1.
Palace Hotel, San Francisco
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The Palace Hotel is a landmark historic hotel in San Francisco, California, located at the SW corner of Market and New Montgomery streets. The present structure opened on December 19,1909, on the site as its predecessor. The hotel was closed from January,1989 to April,1991 to undergo a two-year renovation, Palace Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The original Palace Hotel was built by San Francisco banker and entrepreneur William Chapman Ralston who heavily depended on his banking empire to help finance the $5 million project. Ralstons business partner in the project was U. S, senator William Sharon who had helped cause the collapse of the Bank when he dumped his stock in the Comstock Lode. Sharon ended up in control of the hotel as well as both the Bank and Ralstons debts both of which he paid off at just pennies on the Dollar. With 755 guest rooms, the original Palace Hotel was at the time of its construction the largest hotel in the Western United States, at 120 feet in height, the hotel was San Franciscos tallest building for over a decade. The skylighted open center of the featured a Grand Court overlooked by seven stories of white columned balconies which served as an elegant carriage entrance. Shortly after 1900 this area was converted into a lounge called the Palm Court, the bartender, William Cocktail Boothby, was a fixture at the hotel for some years. The hotel featured large redwood paneled hydraulic elevators which were known as rising rooms, each guest room or suite was equipped with a private bathroom as well as an electric call button to summon a member of the hotels staff. On November 25,1890, Mōʻī, David Kalakaua visited California aboard the U. S. S, charleston with business between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the US Government. Kalakaua, whose health had been declining, stayed in a suite at the Palace Hotel, traveling throughout Mexico and Southern California and reportedly drinking excessively, the monarch suffered a stroke in Santa Barbara and was rushed back to San Francisco. Kalakaua fell into a coma in his suite on January 18, the official cause of death, listed by US Navy officials was that the king had died from Brights Disease. The most notable feature of the hotel was the Grand Court that served as an area for horse-drawn carriages. The area was converted to the palm filled Garden Court a few years before the 1906 earthquake, where shall we find its equal. You must yield the palm to your great Western rival, as far as structure goes, there is no other hotel building in the world equal to this. The court of the Grand at Paris is poor compared to that of the Palace, andrew Carnegie, Round the World Free guided tours of the hotel are led by volunteers of the San Francisco City Guides, a program of the San Francisco Public Library. Although the hotel survived the damage from the early morning April 18,1906, San Francisco earthquake
2.
Central Tower (San Francisco)
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Central Tower is a 91 m 21-story office building at Market and Third Streets in San Francisco, California. The building has undergone renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building and later. In 1890, M. H. de Young, owner of the San Francisco Chronicle, built San Franciscos first skyscraper, the 218-foot Chronicle Building, to house his newspaper. In response, John D. Spreckels and his father Claus Spreckels purchased the San Francisco Call in 1895, in September 1895, The Call wrote, The San Francisco Call is to have the finest building ever erected for a newspaper office. It is to be built on the corner of Market and Third streets, of granite and white marble, and will be fifteen stories —310 feet high, the highest building this side of Chicago. Unlike the Chronicle building it will be a building and a credit to its owner, Claus Spreckels. A light granite will be used for the first three stories, but above the third story white marble will be used, the main entrance or rotunda will be finished in some polished California marble, the very choicest obtainable, and the floor will be mosaic. The building eventually stood 315 feet tall with an ornate baroque dome—which housed the offices of Reid & Reid and it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for many years. The structure was burned and damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. After the fire, The Call reopened its offices at a new location, The Montgomery, in 1938 Albert Roller completely refurbished Central Tower. The buildings height was reduced to 298 feet and the number of stories was increased from 15 to 21, the ornate dome, pictures to the Editors, Call Building to Central Tower. Chicago, Illinois, TIME Inc. p.68
3.
Richardsonian Romanesque
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Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, the style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles. It is epitomised by the American Museum of Natural Historys original 77th Street building by J. Cleaveland Cady of Cady, Berg and See in New York City. It was seen in communities in this time period such as in St. Thomas, Ontarios city hall and Menomonie. Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardsons proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office and these include, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden, George Shepley and Charles Coolidge, Herbert Burdett. Bate designed the Grays Armory in this style in Cleveland, Ohio, the style also influenced the Chicago school of architecture and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson, research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, as the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, as an example, four small bank buildings were built in Richardsonian Romanesque style in Osage County, Oklahoma, during 1904–1911. For pictures of H. H. Richardson’s own designs and some of the details, with the exception of the Richardson Olmsted Complex, none of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905. They are divided into categories denoting the various different uses of the buildings, civic Buildings Educational Institutions and Libraries Service-related buildings Churches and chapels Residences Henry Hobson Richardson H
4.
Modern architecture
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Modern architecture or modernist architecture is a term applied to a group of styles of architecture which emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II. The revolution in materials came first, with the use of cast iron, plate glass, the cast plate glass process was invented in 1848, allowing the manufacture of very large windows. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was an example of iron and plate glass construction, followed in 1864 by the first glass. These developments together led to the first steel-framed skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the iron frame construction of the Eiffel Tower, then the tallest structure in the world, captured the imagination of millions of visitors to the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition. French industrialist François Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete, in 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four story house in the suburbs of Paris. Another important technology for the new architecture was electric light, which reduced the inherent danger of fires caused by gas in the 19th century. This break with the past was particularly urged by the architectural theorist, for each function its material, for each material its form and its ornament. This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, at the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional Beaux Arts and Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the United States. The Glasgow School of Art 1896-99) designed by Charles Rennie MacIntosh, had a facade dominated by large bays of windows. The Art Nouveau style was launched in the 1890s by Victor Horta in Belgium and Hector Guimard in France, it introduced new styles of decoration, based on vegetal and floral forms. In 1903-1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete, previously used for industrial structures. Between 1910 and 1913, Auguste Perret built the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, because of the concrete construction, no columns blocked the spectators view of the stage. Otto Wagner, in Vienna, was another pioneer of the new style, in his book Moderne Arkchtekture he had called for a more rationalist style of architecture, based on modern life. Wagner declared his intention to express the function of the building in its exterior, the reinforced concrete exterior was covered with plaques of marble attached with bolts of polished aluminum. The interior was purely functional and spare, an open space of steel, glass. The Viennese architect Adolf Loos also began removing any ornament from his buildings and his Steiner House, in Vienna, was an example of what he called rationalist architecture, it had a simple stucco rectangual facade with square windows and no ornament. The fame of the new movement, which known as the Vienna Secession spread beyond Austria. Josef Hoffmann, a student of Wagner, constructed a landmark of early modernist architecture and this residence, built of brick covered with Norwegian marble, was composed of geometric blocks, wings and a tower
5.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
6.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
7.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
8.
