PROJECTS
Dogpatch Historic District
LOCATION: San Francisco, California
CLIENT: Dogpatch Neighborhood Association
DATE COMPLETED: 2003
The Dogpatch Historic District possesses a unique place and significance in the areas of architecture, history, and environment worthy of protection as an historic district. Dogpatch is an approximately nine-block enclave of industrial workers' housing located east of Potrero Hill, in San Francisco's Central Waterfront district. The neighborhood comprises almost one-hundred flats and cottages, as well as several industrial, commercial, and civic buildings, most of which were erected between 1870 and 1930. The neighborhood is significant at the local level under Criterion A (Events/Patterns of History), within the category of Industry, as the oldest and most intact concentration of industrial workers' housing in San Francisco, and under Criterion C (Design/Construction), within the category of Architecture, as a moderately intact district of mostly Victorian and Edwardian-era workers' dwellings constructed between 1870 and 1910.
Chris VerPlanck surveyed the entire neighborhood to identify potentially historic examples of Victorian and Edwardian-era workers' housing, in particular the cluster of identical "Pelton Cottage" located on Tennessee and Minnesota streets. He also researched the construction and operational history of the early industrial and maritime businesses in the Central Waterfront area that historically employed residents of Dogpatch. The final products of the survey and research included a Historic Context Statement and Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) 523 A and B forms for 98 individual properties constructed during the period of significance of 1867-1945. These documents were used by the San Francisco Planning Department to designate Dogpatch as San Francisco's eleventh historic district in 2003.
