Terrific Street

TERRIFIC STREET AND THE
INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT

Pacific Ave. between Kearny and Montgomery St.

The devastation wrought by the 1906 San Francisco
Earthquake and Fire forever diminished the sordid
prominence of the Barbary Coast. What was rebuilt
was confined to a smaller, tamer stretch on Pacific Ave.
known as "Terrific Street," where the spirit of vice
survived among adjoining bars, dance halls, and some
of the city's first jazz clubs. This recovery was short-lived
though, and in 1917 police shuttered nearly every
establishment on the block. During the 1940s, the same
stretch would have a brief revival as the rebranded
"International Settlement."