The Marina district is an affluent, picturesque neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The area is bounded to the east by Van Ness Ave, on the west by Lyon Street and the Presidio, on the south by Filbert St. After the 1906 earthquake, San Franciscans staged the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915) to celebrate the reemergence of the world class city. The grounds for this world's fair were created from a former lagoon on landfill. Aside from the Palace of Fine Arts ("POFA"), all other buildings were demolished to make an upscale residential neighborhood.

Before the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition, the Marina didn’t exist at all. On the bay north of Pacific Heights, a sea wall was erected parallel to the shoreline, and the marshland in between was filled with sand pumped up from the bottom of the ocean. Dredging left enough deep water for the creation of the St Francis and Golden Gate Yacht Clubs, which occupy prestigious spots at the foot of Baker Street. Slightly to the east is Marina Green, a large stretch of turf frequented for the most part by runners. For less strenuous exercise, walk the Golden Gate Promenade that runs parallel to Marina Boulevard, continuing a couple of miles further before reaching the eponymous bridge. A massive landscaping recreated natural marshlands and tidepools at Crissy Field , the long swath of land and tidal marsh that reaches from Marina Green to the bridge.

The neighborhood’s commercial center runs along Chestnut Street near Fillmore. The street has a reputation as a haven for swinging singles, and the local watering holes are known as “high intensity breeder bars.” Even the local Safeway has been dubbed “The Body Shop” because of the inordinate amount of cruising that goes on in its aisles.

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake created substantial damage, but the neighborhood was quickly rebuilt. Much of the damage was due to liquefaction of the fill upon which the neighborhood is built. Today the neighborhood remains as popular as ever with the post-college crowd and young east coast professionals. The neighborhood even has its own breed of female, the Marina Girl , as satirized in the Cameron Diaz film The Sweetest Thing. The stereotypical Marina Girl parties hard, often rocks casual yet high end fashions including Juicy Coutoure, Seven Jeans, and Ugg boots , while never being employed in any tangible profesion. The marina girl maintains her high quality of life through a series of arrangements with older gentlemen in neighboring Pacific Heights. In recent years on weekends, they tend to gravitate around the area dubbed by Herb Caen as the "Bermuda Triangle": Bars and Restaurants on the corner of Fillmore and Greenwich streets. In recent time's this area has become known as Gavin Newsom square with a collection of Gavin Newsom-owned businesses dominating the triangle. Mayor Newsom's Matrix-Fillmore, Plumpjack wines, Balboa Cafe, and Plumpjack Cafe are all marina staples that dominate the landscape.

Cow Hollow, Russian Hill, Pacific Heights, and the Presido bound the Marina District to the north, south, east and west.

The concrete-paved Lombard St runs along the southern edge of The Marina connecting it to Marin County.

ZIP Code: 94123
Population (2000): 22,903 Housing units: 14,851 Land area: 1.0 mile² (2.6 km²) Water area: zero

White population: 19814 Black population: 117 American Indian population: 34 Asian population: 2189 Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander population: 21 Some other race population: 240 Two or more races population: 488

Urban population: 22903 Rural population: 0

Median age: 35.3 Average household size: 1.61 Median household income (1999): $84710

Myth and folklore

The creation of the Marina District is shrouded in myth and folklore. Many people claim that the area was created out of the rubble dumped into the Bay in the period after the great quake of 1906. Photogrpahs of the Marina District as recently as 1912 show most of the area still as being in the bay, posing the question of why would it take six years for the rubble to be dumped to form the Marina. In 1885, Filbert Street was still the old Presidio Road. If one turned north onto Buchanan Street toward the bay, two blocks away, Lombard Street was sand dunes, about 35 feet higher then than present. The shoreline was already being pushed northward by industrial power companies. The area now covered by Moscone Recreation Center and Marina Middle School was Lobos Square, a flat spot where the dunes had been leveled out to reach a hodgepodge of wharves and industrial plants extending from Laguna Street to Steiner Street.

Most of it came down in 1906, including the San Francisco Gas Light Company generating house. But the brick meter house stood its sand, and you can still see the date of completion, "1893," in the archway at Buchanan and North Point streets, behind the Marina Safeway.

Walking west from there on North Point, notice a slope in the sidewalk where shore met sea. It was here on North Point, west of Webster Street, that speculator James Fair built a seawall in the 1890s, in a grand plan to create 70 acres (283,000 m²) of shallow waters and build an Industrial park. The walls were completed at themoment they ran out of sand to fill it with, so there it sat, like a full bathtub.

In 1912, standing on North Point, near Fillmore, heart of the Marina, would mean standing in the Bay. It remained in the bay until 1912. The creaters of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition leased James Fair's pond and finished the project. Two dredges and 146 days later, the bathtub was filled with 1.3 million cubic yards (100,000 m³) of sand and mud.

After the exposition closed in 1915, the Fair heirs got the land back and sold to the Marina Development Corporation. City Engineer M. M. O'Shaughnessy created a maze of streets that intersected with streets on the original city grid. The layout is out of character with the older portions of the city, creating the maze-like feel of much of the Marina District. The Marina Development Corporation carved this area into 634 residential lots, plus the Marina Green . When it was built out in the 1920s, the area previously known as Harbor View or North End became the Marina.

Schools

• Tule Elk Child Development Center

2110 Greenwich

San Francisco, CA 94123

• Marina Middle School

Important structures

MARINA SAFEWAY San Francisco's Marina Boulevard Safeway location (the first such modern concept store in June 1959), continues to operate with only minor exterior modifications forty years after construction. The "Marina" Prototype: A classic piece of architecture named for the first Safeway store so designed, on Marina Boulevard in San Francisco. Hundreds of these remain around the country, including the original. Most have been remodeled and expanded.

The Exploratorium is a popular tourist and destination in the Marina District. The Exploratorium is located at the Palace of Fine Arts (POFA) and provides an opportunity for everyone to explore the sciences in a very hands-on fashion.

Moscone Recreation Center sports the largest children's park in the city as well as tennis courts, basketball courts, and a volleyball area. It has served as a meeting location for generations of San Francisco natives, and can be seen in several historic films. The slice of land that was the site of the Tower Of Jewels during the 1915 World's Fair was initially named Funston Park. The park was renamed after the assassination of mayor George Moscone as a political payback to the conservative neighborhood activists in the Marina District that opposed Moscone's alleged homosexual activities.

The Marina Green, a picturesque park in the northernmost portion of the neighborhood next to the San Francisco bay.

U.S. Route 101/Lombard Street, a boulevard that bisects the Marina District. The street is filled with motels built in celebration of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge, and a strange collection of mixed retail, fast food, and residential units. On a typical afternoon the street is a strange mix of tourists searching for Ghiradelli Square and the Golden Gate Bridge, older gentlemen visiting motels with their arrangements, and children walking towards Marina Middle School .

Chestnut Street, a cozy upscale retail street that began as Italian meeting center for the area's doiminant Italian population that had moved from North Beach to the new Marina Development. The Street has morphed over the ages and now features such landmarks as THE GROVE , a trendy cafe that the online website Friendster was based upon.

Famous Resident's Past and Present

• Joe Dimaggio
• Andrew Firestone
• Artbox
• Anna Nicole Smith
• Gavin Newsom (past)