[READ ARTICLE IN SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE]
For decades, San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood was the stinkiest place in town.
Slaughterhouses and tanneries dumped raw sewage into the nearby bay. Prevailing winds wafted the stench of a coastal garbage dump into the rolling valley. And yes, cows roamed the land that would someday cradle the city’s glitziest shopping district. Lots of cows.
About 800 cows, in fact — so many that city officials decided to banish the area’s dairy farms in 1891. The malnourished cows, feeding on the sand hills’ sparse vegetation, were defecating in their drinking supply and producing milk ridden with E. coli.
“If someone were to start out and search California from end to end,” said health officer James W. Keeney in one 1900 account, “they could hardly find a more unsuitable place in which to keep cows than ‘Cow Hollow.’”
Hold that rancid iteration of Cow Hollow up against the current one — polished, chic, a whiff of elitism in the air — and the waves of change that have reshaped San Francisco over and over come crashing to your feet. These days, Cow Hollow factors into the highest-priced ZIP code in one of the world’s most expensive cities, a place dotted with Victorian mansions and wellness centers and Lululemon leggings.
But now the cows are coming home. Sort of.
Continue reading Shake Shack signals change in San Francisco
