A historical photograph from 1875 captures the neighborhood in its rawest form: unpaved roads cutting through steep terrain, a handful of wooden homes scattered across the slopes, and sweeping views of the bay, Alcatraz, and a harbor that was still the economic engine of a young city. No cable cars. No paved streets. Just horses, wagons, and a whole lot of gravity working against you on the way up.

The neighborhood earned its name from a small Russian cemetery discovered on the hilltop — a reminder that San Francisco's history stretches back through layers of settlement that most residents never think about. In those days, people moved to Russian Hill for the same reasons they'd kill for a unit there today: cooler air and killer views. The difference? Back then, you didn't need a tech IPO to afford the privilege.

What strikes you looking at photos from this era isn't just how different the landscape was — it's how recently all of this happened. San Francisco likes to carry itself with the gravitas of an ancient city, but 1875 was only 150 years ago. The entire built environment we argue about — the zoning, the housing density, the transit infrastructure — was layered on top of open hillsides within a few generations.

There's a lesson in that for the present moment. San Francisco was built by people who saw empty slopes and imagined a neighborhood. They didn't wait for a five-year environmental review or a community advisory board to approve the width of a road. They just built.

Today, Russian Hill is one of the city's most coveted and picturesque neighborhoods. It got that way because an earlier generation of San Franciscans had the audacity to develop it. Something worth remembering the next time City Hall takes a decade to approve a housing project.