Delancey Street Moving & Transportation

In 1971 Delancey Street began with 4 residents, a thousand dollar loan, and a dream to develop a new model to turn around the lives of people in poverty, substance abusers, former felons, and others who have hit bottom, by empowering the people with the problems to become the solution.

We began by taking residents into a small apartment in San Francisco, run by an ex-felon, John Maher, a visionary, fiery orator and charismatic leader. Rather than following the traditional non-profit model of hiring a staff and procuring funding, we chose instead to follow an extended family model. Those of us who could work did traditional jobs and contributed our salaries. (Mimi Silbert, for example, had a doctorate in Criminology and had numerous consulting, teaching and other professional experiences. She worked and contributed her salary.) Everyone did something to contribute to our community. Someone who could cook became our “head chef”. Someone who knew how to hold a hammer became the “head of construction”. Whoever could read tutored those who could not. We pooled our talents and our funds and within 2 years, we purchased our first building and had 80 residents, all learning, teaching and helping each other.

The first home we bought was the former Russian Consulate located in San Francisco’s poshest neighborhood, Pacific Heights. It was also our first “Not In My Backyard” battle. Our two young pro bono attorneys, Mike Berger (who incorporated our organization in 1971, and Danny Weinstein (now a retired Judge and founder of JAMS – The Resolution Experts) formulated innovative legal arguments; Maher developed brilliant political strategies; Silbert brought residents around to neighbors to volunteer services. We knew that neighbors were worried that crime would go up and property values would go down because we were in the neighborhood. So we patrolled the neighborhood and crime went down; our construction department renovated the mansion to ensure that property values would go up. Residents like Abe Irizarry (then a “graduate” of every prison in California and Mexican Mafia gang member, now our Vice president and Maitre’ D’ of our restaurant), and Joanne Mancuso (then an addict and now a college instructor and a trainer for the judiciary in the federal court in computer programs), and Mike Boris (then a heroin addict, now a Certified Public Accountant), sold raffle tickets where the most coveted prize was the promise “not to move next door to you”. Slowly the neighborhood battle was being won by being good neighbors, by solid legal arguments and political negotiation, by humor and by the good will of everyone involved. Dianne Feinstein, our neighbor in Pacific Heights, then a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was the first key vote in our favor. By 1977, the battle was finally settled. When we moved from Pacific Heights to our newly self-built home on the waterfront (almost 20 years later), our Pacific Heights neighbors reported they were upset to see us leave.

Delancey Moving and Trucking has been in operation in California for over 32 years. We design and construct all our own dollies and other rolling stock and provide full service moves including packing and crating of safes and pianos. We are available for office and household moves, furniture or equipment reconfigurations, and corporate relocations.

Delancey Street is the largest independent moving company in the Bay Area, with an average of 5,100 moving jobs annually. We are currently under contract with several large organizations, including The Gap, Inc., the County of San Mateo and the San Francisco Giants. We do more than 500 moves a year for these groups alone. We move the entire Giants baseball team from their home in San Francisco to their spring training facility in Arizona. Each year, for two weeks before each election in San Mateo County we pick up voting machines and deliver them to all voting sites. We provide daily moving services for the Gap Inc. using at least 3,600 man-hours a year. Whether moving households or entire corporate offices, Delancey Street has the equipment and the manpower to get the job done well.

We have moving offices in New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Our home moves have been favorably commended with hundreds of reference letters each year.

We are very proud of our moving company. We will work hard to assure that you will be pleased with our services. Call us at (415) 512-5110 and let us show you why we have been consistently selected as the Best Moving Company operating in the Bay Area. We have been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 1988 and have an A+ rating (with no complaints in the past 36 months (standard reporting period). We look forward to hearing from you.

The National Diesel Trucking operation consists of classes for students conducted on a year-round basis and includes knowledge of and practice in the operation of diesel tractors. Delancey Street’s diesel rigs run a regular circuit from San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Mexico, North Carolina to New York and return on a continual basis, requiring not only truck driving skills but knowledge of U.S. Department of Transportation rules as well as those enforced by state and local regulatory agencies.