The Sunset district grew southwestward, from the vicinity of Irving Street and 9th Avenue at its northeast corner, and after the opening of the Twin Peaks Tunnel in 1913, from the vicinity of West Portal and Saint Francis Wood at its southeast corner toward the northwest. The area between, and west of 19th Avenue was the last large real estate tract in San Francisco to be built. It was completed just after World War II. (A smaller tract east of the peaks, Diamond Heights, was completed in the 1960s.)
The Inner Sunset is the area east of 19th Avenue, slightly closer to downtown, and the Outer Sunset is west of 19th Avenue.
Most of the contemporary Sunset district was the creation of Henry Doelger who, according to the Western Neighborhoods Project Web site, either operated a hot dog stand at Seventh Avenue and Lincoln Way in the 1920s... or operated a tamale stand in nearby Golden Gate Park where he sold bathtub gin and homemade beer. At this site, either version will do. "Doelger City," the heart of this tract extends from Kirkham to Quintara, between Sunset Reservoir and West Sunset Park.
While the Sunset connotes 1950s blandness to many City residents -- who around San Francisco hadn't heard the expression, "He's sooo 'Sunset'!" -- and fog, in reality it represents solid middle-class San Francisco at some of its best. "Bland" in the hometown and decade of the Beats is a relative term.
There's also a common belief elsewhere that this area has a flat topography. It doesn't. See the 3-D topo map to put the lie to that. (Or ask any bicyclist who pedals through the neighborhood!) A few pictures on the following pages show a wide ridge cutting northwest to southeast (the usual orientation for Peninsula ranges) acoss the middle of the Sunset. Here again, calling the Sunset hilly is relative: it's hillier than most cities.
I have not been to the Hsus' house in many years, but the living room is exactly the same as I remember it. When Auntie An-mei and Uncle George moved to the Sunset district from Chinatown twenty-five years ago, they bought new furniture. It's all there, still looking mostly new under yellowed plastic. The same turquoise couch shaped in a semicircle of nubby tweed. The colonial end tables made out of heavy maple. A lamp of fake cracked porcelain. Only the scroll-length calendar, free from the Bank of Canton, changes every year.
I remember this stuff, because when we were children, Aunti An-mei didn't let us touch any of her new furniture except through the clear plastic coverings. On Joy Luck nights, my parents brought me to the Hsus'. Since I was the guest, I had to take care of all the younger children, so many children it seemed as if there were always one baby who was crying from having bumped its head on a table leg.
"You are responsible," said my mother, which meant I was in trouble if anything was spilled, burned, lost, broken, or dirty. I was responsible, no matter who did it. ...
From The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, New York: Ivy Books, 1989. (ISBN 0-8041-0630-4)