Portsmouth Square landed on US!!!

If you live in San Francisco, you probably avoid it. If you're visiting from out of town, it's probably the second place on your list of must-see sites (after Fisherman's Wharf). It's crowded with people spacily walking about and lining up to overpay for a ride on the cheesily nostalgic cable car.

It's Union Square, just off the Powell Bart station and filled with tourist destinations and Christmas shopping necessities: Macy's, Express, and the guilty pleasure (and surprisingly good, but don't tell anyone I said so) Cheesecake Factory.

But, as Gary Kamiya writes in his excellent "Portals of the Past" column in the San Francisco Chronicle, "for decades, the center of San Francisco was not Union Square but Portsmouth Square, and the most important streets by far were not Powell or Stockton, but Montgomery and Kearny." Portsmouth Square was the center of town life, where everything important happened, and where Ah Toy, after quickly ascertaining where the hub of commerce was in the nascent town, set up shop.

These days, Portsmouth Square looks like this:

But before the gold rush, when the city was a village covered in sand dunes and called Yerba Buena, Portsmouth Square (called "The Square" or "The Plaza") resembled more of an open field with the occasional building:

The Square has a long and storied history. It was christened in 1846 when Captain John Montgomery (of Montgomery Street fame) sailed his USS Portsmouth into the bay and planted the American flag in the faces of the Mexican government. Since that day, countless important events in San Francisco's history have occurred there, mostly during its heyday in the second half of the nineteenth century.

When Ah Toy landed in San Francisco, she probably saw a Square that looked like this:

Noticing the long glances and lengthy stares she garnered from the men as they came out (or went in) to the famous El Dorado gambling hall on the northeast corner of the Square, she knew this was the place to be. She made her home about a block away. San Francisco was "a beehive of activity" according to one writer, and every street was filled with people hustling and bustling about in their quest to make a quick buck (or bag of gold dust), but Portsmouth Square was the queen bee of the hive. "The centre of attraction was Portsmouth Square," wrote James Ayres when he arrived in 1849. Here were the busiest gambling halls, the saloons, the newspaper offices, the alcalde's office (before there was a mayor), the courtroom, the first public schoolhouse in California, where the largest fires started and where the wildest and most memorable characters were seen.

It witnessed every facet of early San Francisco life. It saw gambling:

Near the centre of the town is a square, which, in common with many other things in the country, retains its Spanish appellation, and is called the "Plaza;" two sides of this are occupied by brick buildings, devoted solely to gambling. We have the "Verandah," "Eldorado," "Parker House," "Empire," "Rendez-vous," and "Bella Union," in one row. ... Amidst all the din and turmoil of the crowd, and the noisy music that issues from every corner, two or three reports of a pistol will occasionally startle the stranger, particularly if they should happen to be in his immediate vicinity, and a bullet should (as is not uncommon) whistle past his head and crack the mirror on the other side of him. There is a general row for a few moments, spectators secure themselves behind pillars and under the bar; there is a general exclamation of "don't shoot," which means of course "don't shoot till we get out of the way."

Frank Marryat, Mountains and Molehills 

It saw drinking:

Many of these places are attended, and frequented, by women, often luxuriously attired, who chat, and smoke, and smile, over the convivial glass, with as much zest and indifference as they would exhibit in the observance of any modest ceremony. These saloons are not unfrequently provided with a retiring room, where customers of both sexes while away the night with music, dancing, gaming and drinking; and the walls of many of these rooms are adorned in a manner which our puritan mothers would not have approved.

Elisha Smith Capron, History of California: From Its Discovery to the Present Time 

It saw elections:

On Saturday afternoon, March 29th, the friends of Col. Hayes [who was running for the office of Sheriff] held a mass meeting on the plaza, which was a large and enthusiastic assembly. After several spirited addresses had been given, the meeting formed in procession, and headed by a band of music, paraded the principal streets, cheering and being cheered by multitudes of spectators as they passed along. ... The election was conducted with more than usual spirit.

Soule, et al., The Annals of San Francisco 

It saw parades:

On the 29th of August, the death of President Taylor was commemorated by a funeral procession: one remarkable feature of which was the appearance in the procession of a large body of Chinese, in national costume. It was probably the first procession ever witnessed in the limits of Christendom, of which that curious people formed a prominent portion. From that time to the present, they have taken the same interest in all such public proceedings — several hundred of them at one time, sharing in our national demonstrations, with the banners, music, and other arrangements peculiar to themselves.

James Parker, The San Francisco directory for the year 1852-53 

It saw hangings:

There is something indescribably awful, and ominously thrilling, about a silent crowd of men in the darkness of night. ... Jenkins, after his sentence, was asked to see a priest, which he declined, saying he would rather have a cigar; after which he requested some brandy and water. On the way to the gallows he spoke not a word. Arrived at the fatal spot, he refused, with obscenity and curses, the renewed offers of religious consolation, and died with ribaldry upon his lips. The night was moonlit, often obscured a moment by the passing clouds, bringing out, clearly defined, and then veiling in alternate light and charitable shade, the lifeless, hanging body, whose head and features, seen in “the phases of the moon,” horribly grotesque, seemed nodding and grinning contemptuous defiance at his executioners.

Barry and Patten, Men and Memories of San Francisco 

And it saw the wildest and most memorable characters of the city:

Charley Elleard was a constable in 1850, and in the execution of his official duties, rode a black pony, with white feet, a sagacious equine, the pet of everybody about Clay street and the neighborhood of the Plaza ... and if anybody would place a two bit piece in his [the pony's] mouth, straightway he would march to the bootblack stand on the southwest corner of Kearny and the Plaza, drop the money into the hand of the operator, put one hoof upon the boot-rest, quietly note its polishing, and when finished, raise the other, gravely wait its manipulation, then walk directly back to his master’s office.

Barry and Patten, Men and Memories of San Francisco

Indeed, Portsmouth Square was its own character in the story of early San Francisco. It was the stage on which San Franciscans played out their roles - drunk, pious, sinful, wild, chaste, earnest, and above all, eager - to the audience of history. And, lucky for me, the writer, and for you, the reader, it's where Ah Toy settled down and plied her trade. This means she was firmly seated in the front row to the most dramatic show in the west: the birth and explosion of the city of San Francisco.

All of which Union Square can't dream of holding a candle to.