Burnham and Root
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Burnham and Root was one of Chicagos most famous architectural companies of the nineteenth century. It was established by John Wellborn Root and Daniel Hudson Burnham, during their eighteen years of partnership, Burnham and Root designed and built residential and commercial buildings. Their success was crowned with the coordination of the Worlds Columbian Exposition in 1893, the two men met when they worked as apprentice draftsmen in the offices of Drake, Carter, and Wight in 1872. A year later established their own architecture office and began work by building private residences for the wealthy elite of Chicagos meat industry. Both of them married into wealthy families which allowed them to establish a basis for their business, Daniel Hudson Burnham was one of the handsomest men I ever saw, said Paul Starrett who joined Burnham and Root in 1888. It was easy to see how he got commissions and his very bearing and looks were half the battle. While Burnham was the designer and impressive salesperson, Root became the creative genius of the company. When Burnham and Root were together, one woman said I used always to think of big strong tree with lightning playing around it. Louis Sullivan, the architect, called Burnham a colossal merchandiser obsessed with building the biggest and costliest structures of the city. The most significant buildings designed by Burnham and Root were built in the late 1880s and that is when Roots designs actually paved the way for modern day skyscrapers. Until then, buildings relied on exterior masonry for support limiting their height to 12 stories, the invention of steel support beams gave him the possibility to build higher and to add more windows. The Rand McNally Building, completed in 1890, was the first ever steel-framed skyscraper in the world, another characteristic of his designs that revolutionized modern architecture is his invention of the urban office block floor plan as we know it. As commissions multiplied, Burnham and Root had the opportunity to experiment and refine their style to create, such buildings as the Great Northern hotel, the Argyle and the Pickwick demonstrate Roots singular style. Hence, the greatest architects of the time were invited to participate in the design of the Worlds Columbian Exposition, Root died in 1891, leaving his greatest project incomplete. Daniel Burnham, despite only having experience and no formal training in the field of architecture, was then given the responsibility to finish coordinating the fair. When it opened for six months, from June to November 1893, the Exposition was home to many innovations, among which the first Ferris wheel, which was the result of a challenge set out by Burnham to design a structure of comparable ingenuity and novelty. Following his success and the loss of his business partner, Burnham continued to operate under the name D. H. Burnham and Co. The projects begun by Root were completed, including the Masonic Temple in 1892 and it is then that Burnhams architectural talent became the driving force of the business, resulting in such iconic buildings such as the Flatiron Building in New York City
9.
Skyscraper
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A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building having multiple floors. When the term was used in the 1880s it described a building of 10 to 20 floors. Mostly designed for office, commercial and residential uses, a skyscraper can also be called a high-rise, for buildings above a height of 300 m, the term supertall can be used, while skyscrapers reaching beyond 600 m are classified as megatall. One common feature of skyscrapers is having a steel framework that supports curtain walls and these curtain walls either bear on the framework below or are suspended from the framework above, rather than resting on load-bearing walls of conventional construction. Some early skyscrapers have a frame that enables the construction of load-bearing walls taller than of those made of reinforced concrete. Modern skyscrapers walls are not load-bearing, and most skyscrapers are characterized by surface areas of windows made possible by steel frames. However, skyscrapers can have curtain walls that mimic conventional walls with a surface area of windows. Modern skyscrapers often have a structure, and are designed to act like a hollow cylinder to resist wind, seismic. To appear more slender, allow less wind exposure, and transmit more daylight to the ground, many skyscrapers have a design with setbacks, a relatively big building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. The maximum height of structures has progressed historically with building methods and technologies, the Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world. High-rise buildings are considered shorter than skyscrapers, the first steel-frame skyscraper was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, Illinois in 1885. Even the scholars making the argument find it to be purely academic and this definition was based on the steel skeleton—as opposed to constructions of load-bearing masonry, which passed their practical limit in 1891 with Chicagos Monadnock Building. What is the characteristic of the tall office building. The force and power of altitude must be in it, the glory and it must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exaltation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line. Some structural engineers define a highrise as any vertical construction for which wind is a significant load factor than earthquake or weight. Note that this criterion fits not only high-rises but some other tall structures, the word skyscraper often carries a connotation of pride and achievement. A loose convention of some in the United States and Europe draws the limit of a skyscraper at 150 m or 490 ft. The tallest building in ancient times was the 146 m Great Pyramid of Giza in ancient Egypt and it was not surpassed in height for thousands of years, the 14th century AD Lincoln Cathedral being conjectured by many to have exceeded it
10.
Financial District, San Francisco
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The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, that serves as its main central business district. It is home to the citys largest concentration of headquarters, law firms, insurance companies, real estate firms, banks, savings and loans. All six San Francisco Fortune 500 companies—McKesson, Wells Fargo, PG&E, Gap, Charles Schwab, the citys tallest buildings, including 555 California Street and the Transamerica Pyramid, and many other tall buildings, such as 101 California Street and 345 California Street are located there. Montgomery Street is the heart of the district. Since the 1980s, restrictions on high rise construction have shifted new development to the adjacent South of Market area surrounding the Transbay Transit Center and this area is sometimes called the South Financial District by real estate developers, or simply included as part of the Financial District itself. It was not until 1835 that the first settlers established themselves on the shore of Yerba Buena Cove, Yerba Buenas potential as a seaport made it the eventual center for European and American settlement. Gold Rush wealth and business made it the capital of the west coast as many banks. The west coasts first and only skyscrapers, were built in the area along Market Street, the neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. By 1910, the area was rebuilt with low-rise, masonry-clad buildings ranging from six to twelve stories in height. Due to new building and earthquake retrofitting technologies, the restrictions were lifted. This boom accelerated under mayor Dianne Feinstein during the 1980s, something her critics labelled as Manhattanization and this caused widespread opposition citywide leading to the skyscraper revolt similar to the freeway revolt in the city years earlier. The skyscraper revolt led to the city imposing extremely strict, European-style height restrictions on building construction citywide. Due to these restrictions, lack of buildable lots, and changes in the local real estate market. To encourage new development south of Market, and to fund the replacement for the Transbay Terminal. As a result, nearly all new high rise construction since the 1980s has taken place South of Market, notable examples include the JPMorgan Chase Building,555 Mission Street,101 Second Street, the Four Seasons Hotel, The Paramount, and the Millennium Tower. Adjacent to the Financial District to the west is the Union Square shopping district, to the northwest is Chinatown, and to the north is North Beach and Jackson Square. To the east lies the Embarcadero waterfront and the Ferry Building, to the south lies Market Street and the South of Market district. The Financial District is served by more than two dozen Muni bus and rail lines, including one cable car line, as well as Montgomery Street Station, the nickname FiDi is occasionally employed, analogous to nearby SoMa
11.
