For this week's Scenes of the City we tour a historical gem in San Francisco's Portola District. Overgrown and falling apart, the 'hood's old rose nursery is one of those places that reaps its magic from its state of decay. Full of brambles, broken glass, and old nursery tools, the greenhouse takes up an entire city block. See it on Google maps here.
Formerly known as the University Mound Nursery, the building has been owned by the Garibaldi family since the 1920s, during which as many as nineteen different family-owned nurseries inhabited the Portola District. Largely tended by Jewish and Italian immigrants, this area of the city grew most of the city's flowers. According to Curbed, each nursery specialized in certain blooms, and the Garibaldis mastered roses. Although no one is there to cultivated them, roses continue to grow throughout the long-abandoned structures.
