Gold Rush-era artifacts discovered while building the new Transbay Transit Center — like "many" booze bottles and opium pipes — are now on display near the transit hub's future home.
If you own property in San Francisco and have the patience — or the equipment — to dig long enough, there’s a chance you’ll find artifacts of The City’s colorful past.
Workers constructing the new Transbay Transit Center downtown uncovered dozens of gold-rush era artifacts under a parking lot at First and Minna in 2010. The opium pipes and “many, many” liquor bottles discovered at the site paint a picture, well, not all that different from the South of Market after-hours scene today. Substitute horses for slammed Acuras, and bitter dregs for Jell-o shots, and you’re getting close.
Some of the cooler unearthed discoveries are now on display in the lobby of 201 Mission Street, the headquarters of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority until its flagship, ultra-cool new Transbay Transit Center as soon as 2017.
A visitor to the exhibit told The AP:
“It’s very interesting to see the pottery compared to the metal things that are all rusted and ruined. The pottery looks almost new. That’s the Chinese character for longevity.”
Jesse Garnier is the editor and founder of SFBay. A Mission District native, he also teaches journalism as associate professor at San Francisco State University.
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