Description

South End: Sport and Community at the Dock of the Bay is a comprehensive history of the South End Rowing Club, established in 1873 and the oldest rowing club west of the Mississippi. One of San Francisco's oldest sporting and social institutions, its history mirrors much of the City's own past.

The history of this iconic part of San Francisco's waterfront begins by exploring the city's social and sporting milieu in the early post-Gold Rush days, then covers the South End from its founding to the present. Tracing the Club's movements from the south end of San Francisco to the fringe of North Beach, separate chapters are devoted to such topics as the gender integration of the Club, its rivalrous relationship with the neighboring Dolphin Club, the transformations of the century-old clubhouse itself, and the mainstay sports of rowing, swimming, handball and running. Along the way South End investigates how the Club's strong volunteer community has enabled it to survive for a century and a half as a working-class club, rather an outpost for the rich and famous.

At 600 pages hardback, South End includes 380 photos and 175,000 words of deathless prose.