If You Are Walking The Streets Of San Francisco,

you may well be passing over the remains of a shipwreck,

and if you take the streetcar line (the N-Judah) south of Market Street, the line (along with two others, the T and the K) it passes through the forward hull of the Rome that was rediscovered in 1990s when the city dug a tunnel to extend the line, above is a detail from the original 1963 buried-ships map shows “Sydney Town,” where Australians congregated in Gold Rush days, there was a Chilean enclave just inland from here,

cartographers are still putting the finishing touches on the new map, which will appear in the visitors’ centre at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, 

and a closer look at part of it, but why are there so many shipwrecks here? Gold Fever! the story goes back to the Gold Rush of 1848/9, many ships carried people to San Francisco, but there wasn't much cargo to carry out, and an empty boat makes no money, contributing to the problem were the sailors who contracted gold fever just like the passengers, some boats were abandoned, others were re-purposed as buildings, and some were used in a land-grab scheme, a few ships were sunk intentionally, then as now, real estate was a hot commodity in San Francisco, but the laws at the time had a few more loopholes, basically You could sink a ship and claim the land under it, You could even pay someone to tow your ship into position and sink it for you, then, as landfill covered the cove, you’d eventually end up with a piece of prime real estate, all this manoeuvring and the competition for space led to a few skirmishes and gunfights, as the city grew quickly, the shallow coves were filled in with rock, sand, and debris right over top of unused boats, 

but the landfill was not as good as some had hoped as the occupants of the listing, sinking 58 story Millennium building have found out, since complected in 2008 it has sunk by 16", and is listing, as estimated two to four inches at the structure’s base and 14 inches at the top, shipwrecks under your feet, who would of thought that could happen?