Coverage
Every part of Daly City, and over the ridge.
Most of the city is about 18 minutes away, from Westlake at twelve to Bayshore at twenty-six. Broadmoor, Colma and the towns down the Peninsula run a little longer, and Pacifica longer again because of the ridge. Each area page carries its own figure.
Daly City neighborhoods
Inside Daly City
Westlake
~12 minThe center of the tract that filled this end of the city from 1949 into the early sixties: lots twenty-five to thirty feet wide, a single-car garage level with the sidewalk, the living floor half a flight above it, and an outside stair up to a front door that mostly meets deliveries. Twelve minutes out from the base at Westlake center, and no address on this map sits closer.
Local pageSt. Francis Heights
~14 minThe blocks climbing the southern slope, built in the same period as the flat tract below but on deeper lots, with driveways long enough to hold a second car in front of the garage and a house that sits well above the street. Fourteen minutes from the van.
Local pageWestlake Knolls
~15 minThe streets that run along the ridge above the rest of the tract, in a city whose ground rises from sea level to around 780 feet. Same postwar plan, considerably more weather, and a growing number of lower floors that have become separate homes. Fifteen minutes from the van.
Local pageVista Grande
~16 minThe older streets that predate the big tracts: narrow parcels, houses built one at a time rather than by the thousand, small businesses mixed in among them, and a mix of door hardware with nothing in common from one address to the next. Sixteen minutes from the van.
Local pageTop of the Hill
~18 minThe original heart of the city on the hill John Daly farmed before it carried his name: continuous shopfronts along Mission Street, narrow doors between them leading to stairs, offices and flats on the floors above, and a street that pitches hard in both directions. Eighteen minutes out, the same number as the average across this whole map.
Local pageWestlake Palisades
~21 minThe streets on the edge of the bluff, Palisades Drive and the blocks around Skyline Drive, with the Pacific directly below and no shelter between the water and the west-facing wall of the house. Twenty-one minutes from the van.
Local pageSerramonte
~24 minThe neighborhood the Gellert brothers' company began building in 1963 on ranch land at the Colma edge of the city, with the shopping center that opened in 1968 at its center. Later houses, wider frontages, and doors bored to sizes that modern locks recognize. Twenty-four minutes from the van.
Local pageBayshore
~26 minThe working corner of the city on the far side of the hill: yards, units and small industrial buildings along Geneva Avenue, and the arena at 2600 Geneva that has a San Francisco postal address while sitting on Daly City ground, with the county line crossing its upper parking lot. Twenty-six minutes out, the far corner of the city from the base.
Local pageDown the Peninsula and over the ridge
The cities beside it
Broadmoor
~15 minThe enclave that never joined the city around it: about half a square mile of streets that are county ground rather than Daly City ground, policed since 1948 by its own protection district, with the same postwar houses and the same garage at the sidewalk as the blocks over the invisible line. Fifteen minutes from the van.
Local pageColma
~19 minThe small town below Daly City where the dead outnumber the living by a factor nobody else can match: seventeen cemeteries including one for pets, a population of roughly fifteen hundred, and the dealership rows and big-box lots that pay for it all. Nineteen minutes from the van.
Local pageBrisbane
~29 minThe town on the far side of the hill, reached out through the Bayshore corner: small old houses on narrow lots climbing the slope, streets too tight for two vehicles to pass, and the business flats down by the water at the bottom of it. Twenty-nine minutes from the van.
Local pageSouth San Francisco
~23 minThe city below Colma, with the hillside letters spelling out its industrial name above the old streets, steep blocks of houses with the garage at the sidewalk and the living floor above, and the research campuses on the bay side of the freeway. Twenty-three minutes from the van.
Local pageSan Bruno
~27 minThe city south past Colma, laid out in tracts that climb from the flats toward the ridge, with the older shopping street at the bottom and the airport approach directly overhead. Twenty-seven minutes from the van.
Local pagePacifica
~33 minThe coast side, reached by the one road that drops over the ridge past the bluff: nine separate communities that voted themselves into a single city in 1957 and still feel like nine, strung between the water and the hills. Thirty-three minutes out, and nothing else on this map is farther.
Local pageOpen 24 hours, 7 days
Say which door you are standing at and the call gets short
Daly City and the north Peninsula, every hour of the day. The door decides the work and the work decides the number, so the figure comes back on the call with the $89 call-out and the hour already inside it, and it is the figure on the receipt. Ninety days on the labor, in writing.