Almost four decades after the Nov. 27, 1978, assassination of George Moscone, a trove of records shedding new light on the late San Francisco mayor’s life and work will be released to the public.
The papers were lost for years, but the Moscone family rediscovered them in a storage unit about 18 months ago. “My mom had -- for so many decades -- these storage rooms in South San Francisco,” explained son Chris Moscone, a founding partner at a San Francisco law firm. “Finally, we had someone check ’em out.”
Concealed there was a gold mine for San Francisco history buffs. “There were 90 boxes, all covered up,” the late mayor's son explained. The boxes contained newspaper clippings, handwritten notes, photographs, correspondence and other kinds of documentation.
After entertaining proposals from three entities that wished to make use of the archives, the Moscone family ultimately decided to donate them to the University of the Pacific, the late mayor’s alma mater. They'll be made available to scholars and housed at Pacific's Holt-Atherton Special Collections in the university library in Stockton.
The San Francisco Public Library sought to present an argument that it was entitled to the Moscone archive under a city law pertaining to the records of public officials, Chris Moscone told KQED. But he said he received personal assurances from San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera that this bid wouldn’t go forward.