San Francisco Honors Former Mayor Art Agnos With Potrero Hill Street Naming

Hundreds of supporters, elected officials and labor leaders gathered on Connecticut Street in the Potrero Hill neighborhood to unveil Art Agnos Way, permanently renaming a stretch of road for San Francisco's 39th mayor. The outdoor ceremony — emceed by Former Supervisor Aaron Peskin and hosted by District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton — drew a cross-generational assembly of city power brokers to honor a leader whose decisions on the waterfront, homeless shelters and earthquake recovery still shape the city today.

• Connecticut Street flat in District 10 officially renamed Art Agnos Way in a ceremonial unveiling attended by Mayor Lurie, Speaker Emerita Pelosi and dozens of former officeholders
• Speakers credit Agnos with transforming San Francisco's waterfront, founding the Children's Fund, pioneering homeless shelters and diversifying city government
• Pelosi recalls Agnos's early LGBTQ advocacy and his role introducing her to Cleve Jones and the AIDS Memorial Quilt
• Agnos reflects on arriving in San Francisco in 1966 with $500, finding community on Potrero Hill and building a career devoted to those shut out of power

Why it matters: The renaming of Connecticut Street's flat to Art Agnos Way is the first permanent civic honor for a former mayor whose tenure from 1988 to 1992 produced landmark policy decisions — tearing down the Embarcadero Freeway, founding the Children's Fund, creating the city's first homeless shelters and leading recovery from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The ceremony doubled as a living history of San Francisco progressive politics, with nearly every speaker connecting Agnos's legacy to ongoing debates over housing, homelessness and civic identity.