buried treasure

So very cool.  Here's a great post about and map of the buried ships under downtown San Francisco.  I remember when I was working in the Embarcadero Center in the 90s and the nearby building which housed Arby's and Yang Sing (I'm southern.  Where you can eat are our landmarks.) was torn down to build a new building.  During demolition/construction, they found an old ship;.  They excavated and studied the ship in place, then reburied it and build on top of it again.  In theory, preserving it for future excavations.

I always enjoy it when visitors question why the streets are numbered downtown, but past First Street, there are still four more blocks.   As you can see on the map, First Street was originally the first street along the water.  San Francisco continued its push along the wharfs, using the often abandoned ships (crew and passengers ran for the gold fields) as buildings and lodging, and infilling the wharf with sand to make new ground along the ships and wharfs, and expanded the coastline of the City by what is now several blocks.

Here is the map rotated to north and more easily recognized, You can see that once upon a time, if you were walking east down Market and crossed First Steet you'd either step onto a pier, or get wet.

If you are at all interested in the history of San Francisco, as revealed in historic maps, photographs and newspapers, you can happily get lost for hours on Burrito Justice (You can pry my burrito out of my cold, dead hand.).