According to Google Earth, the highest point in the neighborhood is 104 meters (about 341 feet) above sea level, at the site of a water tower that was demolished in 2006.

It remained blue-collared and working-class until the mid-1990s when gentrification turned it into a mostly working professional neighborhood, zoned by the San Francisco Planning Department to include light industry and small businesses.

Its soil, developed on ultramafic, serpentine rock,[12] promoted not a closed forest but an open landscape of shrub and grass.

De Haro, with his land rights already challenged and fearing that the United States government would now strip him of Potrero Nuevo, agreed to Townsend's suggestion.

Together with surveyor Jasper O'Farrell, recent emigrant Cornelius De Boom, and Captain John Sutter, they hashed out the grid and street names.

[16] Historians speculate that "merging the United States with the counties of California would attract homesick easterners" and their newly acquired gold-rush riches to settle in the neighborhood.

Prospective buyers partly deemed Potrero Hill too far away and were wary of De Haro's uncertainty as legal owner of the land.

Residents of Potrero Hill celebrated with bonfires after learning of the outcome, some of whom gained title to the lot where they squatted through the Squatter's Rights.

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Pacific Railway Act that provided Federal government support for the building of the first transcontinental railroad.

The Long Bridge was closed after Mission Bay was filled in the early 1900s, which made Potrero Hill an even more desirable location.

In August 1906 a group of Spiritual Christians from Russia (Molokans and a few Pryguny) arrived from Hawaii, where they refused to farm sugar cane, but some got work with the steamship lines and were transferred to San Francisco.

By 1928 they built a 2-story meeting hall on Carolina street, and soon organized the Russian Sectarian Cemetery in Colma with Spiritual Christian Baptists, Evangelicals and Adventists from Russia.

William E. Parker, Jr., pastor of Olivet Presbyterian Church at 19th and Missouri Street took action by opening his home and began offering English classes.

In 1919, renowned architect Julia Morgan was commissioned to design a permanent neighborhood house, now at 953 De Haro Street.

The divide between the industrial Dogpatch and the residential Potrero Hill would grow over time, each neighborhood developing its own distinct feel.

The United States' decision to enter WWII created an industrial boom in Dogpatch, led by the shipyards that constructed Navy ships.

To obtain the necessary land for the freeways, some residents were forced to vacate their homes in exchange for significantly below-market prices paid by the government.

In the 1960s many artists and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community began to move to Potrero Hill, drawn by its location and affordable rent.

Many artist studios, showrooms and art schools were set up nearby in response to Potrero Hill's explosion as a creative hub.

18th Street runs through the heart of the north side of the hill and is home to three blocks that serve as the primary shopping and dining spot in the neighborhood.

The Potrero Hill Neighborhood House,[38] known as "the NABE", is located at the top of De Haro Street, at Southern Heights Avenue, and offers various community services.

As a result, some houses on Potrero Hill have long staircases leading to the front entrances, often with detached garages at the street level.

Its adjacent Potrero Hill Community Garden[42] was established in the 1970s, operating under the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and boasts panoramic view of the city.

[44] Starr King offers the only public Mandarin immersion elementary school program on the city's east side.

[46] In Burglar (1987), the protagonist played by Whoopi Goldberg evades the police on a motorcycle down different parts of Potrero Hill, including Carolina St. and San Bruno Ave.

[48] In Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco (1996), the four-legged main characters take in the view of the city from Wisconsin St. and 20th St.

In Godzilla (2014 film), Lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his family lives on the 700 block of San Bruno Avenue.

[49] In Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), the protagonist lives on top of a bookstore in a Victorian house on 18th St. and Missouri St. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) turns the Anchor Brewing Company on 1705 Mariposa St. into a police station.

In author James Patterson's bestselling Women's Murder Club book series, protagonist Lt. Lindsay Boxer, a San Francisco policewoman, lives in a walk-up on Potrero Hill, from which she can see Oakland and the Bay.

The non-profit organization Hope SF, partnering with a private developer is in the process of demolishing the projects and build mixed-income housing under the plan Rebuild Potrero.