Sunset Author Takes a Hard Look at District's Early Development

By Ryder Miller

Lorri Ungaretti, basking in the newfound local fame that has resulted from the publication of her book on the history of the Sunset District, has discovered how exciting local history can be.

"People call me because their house or friend or family member is in the book. I love the fact that I am getting recognized for it," she said.

Ungaretti was motivated to write a history book about the Sunset because she could not find any in-depth books on the subject.

Ungaretti gives City Guide's Inner Sunset District history tour. When she joined City Guides, which gives tours throughout the City, she was given a basic script but could not find any supplemental information for the tour.

"I complained to my mother that there were no books on the Sunset. She said, 'you have to write the book,'" Ungaretti said.

Ungaretti said the Sunset District was originally called "Outside Lands," in 1866.

"It was not an area people thought would be lived in," she said.

The Sunset District became known by its current name in 1886.

"The area was developed primarily as a residential neighborhood. There were few people living in the Sunset until the '30s," Ungaretti said.

Her book tells of an incredible amount of urban development over a short period of time.

"After the fire and earthquake of 1906, people didn't want to live downtown anymore," Ungaretti said.

Ungaretti's father told her that when he was younger the area was all sand dunes.

"It didn't occur to me that it was like a desert," she said.

The area eventually developed around the mass-transportation rail line to the Pacific Ocean that began 1883.

New transportation lines eventually helped the development of the central area of the Sunset and the Parkside districts when the Twin Peaks Tunnel opened in 1918, the L-Taraval line in 1919 and the Sunset N-Judah Tunnel, in 1928.

Almost all of the Sunset's original habitat and many of its early homes are gone. Early houses were built on the sand without solid foundations and had to be replaced.

Although almost all of the Sunset has been developed, Ungaretti is glad the area is sprinkled with parks.

Ungaretti is always happy to tell people's stories and has become fascinated with historical details.

"I have met some wonderful people," she said. "People have been very generous with photos and stories. It has been very gratifying."

Ungaretti has noticed an unusual loyalty among former residents now living elsewhere. While working on her book for Arcadia Publishing, she was given memoirs of people who grew up in the Sunset.

"They wrote with such affection," Ungaretti said. "It is a neighborhood which people seemed more attached to than other neighborhoods in the City."

Among the famous people from the Sunset are Barbara Eden, from "I Dream of Jeanie;" Assemblyman John Burton; well-known surfer Fred Van Dyke; and news broadcast journalist Terry Lowery.

The Sunset District has also had champions of open space, like Rosalie Stern and Carl Larsen, who donated large tracts of land to become parks.

Ungaretti, a San Francisco native, grew up in the Parkside and went to Juan Crespi School and Abraham Lincoln High School. She then attended UC Riverside and San Francisco State University, where she got an MBA.

Currently the director of marketing and publications for the Golden Gate University School of Law, she produces brochures, catalogs and the school's "Alumni Magazine."

"That's how I make my living," she says.

She is also affiliated with the Western Neighborhoods Project, a non profit dedicated to preserving the history of the City west of Twin Peaks, and is a board member at City Guides.

Another group Ungaretti is planning to join is the Friends of the Library Capital Campaign Committee, which raises money to purchase supplies for local libraries.

Ungaretti said her fantasy is to own a modest house in the Inner Sunset.

In the future, she wants to expand the book to create an even more-comprehensive Sunset history book, which would include the neighborhood's changing demographics.

"The Sunset is always evolving," she said.

The area, once mostly Italian and Irish, is now primarily Asian.

Ungaretti would also like to include a whole chapter on the developers of the area and include more about churches and schools. The current book ends in the early '60s, and she would like to update it to the present.

Another of the stories she would like to tell in more detail is that of Carville, an area where Sunset residents lived in abandoned cable cars.

Ungaretti's editor at Arcadia Publishing, which publishes the local history series "Images of America," is John Poultney.

"Whenever I went out to Fort Funston, I saw what the Sunset looked like before there were houses out there. That was one of the first places I wanted to look into," Poultney said.

"There is a lot of interest in the area. It is off to a good start."

For more information about Ungaretti's book on the history of the Sunset District, go to the website at www.arcadiapublishing.com or call (888) 313-2665.