My Head Up Above the Sand
February 25th, 2011 by Glenn Lym | Filed under Uncategorized.It has been 10 months since I blogged about delving into the sand dune history of the South of Market district of San Francisco. In that time, I’ve been putting together a 3D CAD model of San Francisco as seen in the 1852-3 US Coastal Survey Map. This has been an intense stop and go effort that involved figuring out the quirks of that otherwise august survey, finding my sophisticated CAD program’s un-documented limitations, and working through dead ends in the bizarre documentation of an Italian survey mapping CAD plug-in. The basic 3D topo map is finally done.
I’m just finishing populating that 3D model with a couple of abbreviated models of signature buildings from that era including the adobe Mission Dolores complex that stretches from its current Dolores Street location out over what is now 16th Street.
Another, later building is the sprawling “New” San Francisco City Hall built between 1873-1897.
Now, I can move on to take this 3D material and the reams of research notes I have on these subjects, and script of HERE4 and HERE5 – on the filling in of San Francisco and the construction of the old, New City Hall. Along the way I hope to cover the Emeryville Shell Mound and deal with how audacious it was to propose building Market Street.