M. H. de Young
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Michael Henry M. H. de Young was an American journalist and businessman. De Young was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the family was Jewish, and immigrated from the Netherlands and France. He was the son of Cornelia Amelia and Miechel de Young, de Young moved with his family to San Francisco, California while he was still young. He attended and graduated from Heald College, a San Francisco college founded in 1863, in San Francisco, de Young and his brother, Charles de Young, founded the Daily Dramatic Chronicle newspaper, first published on January 16,1865. The Chronicle was the predecessor of the San Francisco Chronicle, San Franciscos only remaining daily broadsheet newspaper, de Young was also the director of the Associated Press for many years. After his death in 1925, his son-in-law George Toland Cameron, became publisher, de Young and his wife Katherine had five children, Charles de Young Helen de Young, who married George T. Spreckels, apparently due to a newspaper article, but survived. M. H. de Young died on February 15,1925, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Franciscos Golden Gate Park, which originally opened in 1895, is named in his honor. De Young helped develop the gem collection for what became California’s first museum in 1894 and he purchased many things of curious and artistic and instructive value. He is also the great-great-grandfather of actor Max Thieriot
12.
San Francisco Chronicle
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It was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation, which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and was the largest circulation newspaper on the West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like many other newspapers, it has experienced a fall in circulation in the early 21st century. The newspaper publishes two web sites, SFGate, which has a mixture of news and web features. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Josephine Newhall took a bold, the newspaper grew in circulation to become the citys largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner. The demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner, from 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation. This arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle, beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle started to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco. The Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper, the sections covered San Francisco, and four different suburban areas. They each featured a unique columnist, enterprise pieces and local news specific to the community, the newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in the suburban bureaus. The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company, until July 27,2000, following the sale, the Hearst Corporation transferred the Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of the San Francisco Independent and AsianWeek, along with a $66-million subsidy. Under the new owners, the Examiner became a free tabloid, in 1949, the de Young family founded KRON-TV, the Bay Areas third television station. Until the mid-1960s, the station, operated from the basement of the Chronicle Building, KRON moved to studios at 1001 Van Ness Avenue. The frequent bold-faced, all-capital-letter headlines typical of the Chronicles front page were eliminated, editor Ward Bushees note heralded the issue as the start of a new era for the Chronicle. On July 6,2009, the paper unveiled some alterations to the new design that included yet newer section fronts and wider use of color photographs and graphics. In a special section publisher Frank J. Vega described new, the newer look was accompanied by a reduction in size of the broadsheet. On November 9,2009, the Chronicle became the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper, the high-gloss paper is used for some section fronts and inside pages. As of 2013 the publisher of the Chronicle is Jeffrey Johnson, audrey Cooper was named editor-in-chief in January 2015 and is the first woman to hold the position
13.
Eugene Schmitz
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Born in San Francisco, Schmitz was the son of an Irish mother and a German father. He was still mayor when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire destroyed a prodigious amount of the city, on June 13,1907 Schmitz was found guilty of extortion, and the office of mayor was declared vacant while he was sent to jail to await sentence. Shortly thereafter he was sentenced to five years at San Quentin State Prison and he immediately appealed, while awaiting the outcome, he was kept in a cell in San Francisco County Jail. On January 9,1908 the District Court of Appeals nullified his conviction, two months later, the California Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeals ruling, and he was released on bail pending the resolution of the outstanding bribery indictments. Schmitz ran for mayor again in 1915 and 1919, but was defeated due to his past reputation. Elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1921, he remained until 1925 and he was married and had two daughters. New International Yearbook for 1907 and 1908 George Kennan, The Fight for Reform in San Francisco, McClures, walton Bean, Boss Ruefs San Francisco, The Story of the Union Labor Party, Big Business, and the Graft Prosecution. Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts, The San Francisco Earthquake
14.
1906 San Francisco earthquake
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The 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck the coast of Northern California at 5,12 a. m. on April 18 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI. Severe shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. As a result, about 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city of San Francisco was destroyed, the events are remembered as one of the worst and deadliest natural disasters in the history of the United States. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a disaster in Californias history. The San Andreas Fault is a transform fault that forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. The strike-slip fault is characterized by mainly lateral motion in a dextral sense, the 1906 rupture propagated both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles. This fault runs the length of California from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north, the maximum observed surface displacement was about 20 feet, geodetic measurements show displacements of up to 28 feet. The 1906 earthquake preceded the development of the Richter magnitude scale by three decades. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the quake on the moment magnitude scale is 7.8. According to findings published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, severe deformations in the earths crust took place both before and after the earthquakes impact. Accumulated strain on the faults in the system was relieved during the earthquake, the main shock epicenter occurred offshore about 2 miles from the city, near Mussel Rock. Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada, a strong foreshock preceded the main shock by about 20 to 25 seconds. The strong shaking of the main shock lasted about 42 seconds, there were decades of minor earthquakes – more than at any other time in the historical record for northern California – before the 1906 quake. For years, the epicenter of the quake was assumed to be near the town of Olema, in the Point Reyes area of Marin County, because of evidence of the degree of local earth displacement. In the 1960s, a seismologist at UC Berkeley proposed that the epicenter was more likely offshore of San Francisco, at the time,375 deaths were reported, partly because hundreds of fatalities in Chinatown went ignored and unrecorded. The total number of deaths is uncertain today, and is estimated to be roughly 3,000 at minimum. Most of the deaths occurred in San Francisco itself, but 189 were reported elsewhere in the Bay Area, nearby cities, such as Santa Rosa and San Jose, in Monterey County, the earthquake permanently shifted the course of the Salinas River near its mouth. Where previously the river emptied into Monterey Bay between Moss Landing and Watsonville, it was diverted 6 miles south to a new channel just north of Marina
15.
Willis Polk
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Willis Jefferson Polk was an American architect best known for his work in San Francisco, California. For ten years, he was the West Coast representative of D. H. Burnham & Company, in 1915, Polk oversaw the architectural committee for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. He was born in Jacksonville, Illinois and was related to United States President James Polk and he began his architectural training when he was eight years old in a local contractors office. In his teens, he worked in his fathers shop in St. Louis. In 1887, Polk moved to Kansas City to join the firm of Van Brunt & Howe, a few years later he studied under former Van Brunt associate William Robert Ware at Columbia University in New York City. He also worked at the firm of A, in the 1890s, Polk moved to San Francisco to launch his own firm. He struggled to earn commissions, and in 1897 he declared bankruptcy, however, an opportunity presented itself in 1899. Francis Hamilton, of the local firm Percy & Hamilton, died, Polk was primarily in charge of design and employee management, while Percy focused on the business end. The partnership gave Polk a relief to his debt and the opportunity to work on commercial structures. The partnership designed five buildings, including One Lombard Street, addison Mizner was one of his apprentices and later a partner. Willis Polks early career included work with McKim, Mead & White, Polk also worked with Daniel Burnham in Chicago, and then moved to San Francisco to establish and direct Burnhams San Francisco office. Before long, Polk started his own firm and spent many years designing highly regarded California commercial and residential architecture, in 1901, Polk went on a tour of Europe and Chicago. In Chicago, he met prominent architect Daniel Burnham, from 1903 to 1913, Polk was the West Coast representative of D. H. Burnham & Company. Polk designed several of his most notable structures while associated with the firm, including the Merchants Exchange Building, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake opened up numerous opportunities for Polk to design Burnham structures. He was a member of Mayor Eugene Schmitzs Committee of Fifty leaders who undertook ambitious plans to rebuild a world-class city, Polk was tasked with convincing city officials to adopt Burnhams 1905 Plan of San Francisco. By 1910, Willis Polk was recognized as one of the most influential architects, Polk was again credited for designing the tallest building in San Francisco when his Hobart Building was completed in 1914. In 1915, Polk was appointed the chair of the planning committee for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition. When the exposition concluded, Polk led the effort to preserve Bernard Maybecks Palace of Fine Arts, One of Polks most influential commissions came in 1916, when he was tasked to design the Hallidie Building
16.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company
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The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L. L. C. is the parent company to the luxury hotel chain, The Ritz-Carlton Hotels. Ritz-Carlton operates 91 luxury hotels and resorts in cities around the world, the hotel company is today a subsidiary of Marriott International. The story of The Ritz-Carlton begins with Swiss hotelier César Ritz who was known in the hotel industry as the king of hoteliers. Ritz redefined luxury accommodation in Europe with his management of The Ritz in Paris, the restaurants on those ships ceased operating in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. Although Ritz died in 1918, his wife Marie continued the tradition of opening hotels in his name, the Ritz-Carlton Investing Company was established by Albert Keller, who bought and franchised the name in the United States. The first Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the U. S. opened in New York in 1911 and it was located at 46th Street and Madison Avenue. Louis Diat ran the kitchens and invented Vichyssoise there, the Ritz-Carlton Montreal opened in 1912, not owned by Keller as it was located in Canada. Kellers Ritz-Carlton Atlantic City opened in 1921, the trust sold $2.1 million of bonds to finance the construction of an apartment building to be called the Mayflower. The 18-story, 201-foot brick building, designed by Strickland, Blodget & Law Architects, was far taller than anything else along Newbury Street at the time. Construction had started on the floor when Wyner was persuaded by then-Mayor James Michael Curly to make the Mayflower a world-class, 300-room Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Room rates were $5 to $15 per night, $40 per night for suites, after a hugely successful opening, the stock market crash of 1929 and ensuing Depression brought financial difficulties. The Wyner family funded the hotel’s operating losses during the early 1930s, still in 1933, when only 30 guests were registered in the hotel, Wyner turned on the lights in every guest room to give the appearance the hotel was full. The Philadelphia location was converted to a building after only a few years in operation. The Atlantic City hotel was sold to Schine Hotels in the late 1940s, the New York hotel was demolished in 1951, leaving only the Boston location. Edward Wyner died of an attack on December 5,1961. His six sons tried to continue operation of the Boston hotel, but were unable to overcome difficulties, the unpaid interest on the bonds dissuaded many from trying to buy the hotel. But Cabot, Cabot & Forbes principal Gerald F. Blakeley Jr. was interested.8 million, “Out of the 20 years I owned it, it made money three years. In the late 1960s Blakeley obtained the rights to the Ritz-Carlton name in North America, in June 1978, Blakeley was awarded the rights and privileges of the Ritz-Carlton trademark in the United States and was given a US Service Mark Registration
17.
Emporis
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Emporis GmbH is a real estate data mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collects and publishes data and photographs of buildings worldwide, Emporis offers a variety of information on its public database, Emporis. com, located at www. emporis. com. Emporis is frequently cited by media sources as an authority on building data. Emporis previously focused exclusively on high-rise buildings and skyscrapers, which it defines as buildings between 35 and 100 metres tall and at least 100 metres tall, respectively, today, the database has expanded to include low-rise buildings and other structures. Michael Wutzke started a website about skyscrapers in Frankfurt in 1996, in 2000 he started skyscrapers. com which was folded into Emporis in 2003. In 2004, Stephan R. Boehm assumed the role of Chairman, Wutzke was Chief Technology Officer and managing director until 2010, when he left the company. In 2007 venture capital firm Neuhaus Partners and KfW Bankengruppe invested several million Euro in the company, effective January 1,2009, the company moved its headquarters from Darmstadt to Frankfurt. In 2011, the company moved from Frankfurt to Hamburg, in 2000 a group of Emporis senior editors began presenting the Emporis Skyscraper Award. Eligible buildings are selected from a list of all buildings in the world at least 100 meters tall which were completed that year
18.
SkyscraperPage
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SkyscraperPage is an internet forum for skyscraper hobbyists and enthusiasts that tracks existing and proposed skyscrapers around the world. SkyscraperPage. com drawings have appeared in National Geographics website, Wired, Condé Nast, The Globe and they are based in Victoria, British Columbia. The site has a database of scale-model illustration skyscrapers and other major macro-engineering projects, the scale of the drawings are one pixel per meter. The images are created using pixel art, using these diagrams, skyscrapers and other tall structures from any cities can be compared. General information is given about each structure, such as the location, the year built, if available. In 2008, the site had over 22,000 custom made drawings of skyscrapers, there were 600 artists signed up with the site, about half of whom were active. List of Internet forums List of tallest buildings in the world
19.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
20.
