Ingleside

What Time is It?

After work I headed to do a San Francisco neighborhood to sketch a portal to the past.

I was in the Ingleside neighborhood and my sketching subject was a large timepiece.

This timepiece was dedicated on October 10, 1913. The irony is that this massive sun dial is in an area of San Francisco known for fog.

I see by the sun dial that it is almost 4. The skies were uncommonly sunny.

I sat on a bench and started to sketch.

The sundial was built as the centerpiece of the Ingleside neighborhood that was being developed in the early twentieth century.

The area was formerly a racetrack first opened in 1895 for horse racing. Horse racing at the track proved to be so popular that Southern Pacific Railroad built a branch line to the entrance of the track.

From this Google map, the oval of the race track is still intact. The sundial on the western side of the oval.

The track later featured early auto races. Businesses slowly declined and the last race at the track was held on December 30, 1905.

The site was later developed as the Ingleside neighborhood.