Westwood Park, San Francisco

Westwood Park is a residential neighborhood located in southwestern San Francisco, California, near St. Francis Wood and City College of San Francisco. Westwood Park was built as a segregated neighborhood for white families, with the development's 1917 founding documents reading: "No person of African, Japanese, Chinese or any Mongolian descent shall be allowed to purchase, own or lease any real property in said Westwood Park."

It wasn't until 1959 that the first black family, Dorothy Mae Provost Adams, and her husband, Artemus Adams, were able to purchase a house in the neighborhood with the help of a third party. Upon learning that the home was sold to a black family, the seller refused to give the Adams the keys to their new home. After six months of failed attempts to convince the seller that they should be allowed to move in, the Adams broke into their own home and began the long-delayed process of moving in.[1]

Although racial restrictions were declared illegal and unenforceable in 1948 by Shelley v. Kraemer, social pressure and threats of violence were used to keep neighborhoods segregated, such as the 1958 cross burning in the nearby neighborhood of Ingleside Terraces.[2] The restrictive covenant remained on the official deeds and documents for homes in the neighborhood for the next four decades until Norman Yee successfully led a campaign to remove the language in 1992.

Today, the neighborhood remains economically segregated as Section IV of the neighborhood's covenants continues to prohibit the construction of "any flats, apartment houses ... nor shall any building be erected thereon excepting only residence or dwelling houses, nor shall more than one residence or dwelling house be erected on any single lot."[3]

Architecturally, the neighborhood contains a mix of smaller, more modest Craftsman style and Mediterranean style bungalows on a series of concentric oval-shaped streets. The ovals are bisected by Miramar Avenue, which features a landscaped median planted with pines. Many streets in this neighborhood have a suffix of "wood," such as Eastwood, Northwood, Wildwood, and so forth.

Westwood Park is bordered by Monterey Boulevard (to the north), Ocean Avenue (to the south), Faxon Avenue (to the west), and Phelan Avenue now Frida Kahlo Way (to the east).