(cheerful music)
- [Briggs] What is going on every one?
welcome back to the "World According to Briggs".
And look at the 415,
fog city, the Golden Gate city, the city by the bay,
or just San Francisco,
whichever you prefer.
In the early 1900s,
it was called the Paris of the west.
Nobody calls it that anymore, but back in the day,
it was really pretty much a low-budget Paris.
San Francisco has a lot of problems these days.
All cities have problems and I get that,
theirs are bad and have been put on blast
for a few different reasons,
politics and their problems are pretty bad.
It's still a great city in my opinion,
San Francisco is the 16th most populous city
in the United States,
and the fourth most populous in California.
It's the second most densely populated large US city,
only being outdone by New York City.
San Francisco is both a city and a county.
It's not like a city that's inside a county,
the whole thing is a county and a city.
And that county has the seventh highest income per capita
in the US.
It's actually just under $140,000 a year per capita.
San Francisco is one of the most popular cities
for tourists in the United States.
It's known for its cool summer's fog,
beautiful architecture, steep rolling hills,
famous landmarks, like the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz,
Chinatown, and of course the cable cars.
It's also known for extreme homelessness,
wage gaps, and technology.
So what's up with San Francisco?
Let's find out.
The earliest evidence of human habitation
of what is now San Francisco dates back to 3000 BC.
San Francisco was founded on June 29th, 1776,
when colonists from Spain established
the Presidio of San Francisco,
which is a park and former US military fort at Golden Gate.
Starting in 1849, San Francisco became a boom town
with the California gold rush.
This was a big part of San Francisco
and really California's history.
So much so that almost 100 years later,
they named a football team after them, the 49ers.
They're still going today
in case you don't follow the NFL.
They named it after the fortune hunters
that showed up on San Francisco's doorstep in 1849.
The population of San Francisco
was about a thousand people in 1848.
And by December of 1849, it was over 25,000.
San Francisco, the city,
was incorporated in April 15th, 1850.
In 1906, an earthquake struck on April 18th at 5:12 am.
With an estimated magnitude of 7.9,
fires broke out throughout the city
and this lasted several days,
accounting for more than 3,000 deaths,
over 80% of the city was destroyed.
This is remembered as one of the worst
and deadliest earthquakes in US history.
The death total remains the greatest loss of life
from a natural disaster in California's history,
and high on the list of American disasters in general.
In the 20th century,
San Francisco became a Mecca for America's counterculture.
the Beat Generation writers flock to San Francisco
and centered on the North Beach neighborhood in the 1950s.
Hippies showed up in droves
to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in the 1960s,
reaching its peak in 1967 in the famous Summer of Love.
In the 1970s, the Castro became a gay urban village,
as one writer described it.
And in the late 1990s and early 2000s,
we saw the rise of the geek,
as tech savvy, young adults spread throughout the city
and its surrounding suburbs.
San Francisco has had its fair share of world famous crimes
and political drama.
In the early 1900s,
we saw the San Francisco graft trials.
This was a series of attempts from 1905 to 1908
to prosecute members
of the San Francisco board of supervisors.
This isn't the last time the board of supervisors
became embroiled in all kinds of weird drama,
they have a history of this.
San Francisco Mayor, Eugene Schmitz,
attorney Abe Ruef, I believe his name is,
and a bunch of business owners,
were accused of giving and receiving bribes.
Attorney Abe Ruef was the center of it all,
acting as an attorney for Mayor Schmitz
and approving all contracts.
He would receive thousands of dollars from business owners
and keep a portion of it for himself
and some going to the mayor.
This was big money in 1908,
considering $100 then is worth about $3,000 today.
US district attorney Francis Henry
took on the prosecution against these two.
During the trial, Henry rejected one of the jurors
because he was an ex-con
and he believed Ruef tried to plant him on the jury.
During the trial, the rejected juror shot Henry in the face.
He survived.
There is a lot that goes into this one,
which would take up the whole video
if I just tried to kind of gloss over it.
But in the end, they were convicted.
Convictions were nullified.
And eventually,
Eugene Schmitz went on to run for mayor again in 1915
and then again in 1919,
but was soundly defeated both times.
He was eventually elected
to the board of supervisors in 1921.
In the 1970s,
they had total chaos in the board of supervisors
in San Francisco.
There was a lot that led up to this,
but there was a supervisor named Dan white and Harvey milk.
Harvey milk was from the Castro.
He was the first openly gay official
elected in the history of California,
and he was elected
to the San Francisco board of supervisors.
Like I said, there's a lot that goes into this story.
But Dan white resigned because of some issues
that he had with other supervisors.
And there was a whole bunch of nonsense that went on.
He resigned.
Well, then he wanted to take back his resignation.
Originally Mayor Moscone of San Francisco
agreed to take back his resignation,
but for pressure from other supervisors,
they decided to not take his resignation back.
This, I guess, sent him over the edge.
Dan White snuck in a basement window,
avoiding the metal detectors,
made his way up to the mayor's office,
shot and killed the mayor.
