2101-2015 Van Ness Avenue

San Francisco, Initial Historic Evaluation, LGBTQ Historic Context (2017)

Brewster Historic Preservation was hired to provide an initial historic resources evaluation of the site in anticipation of a potential future project that may alter this building. The building at 2101-2015 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco’s Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood was completed in 1910 initially as an apartment building and renovated in the late 1940s to become the Van Ness Pacific Medical Center. From 1965 to 1988, the building housed a mental health support center for gay and transgendered people, The Center for Special Problems, which was identified in the recently completed LGBTQ Historic Context Statement as a potential historic site for the LGBTQ community. Specific tasks included a review and summary the LGBTQ Historic Context identifying the specific nature of the historic site, provision of additional historical information about the organization and the staff which once occupied one floor the building, including the duration of the organization’s tenancy at the site, a review of building permits for the property, and an assessment of integrity.