SF New Developments

The little stub of Mint Street, and the block of Jessie Street that runs from Mint into Fifth Street near Mission Street, had nothing but potential. The reality, however, was grim. There were drugs, there were derelicts, there was public urination. The two little alleys were a big mess.

But now, the two streets are being reborn into something called Mint Plaza. Cars have been banned from a block of Jessie, and it will be transformed into a small plaza, like something in Europe, with restaurants, green trees, outdoor dining and a new atmosphere.

Mint Street, which runs off Fifth into Jessie, will get a new look, too — with new pavement, new parking arrangements, and a cafe or two.

“This is the greatest thing that ever happened around here,” said Joey Chait, managing partner of the Provident Loan Association.

Provident is kind of a San Francisco classic, housed in a building faced in white terra-cotta at the corner of Mint and Mission. It had a cameo role in “The Maltese Falcon,” Dashiell Hammett’s famed detective novel.

The little alley complex around the 1874 Old Mint was once one of the brighter corners of Hammett’s San Francisco. Hammett himself worked around the corner on Market Street and knew the little alleys well.

Up the street at the corner of Mint and Jessie was a five-story brick candy factory, and next to that, on Jessie, was the San Francisco Fire Department’s Station One, the busiest in the city. The firefighters there thought of themselves as elite. “Alley Cats,” they called themselves.

The fire station was relocated some years ago. A kind of urban bleakness gradually set in, and the two streets went downhill.

About 1997, the Martin Building Co. started managing various properties in the area — mostly along Jessie. An old department store warehouse is being converted into offices and residences, and so is the 10-story building over the old firehouse.

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