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8 Nov 2003 UPDATE:
A similar report landed on the New York Times, this time in Manhattan. An 8'x10' vault on a plot in the East Village may be available, for an estimated quarter-million dollars.

San Francisco slowly moved all cemeteries out of the city boundaries; now the long-buried turn-of-the-(last)-century élite may have their earthly revenge.

It was the impermanence of permanence that gave rise to Mountain View in the first place. From the mid-19th century onward, San Francisco real estate was so desirable that it was difficult even to find permanent room for the departed.

"The dead kept getting kicked out of the city," said Gray Brechin, a historian who wrote "Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthy Ruin" (University of California Press, 1999). As cemeteries were cleared for development, the well-to-do realized that nothing was secure. They chose Oakland for their eternal resting spot.

I have long wanted to write a story about the City of the Dead.