Welcome to San Francisco: The Wildest City in America

by David Farley on
…Or so it was in the last half of the 19th Century. This was a different kind of San Francisco. Well, okay, city by the bay is still wild, but not in the same detrimental way. This wasn’t the San Francisco of pot-smoking, orgy-attending crystal-rubbing hippies on Haight. There were no bears getting frisky in Castro bars; no party-till-dawn clubbers in Soma. San Francisco of 150 years ago was filled with petty thieves and prostitutes, sailors and sojourners, Chinese opium smokers and cheats; it was a city of ill repute. And the epicenter of it all was a neighborhood called the Barbary Coast.

Named because the neighborhood’s infamy reminded observers of the dangerous, pirate-swarmed North African waters and the feared Berber cameleers who lingered just off the southern Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast occupied what is today parts of Chinatown, Jackson Square, North Beach, and the Financial District. These days, the area is much more civilized. But there was a time when San Fracisco was the wildest city in America, thanks to the salacious and cut throat world of the Barbary Coast.

Unfortunately for fans of debauchery and unlawfulness (and, really, who’s not?), this infamous 19th-century San Francisco neighborhood eventually disappeared from the map; sunk by the 1906 earthquake and then its dark heart pierced by the silver dagger of political reforms and “vice squads” that wiped the grime from the area for good by the second decade fo the 20th century.

I’m going to be spending much of August in San Francisco trying to dig it back up. The leftover physical remnants as well as the lingering cultural relics born out of the area.

Fortunately, I’ll have a few people to help me with the digging during this month-long series on Gadling.

A few years ago, the city created a 4-mile Barbary Coast Trail, where 20 bronze medallions embedded in the sidewalk wend through Chinatown and Little Italy and other parts of downtown to take visitors by historic pubs, the first Asian temple in North America, the recently restored old U.S. mint, and old St. Mary’s Cathedral, built in 1854, whose entryway still shows an engraved warning to young men about the brothels that once surrounded the area. Historian Daniel Bacon leads regular tours of the trail.

But that’s not all. Celebrity chef Tyler Florence’s new restaurant, Wayfare Tavern, intentionally harkens back to the days of the Barbary Coast. So does the Comstock Saloon, a restaurant with an emphasis on cocktails that embraces mid-19th-century San Francisco history (it’s named after a famous Gold Rusher). Both restaurants are right on the Barbary Coast trail. On top of all that, some denizens of the area have been lobbying to officially re-name this part of town the Barbary Coast again. Five years ago they founded the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association and, recently, the San Francisco Board of Realtors recognized it as an official neighborhood.


During the month I’ll be visiting these spots that are leading a resurgent interest in all things Barbary Coast. In the meantime, there’ll be some primer posts on what made the Barbary Coast so infamous and the cultural legacy you didn’t know the neighborhood had contributed to popular culture and the American lexicon.

Until then, stay debaucherous my friends.

10 breeds of pirate – Somalis to Vikings to Japanese Pirate Ninjas

by Justin Delaney on

A yacht carrying a quartet of Americans was recently seized by Somali pirates, the latest in a string of hijackings that reaches back millenia. According to MSNBC, the seized yacht, the “S/V Quest,” is owned by Jean and Scott Adam – a couple on a worldwide quest distributing bibles. While they no doubt expected to spread the word far and wide, they were certainly not expecting to be boarded by Somali pirates off the coast of Oman in the Arab sea. The waters along the horn of Africa are a hotbed of piracy, and travelling by boat in this region is about as reckless as booking a 2 week holiday in Mogadishu.

