Steuart and Mission - Bloody Thursday

A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.

The waterfront strike began on May 9, 1934, when longshoremen up and down the West Coast walked off the job. Their central demand was a union hiring hall to replace the shape-up, a daily scramble in which foremen picked men for work, often in exchange for kickbacks. Sailors and other maritime unions joined them, and the ports sat idle for weeks.

On July 5, employers tried to force the port open. Police and strikers fought on Rincon Hill and along the waterfront, and near this corner, outside the union hall at 113 Steuart Street, police opened fire. Longshoreman Howard Sperry and union cook Nick Bordoise were killed. Their funeral procession up Market Street drew tens of thousands of silent marchers, and days later a general strike shut down much of the city. Arbitration that fall gave the longshoremen jointly run hiring halls.

Look for the marker at the corner. West Coast dockworkers still stop work each July 5 to remember the day.

More on Wikipedia: 1934 West Coast waterfront strike · Harry Bridges

Stops on this tour

  1. Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
  2. Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
  3. Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
  4. North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
  5. Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
  6. Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
  7. The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
  8. Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
  9. Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
  10. Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
  11. The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
  12. The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
  13. Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
  14. South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom