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SoMa Information
South of Market or SoMa (South of Market) is a neighborhood in San Francisco,
California. Its borders are Market Street to the north-northwest, the San
Francisco Bay to the east, Townsend Street to the south-southeast, and U.S.
Route 101 to the west-southwest. It is the part of the city in which the street
grid runs parallel to and perpendicular to Market Street. The eastern edge along
the Embarcadero and south-eastern corner of this area (where Mission Creek meets
the bay) is known as South Beach, a separate neighborhood, and the border below
Townsend Street begins Mission Bay. The north-eastern corner (where Market
Street meets the bay) is often considered part of the Financial District.
South of Market was originally a warehouse district, with longer blocks than
other parts of the city. Today, in addition to warehouses, there are a great
many bars and nightclubs, restaurants, and residential lofts in the area. Since
the 1950s, South of Market has been a center for the leather subculture of the
gay community. At the end of each September the Folsom Street Fair is held on
Folsom Street between 7th and 12th Streets. The smaller and less commercialized
but also leather subculture-oriented Up Your Alley Fair (commonly referred to as
the Dore Alley Fair) is also held in the neighborhood, in late July on Folsom
between 9th and 10th Streets and in Dore Alley between Folsom and Howard. During
the late 1990s, South of Market was known for being a local center of the
dot-com boom, due to its central location and relatively cheap housing and
office space.
Especially near the waterfront, Yerba Buena Gardens and Financial District,
South of Market is rapidly gentrifying, with a large number of new residential
high-rises and hotels.
Because of its historic blue-collar nature, South of Market is also an area of
settlement for new immigrants. Entire communities made their homes in the
district--from Irish Americans and Italian Americans to Greek Americans.
Presently the largest migrant group living in South of Market are Filipino
Americans.
The conference center, Moscone Center, occupies 3 blocks and hosts many major
trade shows. Moscone South opened its doors in December 1981. Moscone North
opened in May 1992, and most recently Moscone West in June 2003.
With the opening of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1995, the Yerba
Buena Center region of the South of Market has become a hub for museums. Other
museums in the area include the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Museum of
the African Diaspora, the Cartoon Art Museum, the children's Zeum, and the
temporary home of the California Academy of Sciences. The planned sites for the
Contemporary Jewish Museum and the Mexican Museum are also in the Yerba Buena
area. The Center for the Arts, along with Yerba Buena Gardens and the Sony
Metreon, is built on top of Moscone North. Across Howard Street, built on top of
Moscone South, is a children's park featuring a large play area, an ice skating
rink, a bowling alley, a restaurant, the Zeum, and the restored merry-go-round
from Playland At the Beach. The children's park and Zeum are joined to Yerba
Buena Gardens by a foot bridge over Howard Street.
A major transformation of the neighborhood is planned with the Transbay Terminal
Replacement Project, which if funded, is planned to be open by 2013. In
addition, many residential projects are set to transform the overall San
Francisco skyline, with high-rises up to 55 stories like One Rincon Hill.
According to an article on May 25, 2006, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority
proposed to raise the height limits around the new transbay terminal. That will
mean instead of having one 70 story, 925 ft. tower, a trio of towers, with two
at about the same height as the 853 ft. Transamerica Pyramid and a third one of
at least 1,000 ft. will be built. The third tower could be the tallest on the
West Coast, beating out the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles and it will probably
have the most floors on the West Coast, overtaking Seattle's Columbia Center.
This proposal is said to give San Francisco a internationally recognized skyline
by having a central peak and in addition, balance the off-centered existing
skyline due to the Transamerica Pyramid and the Bank of America Building.
Most San Franciscans prefer to refer to the neighborhood by its full name, South
of Market, though there is a trend to shorten the name to SOMA or SoMa, probably
in reference to SoHo (South of Houston) in New York City, and, in turn, Soho in
London.
Before being called South of Market this area was called "South of the Slot".
The reason being that cable cars used to run on Market Street and the cable car
tracks have a center slot where the cable car attaches to the cable. While the
cable cars have long since disappeared some "old timers" still refer to this
area as "South of the Slot".