Montgomery Block
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The Montgomery Block was San Franciscos first fireproof and earthquake resistant building, which came to be known as a Bohemian centre from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th century. It was located at 628 Montgomery Street, on the southeast corner of its intersection with Washington Street, the four-story building was erected in 1853 by Henry Wager Halleck, later general in chief of the Union Army in the Civil War, in the Barbary Coast red-light district. Also known as the Monkey Block, it used to house many well-known lawyers, financiers, writers, actors, the site of Montgomery Block is now registered as a California Historical Landmark. The four-stories Montgomery Block was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River when it was built in 1853 and it was designed by architect G. P. San Franciscans called it Hallecks Folly because it was built on a raft of redwood logs, the building survived the 1906 earthquake and fire. The Montgomery Block was demolished in 1959, even though a preservation movement had begun to emerge in San Francisco and it was replaced by a parking lot and later, the Transamerica Pyramid. The building is remembered for its importance as a bohemian center of the city. At his inauguration as Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998, Lawrence Ferlinghetti mentioned the classic old Montgomery Block building, jones, Idwal, Ark of Empire, San Franciscos Montgomery Block OBrien, Robert, This Is San Francisco California Landmarks in San Francisco
21.
Old St. Mary's Cathedral
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Old Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception is a proto-cathedral and parish of the Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco, California. The cathedral is located on the corner of Grant Avenue and California Street, the church is named for Mary, the Mother of Jesus, under the title of the Immaculate Conception. Old Saint Marys cornerstone was placed on Sunday, July 17,1853 at the corner of California and Dupont Streets by the Bishop of Monterrey Joseph S. Alemany. With its dedication by Alemany, now as the new Archbishop of San Francisco, at Christmas Midnight Mass,1854, it became the first cathedral of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. It is the first cathedral in California to be built for the purpose of serving as a cathedral. When it opened, it was the tallest building in San Francisco, in 1891, Old Saint Marys became a parish church, still using the same name that it bore as a cathedral. The new St. Marys Cathedral was located at Van Ness Avenue, under the clock face of Old St. Marys appear the words, Son, Observe the Time and Fly from Evil. This sentiment was aimed at the men who frequented the brothels in the 1850s. Old St. Marys survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, only to be gutted a day later by the fires started by the earthquake, the fires were so hot that they melted the church bells and marble altar. All that were left were the brick walls and the bell tower. The renovation of the church was completed in 1909, Dupont Street, with its association with the Barbary Coast and Chinatown, was renamed Grant Avenue, a respectful nod to former president and general Ulysses S. Grant. The church further expanded and built an auditorium, a library, Old St. Marys remains an active parish of the archdiocese, serving the Chinatown and Nob Hill communities of San Francisco. Old St. Marys Church is a California Historical Landmark, the Paulist Fathers have served Old Saint Marys since 1901, and continue serving there today. From 2011–2012, the church went through renovations, during which time all the crosses on the roof were removed as it was restored. While the four crosses along the sides were put back up, rectors of St. Marys Cathedral 1854-1891 Rev
22.
225 Bush Street
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225 Bush Street, originally known as the Standard Oil Building, is a 328-foot, 25-floor office building in the financial district of San Francisco. The building includes 21 floors of space,1 floor of retail,1 storage floor and 2 basement levels including the garage. It was the tallest building in the city from its completion in 1922 until 1925 and it contains approximately 560,000 sq ft of rentable space. It is a building, serving as the headquarters for Standard Oil of California, now Chevron. Architect George W. Kelham designed the Standard Oil Building for John D. Rockefeller, composed of two buildings, the old wing was built in the 1920s. The new wing was built in the 1950s
23.
140 New Montgomery
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The 26-floor building was designed to consolidate numerous smaller buildings and outdated offices into a modern headquarters for The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. The building was the first high-rise south of Market Street, and along with the Russ Building, AT&T sold the building in 2007, and as of 2013, Internet company Yelp is the main tenant. At the time of its construction, it housed The Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co. a member of the Bell System, the building once had a bell motif in many places on its façade, most notably surrounding the arch over the main entrance doors on New Montgomery Street. After the breakup of the Bell System in 1984 and the formation the regional so-called Baby Bell companies, statues of eight eagles perch atop the towers crown. The building has an L-shaped floor plan, and the architecture decoratively incorporates spotlights to show the exteriors terra cotta ornamentation day, in 1929, Winston Churchill visited the building and made one of the first transatlantic telephone calls. In 2007, the PacBell Building was sold by AT&T to Stockbridge Capital Group, in 2008, the new owners filed plans to convert the tower into 118 luxury condominiums. However, those plans were put on hold during the 2008 financial crisis, following a surge in office demand in 2010–2011, Wilson Meany Sullivan changed the plans back to office space. In 2012, Yelp announced it had signed a lease on the buildings 100,000 square feet of space through 2020. After two expansions, the company held a total of almost 150,000 square feet on 13 floors as of fall 2015, south of Market, San Francisco Eliel Saarinens Tribune Tower design Russ Building List of tallest buildings in San Francisco 140 New Montgomery Alexis C. Madrigal, A 26-Story History of San Francisco
24.
Russ Building
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The Russ Building is a Neo-Gothic office tower located in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The 133-metre building was completed in 1927 and had 32 floors as well as the citys first indoor parking garage. It was the tallest building in San Francisco from 1927 to 1964 and one of the most prominent, along with its 133-metre twin, today the Russ Building takes this place in San Francisco. By its size and location and by the character of its tenants the building becomes indeed—The Center of Western Progress. ”However, Manhattanization from 1960 to 1990 has shrouded the tower in a shell of skyscrapers, the tower is a California Historical Landmark. Until the emergence of Sand Hill Road in the 1980s, many of the largest venture capital firms held offices in the Russ Building, eliel Saarinens Tribune Tower design PacBell Building List of tallest buildings in San Francisco Woodbridge, Sally B. The Russ Building at Shorenstein Properties The Russ Buildings Tenant Handbook The Russ Building at The Swig Company
25.
650 California Street
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650 California Street, also known as the Hartford Building, is a 34 story,142 m, office tower on the northwestern edge of San Franciscos Financial District. The tower is located on California Street on the edge of Chinatown,650 California is visible from every direction except from the southeast, where the Financial District skyscrapers block the view. The building was designed by Edward Charles Bassett of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for Hartford Insurance, when this tower was completed in 1964, it was the second in San Francisco larger than 400,000 sq ft. It also became Californias tallest building, replacing both the Russ Building in San Francisco and the Los Angeles City Hall in Los Angeles, later skyscrapers in both San Francisco and Los Angeles took the title of Californias tallest from this building. 650 California was acquired for US$160 million by the Pivotal Group in 2000, and later sold to investors, A-650 California St. LLC. The tower was acquired by Tishman Speyer and partner Prudential Real Estate Investors in 2012 for about US$230 million, Tishman undertook a US$14 million renovation, which included a remodeled lobby by New York-based firm MdeAS Architects. Tishman sold 650 California to Columbia Property Trust Inc. in September 2014 for US$309 million,650 California Street passed the certification requirements for the Gold Level of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating in June 2011. The LEED building certification system is a program for rating the design, key tenants include Omnicom Group Inc. Access Communications, AppDirect, Analysis Group, Credit Suisse, and Recommind
26.