The Somali pirates are the modern day face of an enterprise that has existed for centuries. Piracy has been part of seafaring culture since man first took to the open water. As early as 1400 BC, Lukka sea raiders from Asia Minor began committing acts of piracy throughout the Mediterranean. These early pirates were known simply as the “Sea Peoples.” Aside from these early innovators of seaward sabotage, many groups and clans have sailed under the banner of terror on the high seas. The Vikings innovated the craft, the Barbary corsairs elevated it to an art, and the pirates of the Caribbean made it famous. Many other groups, operating in the shadows of history, took to piracy on the high seas. From dark age plundering to modern day terrorism, some of these groups of pirates include:The Vikings
Hailing from Scandinavia, the Vikings pillaged much of western Europe and northern Africa. The Norsemen covered a range from Russia to Newfoundland in their graceful longships, and pioneered piracy in the middle ages. They were the original world explorers – helmeted plunderers with a thrist for adventure.

The Wokou
Around the same time Vikings were wreaking havoc in Europe, these Japanese pirates, known as Wokou, began terrorizing the Chinese and Korean coast. Most of these pirates were Ronin, merchants, and smugglers. Allegedly, some were even ninjas, throwing a paradoxical spin on the classic “pirate versus ninja” debate. Why choose when you can just be both?

Barbary Corsairs
In response to the moors being ran out of Europe, many took up residence in northern Africa. Some of these displaced seamen became pirates and raided towns and vessels in Spain, Italy, France, and beyond. The infamous Redbeard, Oruc Reis, was a notable Barbary Corsair, and sacked many coastal Italian towns.

Madagascar Pirates
Off the eastern coast of Africa, Madagascar was a lawless place during the golden age of pirateering. Since no European countries colonized Madagascar, the island was an ideal spot for pirates to lay low and plot the next heist. Allegedly, the pirate utopia of “Libertalia” was located on Madagascar. According to pirate lore, “Libertalia” was a communist colony governed by pirates for pirates, where all shared in the booty.

Orang Laut
Originally from the Spice Islands and settling in modern day Malaysia, these sea gypsies began raiding the strait of Malacca over 500 years ago. Eventually, they fell into a protective role, policing the waters for the Sultanates of Johor and Malacca. Unlike many pirates that called solid ground home, the Orang Laut lived exclusively on the water.

Classical Carribean Pirates
The pirate cliche is the Caribbean pirate, and the spokesperson is Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean. The Caribbean pirate era began when Aztec gold bound for Spain was seized by pirates in the early 16th century. This escalated into the golden age of pirateering in the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Caribbean pirates came from European origins.

Bugi Pirates of Sulawesi
The term boogeyman originated from the orchid shaped island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The Bugi pirates of southern Sulawesi were so feared that Dutch and English sailors brought home tales of horror to scare misbehaving children. The Bugianese were among the first to explore Papua New Guinea and northern Australia.

Sea Dayak of Borneo
Notorious headhunters, the sea dayaks terrorized the waters of the South China Sea, targeting vessels passing from Hong Kong to Singapore. In the mid nineteenth century, James Brooke and an army of Malays wiped out many of these pirates. Today, these people are known as the Iban and live in the old rainforests of Borneo.

Chinese Pirates
The most powerful pirate ever was a Chinese woman. In the early 19th century, an ex-prostitute named Cheng I Sao commanded a fleet of more than 1,500 ships – larger than many navies. According to CNN, she was an adept business person and controlled her fleet via a proxy named Chang Pao. She developed spy networks, created economic agreements with mainland farmers for supplies, and generally revolutionized the piracy business model. Her crews stalked the waters of the South China Sea.

Somali Pirates
The modern pirate hails from Somalia – a crossroads of the derelict. With more warlords than laws, Somalia is a disaster state. The government has been more a fleeting idea than a real thing for the last 20 years, and it shows. Warlords control fleets that operate out of coastal towns, amassing ships, arms, and wealth. The pirates use small boats and assault rifles to board both passenger and cargo ships, taking hostages, booty, or both.

Piracy causes roughly $15 billion in losses worldwide per year. The most trafficked areas for modern day piracy include the South China Sea, the Gulf of Aden (off the horn of Africa), the Niger Delta, and the infamous Strait of Malacca.

flickr image via cesargp