The International Settlement took its name and its theme from the idea that each block offered the atmosphere of a different country. In practice, the differences were largely cosmetic -- different decor, different cocktail menus, similar entertainment. The district thrived during World War II, when tens of thousands of servicemen passed through San Francisco on their way to the Pacific theater and needed somewhere to spend their last nights on American soil. The clubs accommodated them with efficiency and enthusiasm, and the Settlement's reputation spread through the military grapevine until it became one of the best-known entertainment districts in the country.

The Settlement grew out of the Barbary Coast tradition that had made San Francisco's waterfront district notorious since the Gold Rush. By the 1930s, the original Barbary Coast was gone, cleaned up by Progressive-era reforms, but the appetite for waterfront entertainment remained. The International Settlement filled the gap with a more polished product -- still risque, but professionally managed and tolerated by city authorities who understood its economic value. After the war, the district declined as entertainment tastes changed and the city's nightlife shifted to other neighborhoods. By the 1960s, most of the Settlement's clubs had closed.

Today, the blocks that comprised the International Settlement show little trace of their nocturnal past. The buildings have been converted to offices, apartments, and the quiet commercial uses of the Jackson Square Historic District. The neon is gone. The doormen are gone. What remains is the knowledge that San Francisco, like every great port city, has always had a district where the rules were different after dark -- and that the International Settlement was merely the most organized version of a tradition as old as the waterfront itself.