44 Montgomery
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44 Montgomery is a 43-story,172 m office skyscraper in the heart of San Franciscos Financial District. When completed in 1967, it was the tallest building west of Dallas until 555 California Street was erected in 1969, the building was once the world headquarters for Wells Fargo Bank. It was sold by AT&T in 1997 for US$111 million, the building contains direct underground access to the Montgomery Street Station. List of tallest buildings in San Francisco 44 Montgomery Street official website
27.
555 California Street
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555 California Street, formerly Bank of America Center, is a 52-story 778 ft skyscraper in San Francisco, California. It is the second tallest building in the city, the largest by area. Some sites round the heights of all four buildings to 780 ft making those four buildings tied as the 66th tallest buildings in the country, colloquially known as Triple Five,555 California Street was meant to display the wealth, power, and importance of Bank of America. Design was by Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, with architect Pietro Belluschi consulting, structural engineering was by the San Francisco firm H. J. Brunnier Associates. The skyscraper has thousands of bay windows thanks to its design, meant to improve the rental value. The irregular cutout areas near the top of the building were designed to suggest the Sierra mountains, at the north side of the skyscraper is a broad plaza named in honor of Bank of America founder A. P. Giannini. In the plaza the 200-ton black Swedish granite sculpture Transcendence by Masayuki Nagare resembles a liver but is known as the Bankers Heart. Nearly the entire block—the skyscraper, the hall, the plaza, the stairways. A restaurant, the Carnelian Room, was on the 52nd floor, the elevator to this restaurant is one of the few publicly accessible high-speed elevators in San Francisco. The restaurant closed at midnight New Years Eve 2009, the film shows panoramic views of San Francisco from the roof of the building. Many scenes were filmed in the interior ground-floor lobby. The granite stairs coming up from California Street to the A. P, the rooftop setting of the building used in Dirty Harry was also used a decade later in the Chuck Norris film An Eye for an Eye. The southeast corner of California and Kearny is about 35 feet above sea level, the Transamerica Pyramid is taller, but because of its top spire,555 California has the highest habitable space. The corner of California and Montgomery is built on landfill and the lowest level of the garage is below the level of the bay, so pumps, audible from the garage. The building is built on two huge Teflon slabs meant to slide over each other in case of an earthquake, state of the art design when it was built
28.
Transamerica Pyramid
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The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline. Its height is surpassed by Salesforce Tower, currently under construction, designed by architect William Pereira and built by Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, at 853 ft, on completion in 1972 it was the eighth tallest building in the world. The Transamerica building was commissioned by Transamerica CEO John R. Beckett, built on the site of the historic Montgomery Block, it has a structural height of 853 ft and has 48 floors of retail and office space. Construction began in 1969 and finished in 1972, and was overseen by San Francisco-based contractor Dinwiddie Construction, Transamerica moved its headquarters to the new building from across the street, where it had been based in a flatiron-shaped building now occupied by the Church of Scientology of San Francisco. Although the tower is no longer Transamerica Corporation headquarters, it is associated with the company and is depicted in the companys logo. The building is evocative of San Francisco and has one of the many symbols of the city. Designed by architect William Pereira, it faced opposition during planning, John King of the San Francisco Chronicle summed up the improved opinion of the building in 2009 as an architectural icon of the best sort - one that fits its location and gets better with age. The Transamerica Pyramid was the tallest skyscraper west of Chicago from 1972 to 1974 surpassing the then Bank of America Center and it was surpassed by the Aon Center in Los Angeles. The building is thought to have been the target of a foiled terrorist attack, involving the hijacking of airplanes as part of the Bojinka plot. In 1999, Transamerica was acquired by Dutch insurance company Aegon, when the non-insurance operations of Transamerica were later sold to GE Capital, Aegon retained the building as an investment. The Transamerica Pyramid has been the tallest skyscraper in San Francisco since 1972, the land use and zoning restrictions for the parcel limited the number of square feet of office that could be built upon the lot, which sits at the north boundary of the financial district. The building is a tall, four-sided pyramid with two wings to accommodate an elevator shaft on the east and a stairwell and a tower on the west. The top 212 feet of the building is the spire, there are four cameras pointed in the four cardinal directions at the top of this spire forming a virtual observation deck. Four monitors in the lobby, whose direction and zoom can be controlled by visitors, an observation deck on the 27th floor was closed after the September 11,2001 attacks, and replaced by the virtual observation deck. The top of the Transamerica Pyramid is covered with aluminum panels, the buildings façade is covered in crushed quartz, giving the building its light color. The four-story base contains 16,000 cu yd of concrete, the buildings foundation is 9 feet thick, the result of a 3-day, 24-hour continuous concrete pour. Several thousand dollars in quarters and change were thrown into the pit by observers surrounding the site at street level during the pouring, only two of the buildings 18 elevators reach the top floor. The original proposal was for a 1,150 ft building, the proposal was rejected by the city planning commission, saying it would interfere with views of San Francisco Bay from Nob Hill
29.
Salesforce Tower
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Salesforce Tower, formerly known as the Transbay Tower, is a 1, 070-foot supertall office skyscraper under construction in the South of Market district of downtown San Francisco. When completed, the tower will be the tallest in San Francisco, with a top roof height of 970 feet and an overall height of 1,070 feet, it will be the second-tallest building west of the Mississippi River after the Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles. Developer Hines, with a proposal by architect César Pelli, was selected as the winner of a competition in 2007 to entitle. In 2012, Boston Properties acquired a 50% stake in the project, the site of the tower was in a dilapidated area, formerly used as a ground-level entrance to the San Francisco Transbay Terminal, which was demolished in 2011. The TJPA sold the parcel to Boston Properties and Hines for US$192 million, actual below-grade construction work started in late 2013. The project is a joint venture between general contractors Clark Construction and Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction, the development was originally contracted on spec, meaning the developer-owner did not have a major tenant lease secured beforehand. On April 11,2014, Salesforce. com announced that it signed a lease for 714,000 square feet on floors 1, 3–30, previously known as the Transbay Tower, the building was renamed Salesforce Tower. The lease was valued at US$560 million over 15 and a half starting in 2017. The tower is expected to be completed in 2018 and will have 61 floors, the original proposal called for a 1, 200-foot tower, but the height was later reduced. It will be the tallest building in San Francisco, surpassing the Transamerica Pyramid by more than 200 feet, the tower is expected to become the second-tallest building in the Western United States. A facebook group critical of the design gained over 700 likes. Despite the tower not being completed, San Francisco Curbed readers rated Salesforce Tower as one of the 20 ugliest buildings in the city. Many also noted their disappointment that the tower, built on formerly state-owned land and claiming the highest elevation point in San Francisco, satirical blogs have also ridiculed the tower for its provocative shape
30.
