Portsmouth Square was the only settlement around when San Francisco was but a gleam in the as-yet unpanned rivers of yet-to-be-named Placer County. An English expatriot named Richardson landed here sometime in the I want to say 1830s? and established the trading post of Richardson's Bay.
Later, with that respect for history that the San Francisco development community is renowned for, a partially underground parking garage was built here, atop which a small park frequented mostly by elderly Chinese Americans remains. Our ride wrapped up here just in front of the Robert Louis Stevenson Galleon statue.