Third 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 ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, running through the

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

, Mission Bay,

Potrero Point Potrero Point is an area in San Francisco, California, east of San Francisco's Potrero Hill neighborhood. Potrero Point was an early San Francisco industrial area. The Point started as small natural land feature that extends into Mission Bay ...

Dogpatch Dogpatch was the fictional setting of cartoonist Al Capp's classic comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' (1934–1977). ''Li'l Abner'' comic strip The inhabitants of Dogpatch were mostly lazy hillbillies, who usually wanted nothing to do with progress. ...

, and Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhoods. The road turns into

Kearny Street Kearny Street () in San Francisco, California runs north from Market Street to The Embarcadero. Toward its south end, it separates the Financial District from the Union Square and Chinatown districts. Further north, it passes over Telegra ...

north of Market Street and connects into

Bayshore Boulevard Bayshore Boulevard is a waterfront road on Hillsborough Bay in South Tampa, Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the ...

south of Meade Avenue. It was formerly called Kentucky Street in the

and Railroad Avenue in the Bayview.

Background

Major League Baseball's

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

play at

Oracle Park Oracle Park is a ballpark in the South of Market, San Francisco, SoMa district of San Francisco, California. Since 2000, it has been the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB). The stadium stands along San Francisco Bay ...

on the intersection of Third and King. The majority of the street is served by the

T Third Street The T Third Street is a Muni Metro light rail line in San Francisco, California. It runs along the east side of San Francisco from to , traveling in the median of Third Street for most of its length before entering the Central Subway as it a ...

light rail line. It was the first new light rail line in San Francisco in more than half a century, and the first fully accessible line in the system. It is also the first true

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

line in the mostly streetcar Muni Metro system, as it operates primarily in the median. In 2009, San Francisco Mayor

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom ( ; born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 40th governor of California. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served from 2011 to 201 ...

proposed Third Street be renamed for former mayor Willie Brown. The proposal was not adopted. In the 1960s, the downtown section of Third Street was known as San Francisco's "

skid row A skid row, also called skid road, is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people " on the skids". This specifically refers to people who are poor or homeless, considered disre ...

", with most of its (then much smaller) homeless population concentrating there. The street featured as a filming location in the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

film ''

A View to a Kill ''A View to a Kill'' is a 1985 spy film, the fourteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from ...

'', when Bond escapes from police in a

fire engine A fire engine or fire truck (also spelled firetruck) is a vehicle, usually a specially designed or modified truck, that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to ...

by jumping over the rising Lefty O'Doul Drawbridge.

References

Streets in San Francisco {{California-road-stub