345 California Center
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345 California Center is a 48-story office tower in the financial district of San Francisco, California. Completed in 1986, the 211.8 m tower is the third-tallest in the city after the Transamerica Pyramid and 555 California Street if the spires are included and it was originally proposed to be 30 m taller. 345 California is in the middle of a block with buildings on each of the four corners. Initially planned as condominiums, the top 11 floors of the building are the Loews Regency San Francisco hotel, several glass skybridges offer views of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Loews Regency has the street address 222 Sansome, with a different entrance, San Francisco, A Guide To Recent Architecture. Mandarin Oriental, San Francisco official website
31.
Millennium Tower (San Francisco)
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Millennium Tower is a 58-story,196.6 m condominium skyscraper completed in 2009 in the South of Market district in downtown San Francisco. A mixed-use, primarily residential structure, it is the tallest residential building in San Francisco, the blue-gray glass, late-modernist tower is bounded by Mission, Fremont, and Beale Streets, and the north end of the Transbay Transit Center site. The building was opened to residents on April 23,2009 and its highest level,58 floors above the ground, is listed as the 60th, because floors 13 and 44 are missing for superstitious reasons. In 2016, the building was found to be both sinking and tilting, tenants received official disclosure of the structure issues in May 2016, a few months before the news went public. The US$350 million project was developed by Millennium Partners of New York City, designed by Handel Architects, engineered by DeSimone Consulting Engineers and constructed by Webcor Builders. At 645 ft, it is the tallest concrete structure in San Francisco, the fourth tallest building in San Francisco overall, and it was also the tallest residential building west of the Mississippi River when finished. The tower is slender, with each floor containing 14,000 sq ft of floor space, in addition to the 58-story tower, there is a 125 ft, 11-story tower on the northeast end of the complex. Between the two towers is a 43 ft, two-story glass atrium, in total, the project has 419 units. The residences are said to be the priciest on the West Coast, the bottom 25 floors of the main tower are called Residences while the floors from 26 to the top have the name Grand Residences. The 53 units in the separate 12-story tower are called the City Residences, below street level, there are 434 parking spaces in a five-level subterranean garage located under the 11-story tower. The building is located next to the site of the future Transbay Transit Center, overall, the towers design is intended to resemble a translucent crystal, and is a landmark for the Transbay Redevelopment and the southern skyline of San Francisco. Millennium Tower is also home to RN74, a restaurant and wine bar under the direction of Chef Michael Mina, Millennium Partners first proposed the development in 2002 with 163 condominiums,108 rentals and a 136-unit extended stay hotel rooms. The project was approved in 2003 by the S. F, Planning Commission 4–1 and construction began in 2005. The only against vote came from Planning Commissioner Sue Lee, on September 6,2010, Dan Goodwin, also known as SpiderDan and Skyscraperman, scaled the outside of the tower using suction cups. Following the climb, Goodwin was arrested by the San Francisco police, in 2013, the building sold its final unit, generating US$750 million in total sales, a 25 percent return on the estimated US$600 million in development costs. In 2016, it was released to the public that the building was sinking and tilting, the foundation of the structure is a concrete slab built on 60–90 feet deep concrete friction piles into mud fill and sand, which is a poor ground type for supporting large structures. A number of buildings in this part of San Francisco required use of end-bearing piles. An examination in 2016 showed the building had sunk 16 inches with a tilt at the base
32.
One Rincon Hill
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One Rincon Hill is an upscale residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by Urban West Associates and it is part of the San Francisco Skyline and is visible from Mt. Diablo and Port of Oakland. The taller tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower, was completed in 2008, the shorter tower, marketed as Tower Two at One Rincon Hill, was completed in 2014 and reaches a height of 541 feet with 50 stories. The South Tower contains high-speed elevators with special features for moving residents effectively, both skyscrapers and the townhomes contain a total of 709 residential units. The building site, located next to the western approach of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The clock tower was demolished shortly after the city approved the One Rincon Hill project, construction of the townhomes and the South Tower lasted from 2005 to 2008, but was stopped for brief periods of time due to seismic concerns and a construction accident. As the South Tower neared completion, it generated controversy concerning view encroachment, high pricing, the complex is on a 1.3 acres parcel on the apex of the Rincon Hill neighborhood. The site is bounded by Harrison Street to the west, the Fremont Street exit ramp to the north, the approach to the Bay Bridge on the east, Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates, a Chicago architectural firm, designed the complex. The developer of complex is Urban West Associates, headed by Mike Kriozere. The developers headquarters are in San Diego, although all its highrise projects over 14 stories are in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Rincon Hill complex is the second project in San Francisco, with the first being ONE Embarcadero South. According to the developer the total cost of the Rincon Hill project was US$290 million, the complex consists of two buildings joined together at the base by a row of townhomes. The South Tower and North Tower rise 641 ft and 541 ft above the corner of Fremont and Harrison streets, the North Tower has 50 floors, while the South Tower has 60. Because of the sloped Rincon Hill site, the South Towers lobby floor or the 1st Street entrance is on the floor. It is also one of the tallest all-residential towers west of the Mississippi River, the architectural style for both buildings of the Rincon Hill complex is late-modernist. The three sides of the South Tower facing southeast, northeast, and northwest have a linear glass curtainwall, the North Tower has a similar design, except it is shorter and the curved aluminum and glass side faces northeast. Both skyscrapers of the Rincon Hill project contain an oval-shaped crown housing mechanical equipment, the crown of the South Tower contains a band of 25 LED floodlights that remain lit all night. Each LED light consumes little energy and has a lifetime of 40,000 hours and these lights are used to signal the weather, just like the lights on the John Hancock Tower in Boston
33.
