Belden Place

Belden Place is a narrow alley in the Financial District of San Francisco, California that serves as the hub of the city's small French American community. Locally the street is sometimes called Belden Lane, Belden Alley, or Belden Street. The surrounding neighborhood, which includes adjacent alleys and several blocks of Bush Street, is sometimes, though not universally, referred to as San Francisco's French Quarter for its historic ties to early French immigrants, and its popular contemporary French restaurants and institutions. The area was home to San Francisco's first French settlers. Approximately 3,000, sponsored by the French government, arrived near the end of the Gold Rush in 1851. According to historian Gladys Hansen, the...