Holiday lights/Irving St. decos/Roofrides

01/25/05 - posted by J Pulizzano

Does anyone have memories of Christmas and Hannukah decorations in the houses in the Sunset? I remember that there were vastly more homes decorated than now. Why, we even used to take a drive (remember "taking drives??") around the neighborhood to see the houses.

Also, I was a small child in the 60's and I seem to recall that Irving Street from 26th to 19th avenues was decorated with overhead street decorations (I think Clement street used to have those as well).For a child this was quite magical and my memories of this are strong and sweet. The only thing to top it was the roofrides at the Emporium downtown and later at Stonestown.

Would love to hear anyone's memory of this.

I also remember that the ethnic diversity of the Sunset in the 60's was far greater than it was now. Aside from my varied classmates at Lawton elementary. Irving street had small business owners from almost every corner of the globe. The impeccably clean streets had Arab, Palestinian, ann Israeli merchants thiving side by side. Greeks, Turks, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Irish, Mexican. Don't remember any black owned businesses. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and an atheist or two. They were all there and well-loved by the community they served so well.