This story aired in the May 20, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
If you’ve seen some of the ads in the BART stations lately, or San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie’s posts on Instagram, you may notice an emphasis on safety and security in the city. But if you go back in time, there’s physical evidence that this rhetoric isn’t new. You can find it in neighborhoods all over the Bay.
Take the Sunset district, on San Francisco’s westside, where almost every house has a heavy iron gate. But how did those gates got there? And what they might be keeping out?…