Then he encountered supervisor Harvey Milk
shot and killed him.
This all went down in city hall
and it was truly a tragedy.
Did you ever see the movie "Milk"?
I brought it up before on my channel.
"Milk" with Sean Penn, he plays Harvey Milk.
It's a great movie
and it kind of sheds light on the whole thing.
But this was a tragedy in San Francisco's history
and really the United States' history.
Dan White's defense was,
he was pushed so far and he was suffering from depression
and all these other things.
He didn't get that much time.
He only served five years of a seven year sentence.
On October 21st, 1985,
less than two years after Dan White's release from prison,
he committed suicide in his garage by carbon monoxide.
San Francisco, and really the area,
has a history of serial killers as well.
The really famous one, like the Zodiac Killer.
The Doodler who killed no less than 14 people
in the gay community.
He liked to sketch his victims before the slain,
hence the name, The Doodler.
You had the Santa Rosa Hitchhike Killer.
The Golden State Killer, who did his crimes in the 1980s.
And the one I found most interesting
because I'd never heard about it
until I started researching this video,
The Zebra Killers.
They actually called themselves the Death Angels,
but this was a group of four black Muslim serial killers
who went around and killed white people
in 1973 and 1974.
They're accused of killing 15 people
and wounding eight to 10 others.
They believe there could be a lot more,
but they're really not sure,
but definitely confirmed 15 dead.
And I don't know,
when I was a kid growing up in Southern California,
I just always had this image of San Francisco
being this place where there was tons of serial killers.
There must've been a bunch of movies
or something back in the day about all that,
and I just knew it and had it in the back of my head
that you don't wanna move to San Francisco
because you're gonna be killed by serial killer.
It's weird, I know.
All right, let's talk about the living.
In the 2000 census, the city of San Francisco,
not the whole Metro Area,
had 776,000 residents.
In 2020, this last census, they had 882,000 residents.
The whole Metro Area in 2020 was 4.7 million.
I don't normally talk about demographics of things,
but I think we will.
And this study by Pew Research
said the largest religious group
in San Francisco Metropolitan Area
are Christians with 48%,
followed by no-religion whatsoever, 35%,
Hindus are 5%, the Jewish community is 3% of San Francisco,
Buddhist, 2%, and Muslims are 1%,
of a variety of other smaller groups that are less than 1%.
The racial makeup looks a little like this.
In 2019, the white population was 45.2% of San Francisco.
The Asian community was 34.9%.
The Hispanic community was 15.24%.
And the black community was 5.4%.
All the others are less than 1%.
There's also a lot more that goes into that
because there's a lot of multi-race things
I didn't include in that
that would just slow down the video
with a whole bunch of numbers.
The California gold rush of 1849
brought rapid growth to San Francisco,
making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time.
This gold rush turned San Francisco
into the principle banking and finance center
of the West Coast in the 1800s.
This is when and where Bank of America and Wells Fargo
and a bunch of other banks were founded.
They still have a lot of banks there,
but they've turned mostly towards the tech side of things.
You've got companies like Twitter,
Airbnb, Square, Salesforce,
Gap, which isn't a tech company,
and Levi-Strauss, not tech companies, but they're there.
Dropbox, Uber, Lyft.
Twitch was originally there,
but now they're owned by Amazon, so who knows?
This list could change on a weekly basis,
depending on who buys what tech company,
but you know, that's who's there right now,
along with a couple of hundred other famous tech companies.
Other big industries here are really education.
They have some major universities in San Francisco
and really the area.
You've got University of California, San Francisco,
University of San Francisco,
San Francisco State University.
Then if you branch out into the surrounding area,
they got all kinds of things like Berkeley and Stanford
and so many others.
Neighborhoods.
When it comes to neighborhoods,
it's always a loaded subject.
Residents, locals, whatever,
have their opinions on what's the best, what's the worst,
so I just go off the stats, I have to.
And there will be people that disagree and I'm sorry,
but these are just the stats.
I'll give you the top five neighborhoods
and we won't get into all the numbers on it,
that'll slow it down again.
Probably the best neighborhood
is the Presidio of San Francisco,
even though it's really a park,
but the surrounding neighborhoods around it are really nice.
This one has overall A pluses.
Of course, you're gonna have crime at San Francisco,
it's a city,
but the Presidio of San Francisco is probably
the nicest neighborhood to live in,
followed by Hayes Valley, Telegraph Hill,
Lower Haight, and Alamo Square.
Myself, I like Russian Hill, Pacific Heights,
and probably the Marina District.
When you look at the worst neighborhoods,
this is where a lot of people are gonna have issue
because some of the neighborhoods are just industrial
and they're horrible,
but we're kind of talking where people actually live.
And again, people are gonna disagree with this,
but we're going off stats.
Mission Neighborhood is horrible with crime, homeless,
and everything else like that,
followed by Tenderloin, Chinatown isn't the greatest,
South of Market, and Excelsior.
Being on the water,
you know San Francisco is gonna have great seafood.
