Heather Joy Hampton

Marina Girl Heather Joy Hampton

Olivia Michaels knew she was embarking on an adventure when she moved to San Francisco, but she had no idea her address would label her a social pariah commonly referred to as a Marina girl.


The Marina girl is a stereotype of a preppy, generic young woman who lives in the tiny neighborhood known as the Marina. You need to know about the history of the Marina to understand how and why the Marina girl developed into the albatross of San Francisco.


After the 1906 earthquake, the city pushed all the ashes and rubble north down the steep hills of Pacific Heights, creating a landfill adjacent to a former pasture that later became the Cow Hollow neighborhood. Hundreds of Mediterranean-style homes were constructed in the 1920s on land that jiggled better than Bill Cosby's Jell-O when the 1989 earthquake hit.


Most of the longtime residents moved away, leaving yuppie youngsters, perhaps less aware of their own mortality, to take over the neighborhood. Twenty years later, the Marina is the playground for San Francisco's worst nightmare, otherwise known as the Marina girl.