text: South Park, San Francisco
  
  South Park is a small urban park and eponymous neighborhood in the larger South of Market neighborhood of San Francisco, California, consisting of 0.85 acres (0.34 ha) of public ground. The neighborhood centers on the small, oval-shaped park and South Park Street, which encircles the park. South Park is bounded by Second, Third, Bryant, and Brannan streets.
  
  The two halves of the South Park Street re-join at both ends of the park and continue for short, straight stretches before terminating at Second Street on one end and Third Street on the other. This creates a curved line of buildings, which gives the street and park an unusual enclosed, urban character. Local businesses and restaurants dot the street, as well as a large number of apartment buildings.
  
  In January 2016, the park was closed temporarily in order to undergo a $2.8 million renovation, which will include comprehensive infrastructural and cosmetic upgrades.
  
  History
  
  The South Park block was assembled in 1852 by English entrepreneur George Gordon.
  
  The park was originally constructed in 1855 as the center of an exclusive residential community. It was modeled after a square in London, England, as a housing development of seventeen mansions plus townhouses (a total of 58 residences) on a 550-foot oval around a private grassy park.  It featured the first paved streets and sidewalks in San Francisco.  A windmill in the center of the park pumped water for the houses.
  
  From the late 19th to the early 20th century, South Park was also the center of one of San Francisco's largest Japanese American communities. Sandwiched between the waterfront and the South Pacific Railroad terminus, the area featured Japanese owned and operated hostels, hotels, baths, and shops. Many of the structures remain: the Madrid Hotel occupies what once was the Eimoto Hotel at 22 South Park.
  
  The neighborhood began to lose exclusivity after the construction of Second Street, which made the area accessible to less affluent residents.  Rich residents moved to the newer Nob Hill neighborhood in the late 19th century, and the city took over the park in 1897. It suffered further decline after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when most of the homes around the Rincon Hill neighborhood were destroyed. The oval park, however, has remained unchanged and is still a central meeting place in the neighborhood.  After the quake, the neighborhood was rebuilt as warehouses, light manufacturing, nightclubs, and hotels.  Immigrants from various countries came to the neighborhood, as well as longshoremen, drug addicts, and vagrants.  The neighborhood began to attract artists and young professionals beginning in the 1970s.
  
  The area flourished during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, due to flexible office space at initially low rent.  It was sometimes described as "ground zero" of the dot com revolution, with many start-up Internet companies based in the area. By late 2001, however, many of these companies had closed their doors. Yet, as of 2006, in an era for the Internet that some have dubbed Web 2.0, South Park has once again become home to many small Web-related companies.
  
  Recently, some neighbors in South Park have expressed opposition to a proposal to put an above-ground stop on the Central Subway at the southwestern end of South Park Street, on Third Street. Finally the routing of the line has been decided by the Municipal Transportation Agency, and will be along Fourth Street, one block farther west.
  
  South Park businesses
  
  Current 
  (as of January 2016)
  
  Architecture, engineering and design
  Aidlin Darling Design
  Arcanum Architecture
  Blue Clover Devices
  CMG Landscape Architecture
  Fennie + Mehl Architects
  Levy Design Partners
  Mark Horton / Architecture
  Pfau Long Architecture
  Sand Studios
  Strandberg Engineering
  Valerio Dewalt Train Associates
  WRNS Studio
  Zack | de Vito Architecture + Construction
  zero ten design
  
  Arts and culture
  Lamplighters Music Theatre, nonprofit music theater company
  Gallery 16, contemporary art gallery
  
  Food and beverage
   Blue Bottle Coffee
  Caffe Centro, coffeehouse
  HRD, Asian fusion restaurant
  Small Foods, cafe and "grab and go" grocery store
  South Park Cafe
  
  Media and web
  Alternet (Independent Media Institute), journalism website
  Apartment List
  Macworld
  PC World
  R/GA
  SFist
  Tendo Communications, marketing communications,
  Wired, tech magazine
  
  Technology
  1BOG, One Block Off the Grid, clean-tech solar 
  AxleHire, integrated logistics provider
  Dropbox, web-based file hosting service 
  Fantasy Interactive, full service digital agency
   Foxcove, IT Services Firm
  Flowcast, fintech company
  Grid Net, WiMAX based power meters
  TravelBank, travel expense management
  Tune, mobile marketing firm
  iOffer, Social marketplace
  Olark, live chat provider
  Okta, Internet identity and access management provider
  Presence, Digital Product (web, mobile, XR) development and strategy
  Prowl, music discovery
  Sauce Labs
  Slideshare.net, a slide hosting service
  Splunk, software company
  Strava, Athlete GPS tracking and analysis
  Rubicon Project, advertising automation
  Wcities
  
  Venture capital
  Accel
  Coatue
  GGV Capital
  GV
  Kleiner Perkins
  Norwest Venture Partners
  Redpoint Ventures
  Singtel Innov8
  Vertex Ventures US
  
  Former
  Adaptive Path, Web consulting
  Bigwords.com, used textbooks
  Cumulus Networks, creators of Cumulus Linux, a network operating system 
  DigaCast, Digital Music.(recapitalized in 2008)
  Dipity, Web-based Digital Timelines 
  Engine Yard, Platform as a Service
  frog design inc., design consultancy
  Fuseproject, product design and branding studio that designed new Mini, founded by Yves Behar
  FutureAdvisor, A digital investment advisor that optimizes all of your investment accounts automatically.
  Get Satisfaction, web-based customer support
  Grockit, Web-based collaborative learning platform
  Hummer Winblad, Venture Capital firm
  Lookout Mobile Security
  LookSmart, online advertising
  Lumosity, Brain fitness
  Mashape, Cloud API Hub
  Mule Design Studio, Web design
  Obvious Corp., blog-related company, acquired by Odeo.
  Odeo, podcasting
  Organic, Inc., formerly in same building as Wired Magazine.
  Quokka Sports, on-line sports coverage
  PeerSpace, short-term work space marketplace
  Podshow, podcasting
  Prismatic, social discovery,
  Rubyred Labs, Web applications
   Sherman Clay (Steinway distributorship), now rented out to dot com companies
  Socialcast, Enterprise social software developer
  Slide.com, Widget software maker (moved when acquired by Google)
  Sputnik Integrated, web design and development 
  Technorati, blogging
  Twistage, video workflow
  Twitter, micro blogging
  VerticalResponse, direct marketing
  Wikimedia Foundation
  Xoom Corporation, money transfer
  YouNoodle, innovation data analytics company
  
  Neighbors
  South Park is located between the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (Interstate 80) and Oracle Park, the city's baseball stadium. Many of the nearby streets are one-way, and many carry traffic to and from the bridge, the stadium, and Interstate 280, which terminates slightly to the south of the neighborhood.
  
  Oracle Park (formerly Pacific Bell Park, then SBC Park, then AT&T Park), where the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team plays, is two blocks south and east of South Park.
  
  Moscone Center, San Francisco's main convention facility, is four blocks north and west of South Park.
  
  References
  
  External links
  
  San Francisco Chronicle article As Wikipedia moves to S.F., founder discusses planned changes published November 30, 2007 says "Wikipedia [...] has found office space in the city's South Park neighborhood."
  The San Francisco Block Book (1901) p. 332 showing "100 Vara Block 359" (South Park)
  more recent Block Book page from the County Recorder-Assessor's Office showing Block 3775 (formerly 100 Vara Block 359, i.e., South Park)
  
  Category:Parks in San Francisco
  Category:Neighborhoods in San Francisco
  Category:South of Market, San Francisco