Islands in the storm
As you approach the city from the south on Highway 280, with the Bay View district to your right, the last exit before the highway ends leads up and over Mission Creek and lands you on Brannan and 6th Streets. It’s as you reach the top of the elevated exit ramp that you might look down to your right and see a ragtag row of houseboats.
This eccentric neighborhood is known as Mission Bay District and has taken on new life recently due to a major redevelopment initiative by the city. In a wide creek, lined on one bank by million-dollar condos and on the other by furious construction work, there are about 20 houseboats moored to a long dock, which also accommodates conventional boats. This community of floating houses, which dates back to the 1960s, is a tiny neighborhood unto itself, with homes whose front and backyards consist of seawater. The houseboats have a long tradition of unconventional residents, including many artists and musicians, some of whom have lived there for several decades. But in recent years, with property prices skyrocketing, the city’s deep-pocketed newcomers have come knocking.
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Address Between 3rd Street & 4th Street on Mission Creek, San Francisco, CA, 94107 | Public Transport Light rail: T-Third (3rd St & 4th St stop) | Tip Take a stroll to UCSF park and check out Richard Serra’s sculpture Ballast, consisting of two 50-foot-tall Cor-Ten steel plates.
The dock opened in the 1960s on Mission Creek, which carries water from underground wells in various parts of the Twin Peaks area to the San Francisco Bay. The houseboats are a motley collection of funky and fabulous. They range in styles and appearances from scrappy and very DIY to modern and industrial. One, for instance, is distinguished by its blue metal siding and tall loft-like casement windows.
A park with trees and a serpentine path runs along the bank and at the southern end there’s a large enclosed vegetable garden. At night, while walking in the park with the sound of clanking halyards in the background, you may see some of the residents in their kitchens sitting down to dinner, as their boats roll to the rhythm of a deep sea.
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