Albert Shumate published a book in 1988 entitled RINCON HILL AND SOUTH PARK. It ran between Second and Third Streets and Bryant St. runs parallel to South Park ... rear gardens of South Park would back on to homes on Bryant. Here's a part of the description from the flyleaf: "Rincon Hill & South Park is a detailed book of San Francisco's early fashionable residential district. Historian Albert Sumate presents the long overdue story of this unique neighborhood, a story filled with the people and places that have become legendary ... Rincon Hill , rising above Yerba Buena Cove in gold rush San Francisco became home to the leading citizens from the 1850s to the 1870s. When Nob Hill was still a wind-blown sandy promontory and Pacific Heights was but a wilderness. rincon Hill was a well established pretigious community, dotted with fine homes overlooking the economic heart of the emerging city. South Park, developed on the slopes of Rincon Hill by George Gordon in the 1850s after the manner of London's Regent's Park, was home to prosperous merchants and wealthy San Franciscans. Birthplace of Jack London and Gertrude Atherton, home of such notables as Peter Donahue, Charles Warren Stoddard and Hubert Bancroft, Rincon Hill flowered under the social dictates of transplanted Southern artistocractic families and upper-middle class westerners until the notorious "Second Street Cut" ripped through the heart of the neighborhood. When Nob Hill became San Francisco's new fashionable address in the late 1870s, south Park and much of Rincon Hill became working class". A part of my own family were on Bryant between second and third backing on to South Park. He was a merchant and had a three story home. Ground floor for living, second floor for his family, third floor for his mother-in-law and her unmarried daughters. The roof had a garden and a tank for holding water ... danger of fire was a problem in early San Francisco. Neither Woodlief or Simons are mentioned in the index. Hope this helps. **************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)

An account I wrote years ago about South Park. Bill http://americahurrah.com/SanFrancisco/SouthPark/Preface.htm