Pacific Avenue. Antique shops, architecture firms, people walking small dogs. Extremely civilized.
This street used to be called Pacific Street. They changed the name in nineteen twenty-nine because the old name had become so synonymous with violence and depravity that real estate agents couldn't sell property on it. When your street name is too criminal for a sales brochure, that's actually impressive.
For fifty years, from the Gold Rush to World War One, this three-block stretch was the Barbary Coast — named after the pirate coast of North Africa, because someone looked at this street and thought: you know what this reminds me of? International piracy. The musicians who played the dance halls called it Terrific Street. Not terrific meaning great — terrific meaning overwhelming. The noise. The music. Every door blasting ragtime from orchestras, steam pianos, and gramophones, all at once.
The city had a hundred police officers. For the entire city. That's one cop for every fifteen h
undred people. London had five times that ratio. The worst bar on this street was a place even the police were afraid to enter.
Let me introduce you to some of the people who lived here.
Belle Cora. Born Arabella Ryan. She ran one of San Francisco's most opulent parlor houses — velvet furniture, silk curtains, a pianoforte, the works. Her lover, Charles Cora, shot a U-S Marshal in November eight
