San Francisco Relocated by Diane C. Donovan

Author:Diane C. Donovan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: unknown
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

This 1936 photograph sports the title “sliding house on Bernal Heights hill” on the back of the image, but research indicates it may have been located at the top of Folsom Street and was being moved by Hanson Brothers to allow for the completion of the construction of Bernal Heights Boulevard, which was built between 1931 and 1936 to circle Bernal Hill. (Courtesy of the History Center, San Francisco Public Library.)

Five

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

BUILDING MOVES OF THE 1940S–1960S

Joseph Caruso, a hardworking Italian American contractor with a big family and a big heart, saw opportunity when the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system employed eminent domain in the 1960s to inform people that their houses had to be moved or destroyed to make way for progress. His journey from contractor to house mover centered on obtaining cheap houses at auction for $300 to $500, moving them onto his vacant lots, and renting them. Joseph Caruso’s small local Portola District business would change the lives of everyone he touched. Sweeny Street and Gaven Street vacant lots hosted groups of his buildings (as many as nine in one row), with his construction expertise lending to their move, reconstruction, rental, and eventual sale. His willingness to tell a small child stories about his house-moving business was a direct influence on the creation of this history some 40 years later. (Courtesy of the Caruso family collection.)

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