Urban Sights: Urban History and Visual Culture

2. Potrero Hill

Potrero Hill, Bechtle's own neighborhood, and the Sunset district, for many years his place of work, are the dominant settings of his San Francisco paintings. Like the artist's images of Alameda, Berkeley, and Oakland, these areas look quietly middle class. Though economic growth from the banking and technology industries over the past several decades has led to intense gentrification in the city, the Sunset's peripheral location has kept housing costs in the neighborhood somewhat lower. If Potrero Hill's appearance still retains some industrial roots, it is likely because of the adjacent area known as the 'Dogpatch,' for many years the center of San Francisco's manufacturing and shipping economies. Originally separated from the city proper by Mission Bay, the area became increasingly populous with the connective addition of the Long Bridge and the subsequent filling of the Bay. In the early twentieth century the low-lying Dogpatch became a shipping center, while residential areas spread up and west over the hill.

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