The enormous brick building two doors west is Amoeba Music’s San Francisco store, opened on November 15, 1997. The space is 24,000 square feet of records, CDs, DVDs, books, and posters. It is one of the largest independent record stores in the world.
The building started life around 1907 as a streetcar barn, used by the Market Street Railway Company to store and repair the electric streetcars that ran on Haight Street. The cable car line had been the original 1883 link that built the neighborhood. By the 1920s electric streetcars had taken over. The barn at 1855 Haight serviced them.
After streetcar service ended, the building became Park Bowl, a 24,000-square-foot bowling alley. Park Bowl ran through most of the second half of the twentieth century and was, notably, the home of several long-running gay and lesbian bowling leagues at a time when most San Francisco social venues were not welcoming. It closed in August 1996.
Amoeba’s founders had already opened successful stores in Berkeley (1990). The San Francisco store filled the empty bowling alley with custom-built record bins. The space has barely changed since. The line for the cashier still runs along the same aisle. The signed posters on the upper walls are now historic in their own right. Hours: Monday to Sunday, 11am to 8pm.