make friends with young people in similar circumstance, the loneliness of the city is eased. Friendships and romances begin, and after a year or 21 can afford the next

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step. The independence of one's own apartment or marriage and a down payment on a house in the suburb next to New York. San Francisco is the most densely populated city in the nation. There are thousands of single old people widows, widowers, pensioners, lonely people living on

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such a narrow income that, even to call it a budget, is to make it seem larger than it is on a small monthly check room. And meals and clothing must be paid. Smoking is a luxury. Entertainment consists too often of sitting in a hotel lobby and

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watching a TV set or reading a discarded newspaper. Some of these hotels air shabby. Others are clean and genteel. South of market. A good many of the hotels do not have heat, even on the coldest winter days. They were built without heating system. Some of these

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elderly people have a fierce independence. They would rather make a home out of a hotel room than to live with relatives or face the regimentation of an old people's home. According to state law, the barracks type housing on Hunter's Point, built for shipyard workers during World

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War Two, must be tourney down by 1970 that people have to live this way for five more years in the richest country in the world is a reproach to our society, but it also represents an opportunity. Planning already is underway, but a major effort is required

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so that one of the best housing sites in the city can be fully exploited. Instead of mawr institutionalized housing, a mixture of low and medium cost, Wellings could make hunters point not a ghetto but a desirable neighborhood where people of different backgrounds and incomes will wish

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to live. More than 30 0 residents of San Francisco live in public housing. Many more would do so if the housing were available. This is simply because of economic reasons. They cannot afford to live anywhere else. In a decent home, the faults of public housing are

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well known. The buildings sometimes look like prisons. They lack landscaping and other so called frills, which make a home more than just a shelter against the weather. Why, then, are there long waiting lists to get into them? Because they have hot water and plumbing that works

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and rentals that tenants can afford $40 a month for two bedroom apartment, for example? There are indications that the community is learning to do better, that the public housing of the future will be less stereotyped in forbidding. It also is being recognized that it's not housing

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alone. More must be done about poverty and the social ills that go with it. It's not only public housing that stereotype. Some of the newest homes in San Francisco, almost on the daily City line, have a kind of monotony that has inspired protests songwriters into action.

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The house is march inexorably up the few remaining hills of the city. This is not caused any great outcry except for the way the buildings look. But it offers a reminder that housing developments also threatened the marine hills behind the Golden Gate Bridge. These might spoil

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the views of countless San Franciscans and those of the stream of tourists who adds so much to our economy. While some homes may be monotonous, there are others that are unusual indeed. In the marina, there's a large structure that's all turrets and curlicues painted gray and

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orange, a building that suggests far away places such as Istanbul and Smyrna. Some of the neighbors called this place the onion house and out in Hunters Point, a sculptor has refashioned the old Albion Brewery into a home. Mason's from Normandy built the original brewery on a

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site where fresh spring water was available. The house now suggests a fortress or castle. One of the most hopeful things that's happened in the housing feel in San Francisco in recent years is ST Francis Square. It's part of the redevelopment program in Area one of the

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Western edition. It's genuine nonprofit cooperative housing. The Longshoreman's Union and Shipowners Pension fund provided the original financing. At the time, it was feared that this project might simply mean relocation of the poor, especially Negroes, departure of the middle class and rental of the units to those

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who could pay $200 a month or more. But it did not happen. What the union wanted was homes for people who work for a living. FAA regulations were changed, not without a fight so that interest rates could be brought down. ST. Francis Square belongs to the

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people who live in it. They decide what improvements and repairs out to be made. The landscaping and gardening are their responsibilities. Unlike public housing, they're not required to leave if their income goes up. The buildings themselves have won several design awards. ST. Francis Square, also demonstrates

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that families of different racial backgrounds can live together. It's 52% Caucasian, 23% Negro and 25% other races. Cooperative housing of this kind is expected to increase substantially in the years to come. MAWR ventures such as in Francis Square and other redevelopment projects cannot be started until

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there's a court decision on the constitutionality of Proposition 14. Funding has been delayed on a number of rehabilitation projects of homes in Area two of the Western edition redevelopment project, even though the homes have already been screened and approved. Some of the most dedicated private refurbishing

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and rehabilitation of homes in San Francisco is among the old Victorians west of Van Ness. The value of these properties, with their high ceilings, carved woods and solid construction, has become increasingly apparent to San Franciscans. They're not only good housing, they have a charm which could

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be reasserted with a few cans of fresh paint. Many more Victorian homes are awaiting restoration by owners who seek financial assistance from the redevelopment agency. One of the largest urban renewal projects of recent years is the golden gateway, built on former commercial property near the foot

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of Market Street, an architectural team of Worcester, Bernardi and Emmons. deMars and Ray Wanna design contest for the project. It includes high rise apartments and townhouses, with rentals running from $160 for studio apartment to $975 for three bedroom penthouse. The project is an ambitious one, and

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some critics have claimed that it does not come off. Charles Moore in Architectural Forum calls it synthetic and contrived. Still, it has many advantages for those who can afford it. It has some of the best weather in San Francisco and is within walking distance of the

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Montgomery Street business area. The Federal Housing Authority says that in 1964 the average cost of a home bought with F A J insurance was $14,881 for an old house in $16,561 for a new house. Even if the house cost West say 13,500 with a 5.5% 30

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year mortgage, the monthly payments would be $127 The government says this would require an income of $7600 more than $150 a week. Millions of families just did not make that kind of money. But more and more, they're beginning to demand a decent home in which to

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live. For many thousands of people, San Francisco is already the ideal place to live. But it could be made to approach that ideal for the rest of its population or for the middle class, which left the city and might wish to return. The city has more

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to offer than suburbs in terms of theaters, concert halls, sports arenas, galleries, museums and libraries in the wide choice of restaurants and shops and in the diversity of races and creeds and neighborhoods, all contributing to what we call civilization. Some people now or even beginning to

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question whether, as so often claimed, suburban schools are better than city schools. Charles Abrams, AH, housing expert who has served as a consultant for many governments around the world, has offered some far reaching solutions to housing problems. He suggests the possibility of direct government mortgage loans

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at low interest or even no interest at all to get families into the housing market who have been excluded by reason of income. Other students of housing problems now say that neighborhoods need not be bulldozed out of existence. The people who already live there could be

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helped to retain and rebuild what's good. While financing could be offered to build new units where necessary, with people involved helping to make the choice with the right kind of community effort and federal assistance, our city can become a place where residents of every neighborhood will

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be proud to say, I live in San Francisco. Yeah, Assignment four is produced in the community interest each week at this time by the news and documentary department of K R O N. T. V. We wish to acknowledge the assistance of San Francisco Planning and Urban

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Renewal Association, the American Institute of Architects, the Junior League of San Francisco and Thomas Church and Associates in the preparation of this program. E be with us again next week for another report to the West on assignment for