The houses at 117–159 Monterey Boulevard, built around 1940, sit on the footprint of a coal-fired powerhouse. As the Sunnyside History Project documents, that building generated electricity for the San Francisco and San Mateo Electric Railway, the city's first electric streetcar line. On April 27, 1892, the first car carried 240 passengers along what is now Monterey Boulevard at nine miles per hour.
The railway was private, speculative, and short-lived. By 1901 it had been absorbed into United Railroads. The powerhouse was demolished in the 1910s. But the path it cut through Sunnyside persisted. Today the 23 Monterey follows the same corridor, its first Sunnyside stop at Monterey and Baden, the same Baden Street that bordered the powerhouse block. A municipal bus line has no institutional connection to a private electric railway, but the corridor persists: the same path, carrying daily riders 134 years later.
Jan 1891 · SF and San Mateo Electric Railway incorporated
Mar 1892 · Powerhouse completed on the block at Monterey, Circular, and Baden
Apr 27, 1892 · First car runs: 240 riders, eight cars, nine mph, five-cent fare
Dec 1900 · Powerhouse goes offline after 8½ years of operation
1901 · Line absorbed into United Railroads of San Francisco
1910s · Powerhouse demolished
c. 1940 · Houses built on the powerhouse site (117–159 Monterey Blvd)
2026 · 23 Monterey serves the corridor daily, 6 a.m.–10 p.m., every 20 minutes on weekdays
Also on the route: The stop at Monterey & Foerster carries the name of C.E.A. Foerster, Behrend Joost's attorney, who hosted the 1892 inaugural ceremony — per the Sunnyside History Project's account.