Friday the Thirteenth

Cover courtesy of the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor, San Francisco Public Library.

Don't walk under ladders. Watch out for that black cat crossing your path. Never light up three on a match. Can any of these superstitions hold up to the belief that 13 is the most unlucky number there is? Even in San Francisco, many choose to play it safe.

For example, you may have noticed the fact that the city does not have a 13th Avenue. A trip through the Inner Richmond or Inner Sunset will lead you across 12th Ave., then Funston Ave., then 14th Ave. Were the city planners plagued with triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13)? Actually, San Francisco started out with a 13th Avenue, but the name was changed by a resolution of the Board of Supervisors on March 19, 1917 to honor Maj. Gen. Frederick Funston, the man who took command of the City after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.

Getting to Funston Street is pretty easy on MUNI, but you won't get there on the 13. Nope, San Francisco doesn't have a #13 route and looking back through public transit maps, it never has.

What's missing? Part of a list of Market Street Railway routes (one of MUNI's predecessors) from a brochure dated Sept. 15, 1929. [Ephemera folder: SF. TRANS. MARKET ST. RR. - GENERAL] San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

While the 6th Floor is the highest you can go at the San Francisco Main Library, our neighbor Fox Plaza sits 29-stories tall, but the 13th floor is used only as a service floor, not for offices or living spaces. Some San Francisco buildings, like the Merchants Exchange Building, skip 13 in the numbering of their floors altogether. Perhaps, the easiest way to deal with guests triskaidekaphobia  is to build only 12-stories high, like the original St. Francis Hotel.

So be careful out there on this ominous day, unless of course you happened to be born on Friday the 13th, in which case you may be the luckiest of all. As the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions notes, "It is surprising to find in this welter of thirteen ill-luck, the superstitious belief that any child born on the thirteenth of the month will be lucky in all his ventures started in and after life on this day."

More about superstitions from the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor:

Superstitious? Here's Why by Julie Forsyth Batchelor and Claudia de Lys[1954]

Tiddyoody Pie by F.W. Bennett [19--]

You and Your Superstitions by Brewton Berry (1940)

A Brief Dictionary of American Superstitions by Vergilius Ferm (1965)

Highland Superstitions: Connected with the Druids, Fairies, Witchcraft, Second-Sight, Hallowe'en, Sacred Wells, and Lochs, with Several Curious Instances of Highland Customs and Beliefs by Alexander MacGregor (1901)

Letters on the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions by Herbert Mayo (1849)

A World of Wonders, with Anecdotes and Opinions Concerning Popular Superstitions, edited by Albany Poyntz (1845)

Encyclopaedia of Superstitions by Edwin and Mona A. Radford (1949)