In a delightful update from San Francisco, Emperor Norton I, the charming 19th-century eccentric, is being honored with a street named after him there. The 600 block of Commercial Street, located between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, is now officially known as "Emperor Norton Place." Interestingly, Norton actually lived on this very block in a building called the Eureka Lodgings from around 1864-1865 until his death in 1880.
"This commemorative name designation is befitting," that district's supervisor Aaron Peskin said at the committee meeting, adding that Emperor Norton was "truly visionary, a humanitarian, and advocate for equality for minorities, for extending the vote to women, and the original proposer of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge." In a nod to those who have campaigned to rename the Bay Bridge for Emperor Norton, Peskin said "the California state legislature shirked this board's urgence [sic] many years ago to name [the bridge] for Emperor Norton and instead named [it] for our former mayor Willie Louis Brown."