Stockton Street is a north-south street in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. It begins at Market Street passing Union Square, a major shopping district in the city. It then runs underground for about two and a half blocks in Stockton Street Tunnel (lending its name to a separate, parallel street above the tunnel), passes through

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

and North Beach (Little Italy), and ends at Beach Street near the Pier 39 shopping center and tourist attraction.

Chinatown

In Chinatown (particularly in the three blocks between Washington Street and Broadway), Stockton is the neighborhood's main shopping and business street, where locals buy the freshest and cheapest produce and meats. The stores also offer live seafood (mainly on the west side of the street) and dried herbs. Some shops located on Stockton Street include the Hop Hing Ginseng Company, the Kowloon Market, the Luen Sing Fish Market, Louie's Produce, and Fruit City. In the annual Stockton Street market, vendors have been permitted since 2012 to set up outdoor stands during the two weeks before

Chinese New Year Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival (see also #Names, § Names), is a festival that celebrates the beginning of a New Year, new year on the traditional lunisolar calendar, lunisolar Chinese calendar. It is one of the most important holi ...

SPUR A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...

has described Stockton Street in Chinatown as "an example of true urbanization, replete with a strong transit network, multigenerational families living in tightly knit spaces, hundreds of mom-and-pop stores and a bustling streetlife" and a success of "grassroots organizing to protect Chinatown’s affordability, culture and urban form". In this area, Stockton Street is dominated by

mixed-use Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

buildings that are three to four stories high, with shops on the ground floor and residential apartments upstairs. It is also home to organizations that played important political roles in the history of the Chinese immigrant community, in particular the

Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) is a historical Chinese association established in various parts of the United States and Canada with large Overseas Chinese communities. The association's clientele were Chinese immigrants ...

(Six Companies), the

Chinese American Citizens Alliance Chinese American Citizens Alliance (C.A.C.A.) is a Chinese American fraternal, benevolent non-profit organization founded in 1895 in San Francisco, California to secure equal rights for Americans of Chinese ancestry and to better the welfare of th ...

, and the US headquarters of the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

. After immigration laws were eased in the mid-1960s, many stores moved to Stockton Street from nearby Grant Avenue, drawn by lower rents and the better transportation enabled by the

30 Stockton 30 Stockton is a trolleybus line operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway. The line is notable for being the slowest trolleybus route in the city of San Francisco because it travels through the densely populated neighborhood of Chinatown, ...

Muni trolleybus line (which replaced the earlier F Stockton streetcar line). The San Francisco Chronicle has called the section of Stockton Street between Sacramento and Broadway "San Francisco’s most interesting street ... fascinating utnot beautiful. It’s crowded, untidy, dirty, usually noisy."

Union Square

In the Union Square area, Stockton Street is home to numerous upscale stores, including the Macy's Union Square and

Neiman Marcus Neiman Marcus is an American department store chain founded in 1907 in Dallas, Texas by Herbert Marcus, his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband Abraham Lincoln Neiman. It has been owned by Saks Global, a Corporate spin-off, spin-o ...

department stores. The block next to Macy's has been closed to road traffic since 2012 due to the Central Subway construction work, with the success of a temporary "Winter Walk" plaza lending support for calls to convert it into a

pedestrian zone Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town restricted to use by people on foot or ...

permanently. In 2016 (shortly before her death), influential Chinatown community organizer Rose Pak vehemently opposed this project arguing that Stockton Street was a "vital link" for Chinatown, and threatened to organize a blockade of City Hall by thousands of vehicles if the idea came to pass. Stockton reopened to road traffic on February 22, 2019.

Other notable landmarks

Near the Northern tip of the street, the

Academy of Art University The Academy of Art University (AAU, or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. ...

owns and operates a building for academic and administrative purposes.

Gallery

File:Stockton and Broadway in San Francisco with trolleybuses (2005).jpg, Intersection of Stockton and Broadway with a 30-Stockton trolleybus (2005) File:Hills in San Francisco IMG 4510.JPG, South portal of the Stockton Street Tunnel near Lower Nob Hill (2010) File:Coming Out of the Stockton Tunnel (29780812760).jpg, North portal of the Stockton Street Tunnel, looking at Chinatown (2016) File:Historic American Buildings Survey ca. 1870 STREET LOOKING NORTH TOWARDS ANGEL ISLAND - Stockton Street, Historic View, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA HABS CAL,38-SANFRA,129-1.tif, Stockton Street, circa 1870 File:San Francisco - Stockton Street Tunnel (14058185098).jpg, Pedestrian in Stockton Street Tunnel (2014) File:2 Stockton Street.jpg, Southern terminus of Stockton at Market (2017)

References

External links