BLEND IN The Inner Sunset Neighborhood
BLEND IN The Inner Sunset Neighborhood
čž? a blend of:
Surroundings /3
The West & The East /9
ĺ?ˆ Language /13
Culture /15
People /27
Food /29
THE INNER SUNSETNEIGHBORHOOD
San Francisco's Inner Sunset district is the neighborhood my I have called home for the past fur years. It’s the one part of San Francisco that meets the needs of both my husband (a California native) and myself (a Chinese immigrant). The Inner Sunset is a good place for me to blend in; I feel really comfortable here. The neighborhood is full of contrasts: quiet in places and noisy in others; filled with lots of hip spots with gourmet western restaurants one one side, and ethnic Asian spots with traditional Chinese markets and restaurants on the other. The Inner Sunset has the biggest and best local park in San Francisco (Golden Gate Park), and the N-Judah streetcar roars right past our house, allowing me to get downtown (or anywhere else in the city) easily and quickly. The neighborhood definitely feels like it's in a city, yet is relatively quiet, has good public schools, and is a safe place to raise a family. 0/1
SURROUNDINGS
This is where the city blends in with nature surroundings. 2/3
The Golden Gate Park stretches along the whole North side of the neighborhood. While the Inner Sunset really is right in the city, it’s nice to know that I can find a way to quickly escape and find myself surrounded by the beautiful nature.
4/5
Although it is nearby the larger
continent, where the horizon and the
neighborhood known as the Sunset,
sky blend together. It is pretty shock-
The Inner Sunset is not a residential
ing to me that the majority of the
neighborhood with rows and rows
buildings in the neighborhood are
of houses and not much else. It’s
easily 70 to 100 years old. Unlike Chi-
also relatively flat — my biggest worry
nese buildings, which usually begin
in moving to San Francisco was
looking old and outdated within 20
having to park sideways on huge
years, the buildings here are very well
hills when I get home! This problem
maintained. The houses are tightly
doesn’t exist where we live.
attached to each other, and it’s hard
Judah street, where our house is situated, runs all the way to the
to tell where one house ends and the next begins.
ocean. This is literally the end of the
6/7
the
WESTand the EAST
The further you go West, the more East (Chinese)it gets. 8/9
Above: Sunset supermarket in 1951. This picture is abstracted from book San Francisco’s Sunset District (Then and Now) by Lorri Ungaretti . Below: Sunset supermarket today. It turned into a Chinese market, and the signs include Chinese characters.
“
As in many San Francisco neighborhoods, the original residents were almost exclusively white European -especially Irish and Italian immigrants. This changed in the 1970’s when more people of color begin to move to the Sunset. Today, people of many backgrounds live in the Sunset, and the largest ethnic group in the area is Chinese.
”
—Lorri Ungaretti, writter.
10 / 11
作为一个远离市区的老社区, 这里的很多商店是独一无二 的。很少B有L连锁,许多商店 可以看到独E特的手工招牌, 精心的描画N显D示了附近的 历史.日落现在已是OF一个华 人大社区LAN，第19大街是 一条主要通G道,通UA过金门 大桥和马林县。有趣GE的是, 在这个区越往西走,越东方(中 式),越往东走,越西方。
Being far from downtown and being an older neighborhood, the shops in the Inner Sunset are unique. There are almost no chains stores, and many shops can be found that have unique hand-lettered signs and sometimes even elaborate paintings which show the history of the neighborhood. There is also a big Chinese community now in the Inner Sunset. In the center of the Inner Sunset is 19th Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare to get across the Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin County. Interestingly enough, the further you go West, the more East (Chinese) it gets, and the more you go East, the more Western gets.
12 / 13
As someone coming from China, the neighborhood has a lot of familiar elements. When my mom —who doesn’t speak English— visits me, she is able to bargain for vegetables in the Chinese supermarkets and even make friends on the street whose first language is also Chinese.
theAsian style of shopping 14 / 15
The main western supermarket in the neighborhood, Andronico’s, carries lots of fancy kinds of cheese, organic produce and meats, and has a good but pricey produce selection. While some of the vegetables and fruits are up to three times more expensive than what can be found in the Chinese market, the ones in Andronico’s are packaged and displayed much better and simpler.
THE WESTERN OF SHOPPING STYLE
16 / 17
Once you head down Irving street west of 19th Avenue, the neighborhood becomes a lot more Asian influenced. Many of the shops have a look to them that reminds me of how China looked in the early 1990s: independently run dry cleaners, mom-and-pop hair salons with aging equipment, and plastic items for sale among many many random items in hardware stores. Even the local Asian residents feel right out of Hong Kong in the '90s.
On the east side of the neighborhood, near 9th Avenue, there are many local urban hip hangouts that are always popular, but especially popular on the weekends when visitors from other parts of San Francisco come to hang out in the neighborhood and also head to Golden Gate Park. Every Sunday, there is an open market with many different kinds of vendors selling sustainable and organic vegetables and other foods. Across the street you can find many people enjoying the new parklet outside the famous worker-owned, bicycle friendly, vegetarian and ultra hipster bakery named Arizmendi. This place has the best scones in town, and it is also the best place to do people watching.
18 / 19
Being far from downtown and being an older neighborhood, the shops in the Inner Sunset are unique. There are almost no chains, and many shops can be found that have unique hand-lettered signs and sometimes even elaborate paintings which show the history of the neighborhood.
The Signs 20 / 21
Among the shops, many 1980s style signs still exist — which remind me of similar shopfronts in Hong Kong movies that I saw growing up in mainland China.
22 / 23
24 / 25
As far as restaurants, Inner Sunset has a variety of options, from rustic Western comfort food to authentic chinese soups with pigeon heads and bitter melon. One of my favorites is “The Pots� hot pot restaurant. Even though the inside is not that glamorous, the food they serve is on a par with any decent hot pot restaurant back home.
The Food 26 / 27
The People
The neighborhood is a really great place for people watching. Given how diverse the Inner Sunset is, by standing on the sidewalk for a few minutes you can experience many people from many walks of life.
28 / 29
The sunset
30 / 31
BLEND IN The Inner Sunset Neighborhood JINGFANG CHEN GR 613: Type Experiments Academy Of Art, MFA Graphic Design Professor: Stan Zienka Editor: Dan Harrison Typefaces: Avant Garde Gothic, YueGothic Software: Indesign CS6, Photoshop CS6
While there are no signature hills in my neighborhood, there is a lot of San Francisco's signature fog, which rolls in from the ocean and covers our street like a blanket...