[HN Gopher] SFStreets: History of San Francisco place names
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       SFStreets: History of San Francisco place names
        
       Author : jxmorris12
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2025-06-24 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (sfstreets.noahveltman.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (sfstreets.noahveltman.com)
        
       | madcaptenor wrote:
       | This has been here before, but nice to see it again.
       | 
       | If only this answered the great puzzle of San Francisco street
       | names - why are the state-named streets in Potrero Hill and the
       | Mission in that order?
        
         | dang wrote:
         | So it has! Macroexpanded:
         | 
         |  _Interactive map shows history of San Francisco place names_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16747029 - April 2018 (1
         | comment)
         | 
         |  _History of San Francisco Place Names_ -
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5628182 - April 2013 (29
         | comments)
        
           | thrownblown wrote:
           | Wow, over a decade of HN relevance!
        
       | yogurtboy wrote:
       | This is unbelievably cool. I would love to see the same for the
       | Twin Cities, or Seattle.
        
       | lvl155 wrote:
       | I worked on a project long time ago similar to this. I had to dig
       | up old maps from major public libraries across a handful of
       | cities and overlay them on top of modern maps using key
       | historical landmarks and geographical features. It's amazing how
       | cities evolve and transform over time. I think what would be cool
       | is if someone could build a street-level time capsule of places
       | like New York. Perhaps monthly or even daily.
        
         | SirFatty wrote:
         | There was/is a website that's a bit like google maps, but with
         | historical map overlays. I cannot for the life of me remember
         | the name.
        
           | cbhl wrote:
           | Pastmaps might be what you're thinking of? They have an
           | archive of the maps that the United States Geological Survey
           | used to serve as their Historical Topographic Map Collection.
        
             | Stratoscope wrote:
             | USGS has this on their topoview site:
             | 
             | https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/
             | 
             | Pick the area you want to look at, select a historical topo
             | map, and click the Show button. Then you can use the
             | Transparency slider to see the topo map overlaid on a
             | current street map.
             | 
             | You can discover some interesting things this way. For
             | example, I used to live on Hawthorne Avenue in Palo Alto
             | (CA). The 1897 topo map shows that this street was
             | originally a railroad spur line off the main Southern
             | Pacific track (now used by Caltrain and freight). This spur
             | line turned left onto what is now Middlefield and then
             | turned right to serve the Catholic University (now St.
             | Patrick's Seminary).
        
           | test098 wrote:
           | NYPL Map Warper, unfortunately now defunct:
           | https://wayback.archive-
           | it.org/13216/20210520171637/http://m...
        
       | wagwang wrote:
       | Where's Minna street :))
        
         | madcaptenor wrote:
         | https://fernhilltours.com/2023/09/12/minna-street-whos-it-na...
        
           | wagwang wrote:
           | There's a local sf rumor that it's named after smthing else
        
       | varenc wrote:
       | I extracted all the history information to a single file if
       | others like me would find this useful:
       | https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/d3cikbe5siw4uuiurcd...
       | 
       | (Though I do love the website's interface)
        
         | nickpinkston wrote:
         | Thank you - way better honestly
        
       | davchana wrote:
       | I did not see my Powell St, parallel to Mason & Stockton St.
        
         | madcaptenor wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Street has: "The street
         | was named for Dr. William J. Powell, surgeon of the U.S. sloop
         | of war Warren, which was active during the conquest of
         | California.[1]".
         | 
         | That comes from this document on the website of the Museum of
         | the City of San Francisco:
         | https://sfmuseum.org/street/stnames5.html
         | 
         | Seems like that would be a good additional source to add to the
         | map.
        
       | rahimnathwani wrote:
       | OpenAI Deep Research is great for this. Here's a report about
       | College Hill, a small area of SF between Bernal Heights and Glen
       | Park:
       | 
       | https://chatgpt.com/share/685b0890-fa44-8013-adce-8db2855d13...
       | 
       | (Glen Park Library is where Ross Ulbricht was arrested.)
       | 
       | Here's a similar one about Colliers Wood (South London), another
       | small area whose location is often described as 'between X and Y'
       | (in this case, Tooting and Wimbledon):
       | 
       | https://chatgpt.com/share/685b09a4-14f0-8013-ad2c-3c2c7f8c25...
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-24 23:01 UTC)