They're also known for their Chinese food
along with a whole bunch of other things.
What I find unique is they have two great places to eat
that have the name Lucca in it.
The first one is Little Lucca.
This is a sandwich place that is amazing.
The sandwiches are huge.
That's down in south San Francisco on El Camino.
It is great.
I had a tri-tip sandwich there like two years ago,
I still dream about that sandwich.
The other one is Lucca Delicatessen.
That's in the Marina District.
They've been dishing out sandwiches and ravioli since 1929.
It's like old school delicatessen.
You know, they got the salami hanging from the ceiling,
wheels of cheese, all that good stuff.
You also have House of Prime Rib.
Now, if you're going there with people
that are gonna eat prime rib,
and you think you're gonna get something else,
maybe a salad or something,
you might get a salad,
but this place really only serves prime rib.
I'm not even joking.
Well, prime rib and drinks.
Don't go there looking for a steak or some chicken
or something like that.
If you're in San Francisco and you like Chinese food,
you gotta eat at Sam Wo Restaurant.
This restaurant is believed to be the oldest
in San Francisco's Chinatown.
And then, obviously,
being the very oldest Chinese restaurant in America.
It's kind of one of those things you gotta go there
and just eat,
so you could say you did.
Obviously, the big one is gonna be the Golden Gate Bridge.
Go across it, sit there and look at it.
This is a great place for selfies
and upping your Instagram game
like I've said in the last video.
The Golden Gate Bridge
is one of the most photographed things in the world.
Y'all's got to take a ride on the cable cars.
I know it doesn't sound that exciting,
but again, this is a great thing for selfies,
get yourself hanging off the side of it,
have your friend take a picture.
Don't fall off into the street and get hit by someone.
This is pretty cool.
These cable cars have been going on since 1873.
You also have the Exploratorium,
one of the top family attractions in San Francisco.
Its popular science museum exhibits
for both children and adults, it's really cool.
A lot of hands-on stuff there too.
The next thing is a must-do in San Francisco
for any tourist.
Go down to Fisherman's Wharf.
Lot of good seafood down there,
but it's really touristy and it's usually pretty crowded,
but it's kind of one of those things you gotta go do.
If you do go down there,
I always stay at the noble house hotels
like the Edgewater in Seattle.
They've got a really cool one there called
the Argonaut Hotel and it's right on Fisherman's Wharf.
So stay there.
San Francisco has a lot of famous people
that have lived there,
but really not a ton of famous people
that were born and raised there.
Some of those include Ansel Adams,
the greatest photographer of all time, in my opinion.
Steve Jobs was actually born and adopted in San Francisco.
Mel Blanc, who was the voice of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig
and so many others.
Alicia Silverstone, I loved her.
She was from "Clueless", great actress.
Robert McNamara.
He was the eighth United States Secretary of Defense.
His president was John F. Kennedy,
vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson,
and he's probably one of the smartest Americans of all time.
Robert Frost, the poet.
O.J. Simpson, professional football player,
convicted criminal, and suspected murderer.
Jack London, writer.
"Call of the Wild", "White Fang".
So many great books.
I think I've read every single thing he wrote
when I was between the ages of 12 and 14.
Caspar Weinberger.
He was the 15th United States Secretary of Defense.
He was also the 20th director
of the Office of Management and Budget,
chair of the Federal Trade Commission
and the 10th United States Secretary of Health,
Education and Welfare.
When he was the Secretary of Defense,
I think around 1986, he'd come to Fort Lauderdale.
I was there, I didn't meet him or anything like that,
but it's one of those things where,
you know, they watch us train
and then they come up say a few words and then leave.
I think I was so tired, I don't even know what he said.
San Francisco is a sporting town, believe it or not.
They've got the Golden State Warriors,
they've got the San Francisco Giants baseball team,
and of course, the San Francisco 49ers.
They were easily one of the most dominant teams
during the 1980s.
San Francisco 49ers have been to the Super Bowl seven times
and they've won it five and only lost twice.
So in a nutshell,
San Francisco is one of the greatest cities
in the United States.
Not too long ago,
they pulled a bunch of travel professionals
and tourists and things like that,
and it ranked right up there with Paris and Rome and Vienna
as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
They do have their problems,
and the homeless part it is a bad situation
and we could go on and on all day
about just the homeless situation in San Francisco alone.
But in the end of the day, that's not the entire city,
the whole place isn't overrun.
They've got some horrible neighborhoods that, you know,
probably should be avoided,
and more help should be given to these people.
Don't let that steer you away from San Francisco though.
Stay in the right areas.
If you wanna move there
and you could afford to move there, do it.
Just watch where you go.
Kind of like every city,
but San Francisco's got it bad in some areas.
I love San Francisco, I'll be there again in two months.
All right, that's today's video.
Don't forget to like, share, and leave me a comment.
Tell me what you thought.
This is a new series of videos we're doing,
so, you know, whatever you think
we'd like to hear what you think could be added,
what we could take away,
as long as it's productive.
All right, everyone,
have a great day, be nice to each other.