San Francisco's Oldest Alley -- Hotaling Place
In this short narrated video, Austin Klar highlights Hotaling Place, a narrow one‑block alley in San Francisco’s downtown Jackson Square that holds the distinction of being the city’s oldest alley. He explains that the wavy painted lines on the pavement trace the original shoreline before the city’s rapid expansion during the Gold Rush. The alley is named for 19th‑century merchant and real‑estate developer Anson Parsons Hotaling, whose headquarters and whiskey warehouse were built there in the 1860s and famously survived the 1906 earthquake. Today the alley is a bustling corridor of retail shops, restaurants, and bars, and local lore adds a quirky element: stories of “ghost cows,” the specters of livestock that supposedly roamed the alley in the chaos after the quake. Klar invites viewers to follow for more Bay Area history.
