2031 Bush Street
Pacific Heights · San Francisco, CA 94115
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1926
Purpose-built premises for the Kinmon Gakuen, or Golden Gate School, a Japanese language school that had first enrolled pupils in 1911 and taught ikebana, Japanese instruments and etiquette alongside the language.
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1942
One of the places in the city where San Francisco's Japanese community was ordered to register and report for processing in 1942 before wartime removal.
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1945
The Booker T. Washington Center moved into the building during the war and, with the American Friends Service Committee, ran a men's hostel here for those returning from the internment camps; the language school had reopened by 1949.
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Dec 1987
Install windows.
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Jan 1990
Reroofing.
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Jul 1990
Install two aluminum windows.
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Feb 1992
Alterations.
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Apr 1997
Deck & stairway repairs.
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2009
Recorded in the city's 2009 survey of Japantown as the Kinmon Gakuen building, by then also home to Nihonmachi Little Friends, and taken as representative of the neighborhood's school buildings.
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Aug 2026
Rehab and voluntary strutural upgrade of kinmon gauken building with associated architectural, ada & mep upgrades, new elevator, heating sys, new trans switch & heating sys, plumbing fixt, mechanical rooms. f/s under sep permit.
The city's Japantown context statement has the Kinmon Gakuen in its purpose-built premises here by 1926; the assessor's roll and Planning's historic resource survey both record 1924. Not yet documented: the architect and builder, the early tenants and the date of the last recorded sale. Submit an update