101 California Street
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101 California Street is a 48-story office skyscraper completed in 1982 in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The 183 m tower, providing 1,250,000 sq ft of space, is bounded by California, Davis, Front. The faceted cylindrical tower features a seven-story, glass-enclosed lobby and a plaza with flower beds. During the holiday season, a platform with many oversized Christmas ornaments is added to the plaza, the buildings entrance is very similar to that of 101 Park Avenue in New York City, and was also designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee in 1982. The eight stairwells throughout the building are intended for use only. The building is the site of what has become known as the 101 California Street shootings, a mass murder which occurred there in 1993. On July 1, Gian Luigi Ferri, a client of the law firm Pettit & Martin, entered their offices on the 34th floor and killed eight people. The event was a catalyst in the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a terraced garden in the plaza in front of the building is now dedicated to the victims. 101 California property website 101 California at Hines Interests Limited Partnership
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Market Center (San Francisco)
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It served as the headquarters of the Chevron Corporation until 2001. 575 Market Street is a 40-story,175 m building completed in 1975,555 Market Street is the shorter tower at 95 m with 22 stories, and was completed in 1964. The two buildings are surrounded by small ornamental plazas, both buildings are terra cotta over a granite base. Chevron occupied the Market Center complex from 1965 until 2001 when it moved its headquarters to its campus in San Ramon, in 1999, Chevron sold the two buildings to Tishman Speyer and Travelers Real Estate Ventures for US$189.1 million and leased back the office space. At the time the company moved its headquarters, it had already moved most workers to San Ramon. By 2003, the complex was 83 percent vacant, and a joint venture between DivcoWest Properties and RREEF bought the property for US$79.5 million, in 2010, RREEF sold the complex to Manulife Financial for US$267 million. List of tallest buildings in San Francisco Official website
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One Market Plaza
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One Market Plaza is a complex of three office buildings at 1 Market Street along the San Francisco Embarcadero. The complex was renovated in 1996 by the architect firm César Pelli & Associates Architects, in Spring 2014 a new renovation began, which is still ongoing. An $88 million renovation brought modern amenities such as air conditioning and it later hosted the headquarters of Del Monte Foods for ten years on the buildings top three floors. Paramount Group buys half interest in One Market Plaza, One Market Plaza at Emporis Southern Pacific Building at Emporis
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One Sansome Street
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The 168 m,41 floor,587,473 sq ft office tower was completed in 1984. The One Sansome Street tower is adjacent to the site of the ornate Anglo and London Paris National Bank. Designed by architect Albert Pissis, the building was granite clad with 38 ft high Doric columns. The historic architecture of the building serves as a conservatory for the skyscraper today. By 2010, it was owned by Broadway Partners Fund Manager, in 2010, a partnership between Barker Pacific Group and Prudential Real Estate Investors took ownership of the building. In 2011, Citigroup signed an extension through 2022 to remain the buildings anchor tenant. The building contains direct access to the Montgomery Street Station. San Franciscos tallest buildings One Sansome Street office website
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One Front Street
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One Front Street, also known as Shaklee Terraces, is an office skyscraper in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The 164 m, 38-floor tower was completed in 1979, the composition of the façade closely resembles that of the Shell Building by Emil Fahrenkamp, which was built in Berlin in 1931. The Shaklee Corporation was once headquartered in the tower until the company moved to Pleasanton, in 1999-2001 Scient Corporation, a dot-com era consulting firm, had its head office on the upper floors of the building, prior to its move to Market Street. Tenants include, First Republic Bank Lookout, Inc, kite Wells Fargo Bank Covington & Burling Skidmore Owings & Merrill FTI Jones Lang LaSalle BNP Paribas List of tallest buildings in San Francisco Woodbridge, Sally B
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425 Market Street
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425 Market Street is an office skyscraper located on the corner of Market- and Fremont Streets in the financial district of San Francisco, California. The 160 m,38 floor office tower was completed in 1973 and it was built by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company as their Pacific Coast Headquarters and was called 1 Metropolitan Plaza. It was built as a replacement for their older headquarters on Nob Hill at 600 Stockton Street. It was among the first buildings in San Francisco to have a transport system for computer data cards, files and inner-office mail. Its largest tenant today is law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, the building is partially owned by the Government Pension Fund of Norway, who according to their 2015 report owns 47. 5%. San Franciscos tallest buildings 425 Market Street official website 425 Market Street Tenant Handbook
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333 Bush Street
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333 Bush Street is a 43-floor,151 m skyscraper completed in 1986 in the financial district of San Francisco, California. The building was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and contains commercial offices as well as seven stories of individually owned residential condominiums, in 2013, the building was purchased by a joint venture of Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board and DivcoWest Properties for US$275 million. In 2015, the property was acquired by Tishman Speyer for US$380 million, state Compensation Insurance Fund National Park Service Pacific West Regional Office San Franciscos tallest buildings
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Hilton San Francisco Union Square
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Hilton San Francisco Union Square is a skyscraper hotel located several blocks south-west of Union Square in San Francisco, California. The 46-story,493 ft Tower I, was completed in 1971, the complex is currently the largest hotel in San Francisco. The two towers total 1,919 hotel rooms, and is one of the tallest structures representing the Brutalist architecture, San Franciscos tallest buildings Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel website
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St. Regis Museum Tower
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The tower is bounded by Mission Street and 3rd Street, and is operated by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide. The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and constructed by Webcor Builders with Architectural Glass, construction began on the highrise sometime around 2001. The project was completed in 2005 along with the retrofit of the historic nine-story Williams Building, the tower houses 102 luxury condominiums,269 hotel rooms, a 4-story subterranean parking garage, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. Its many prominent tenants led Fortune magazine to call the home to one of the bigger groups of power players in the world. The St. InterContinental Hotel San Francisco Four Seasons W Hotel San Francisco List of tallest buildings in San Francisco
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100 Pine Center
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100 Pine Center is a class-A office building at the northwest corner of Pine Street and Front Street in San Franciscos Financial District. The building is 145 m with 33 floors, and 402,500 sq ft of office space. Completed in 1972 as headquarters of the Continental Insurance Company, the building is among the earlier of San Franciscos modern skyscrapers, by the start of the dot-com bubble the property, then owned by Grosvenor Properties, was outdated and suffered from deferred capital maintenance. After two failed transactions, Walton Capital sold the building to investors led by Unico Properties in May 2000 for US$156 million, Unico re-sold the property to the Alaska Permanent Fund based on a US$149 million price in August 2005, but retained a minority ownership share. The property was acquired by the Rockpoint Group in February 2017 for US$287.5 million, the tower houses many daytime office workers. Major tenants include the New York Life Insurance Company, as of 2016, it is tied with 45 Fremont Center as the twenty-sixth tallest building in San Francisco. It was certified as being operated and maintained as a building under the US Green Building Councils Leadership in Energy. The Consulate-General of Ireland is in the building, list of tallest buildings in San Francisco
