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| Landmark #462 | San Francisco County | Visited: February 23, 2013 | Plaque? YES! 🙂 |
| What is it? | A plaque low on a building wall! |
| What makes it historical? | THE GUIDE SAYS: In a second-floor room in a store that once stood here, forty pioneers of the Jewish faith gathered on September 26, 1849, Yom Kippur (5610), and participated in the first Jewish religious services in San Francisco.
OTHER TIDBITS: Specifically, this congregation was known as the Congregation Sherith Israel! From 1849 until 1852, they jumped from building to building for their services until they secured enough money to build a synagogue on Stockton Street. It took only a month to build, and once it opened, it provided services according to the customs of Polish Orthodoxy! Among the most famous of these early Jewish pioneers in San Francisco was Emperor Joshua Norton I. The son of English immigrants, Emperor Norton arrived in San Francisco in 1849 with the Gold Rush, became a merchant and real estate investor then went broke in 1856 after trying to corner the rice market! Three years later, he was reborn, the self-proclaimed emperor of the United States! For the next two decades, he wandered San Francisco and Oakland wearing a gawdy blue military uniform with a huge hat, a cane and a sword, and would inspect buildings and occasionally make proclamations! In 1869, he ordered a steel suspension bridge to be constructed between Oakland and San Francisco, but it took 64 years before the Bay Bridge became a reality (independently of the Emperor’s proclamation)! |
| How can I Help the Helpers? | HERE’S HOW:
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| Where is this place? | LISTED DIRECTIONS: 735 Montgomery between Washington and Jackson San Francisco, CA 94111 ANNOTATIONS: From Los Angeles: ~380mi (612km) — 6.4hrs |
| When should I go? | Whenever the mood strikes you! |