Search Results for “Willis polk” – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Search Results : Willis polk

John Muir Elementary School

Posted by Cindy on April 20, 2016

Apr 202016

John Muir Elementary School
380 Webster
Hayes Valley

In the ten years between 1920 and 1930 San Francisco erected 49 new school buildings, with a 50^th approved in 1931.

This was all accomplished just 80 years after the birth of the San Francisco School System.

These 50 school buildings represented an investment, at that time, of $17,418,814.

The 1931 Report of the Superintendent showed that the forty-seven schools had an enrollment of 42,976 students, and an additional 4000 to be enrolled when the remaining three, still under construction at the time of the report, were to open.

At that time the school system of San Francisco had an enrollment of 82,438 children. Today that number is only 57,000.

This staggering growth rate most likely explains why there is so little information about John Muir Elementary School. It was the 32nd on the list, likely just another, of so many, schools on the drawing table of City Architect John Reid.

Tiles adorn the interior doors of the auditorium

John Muir Elementary was begun in 1926 and completed in 1927. Its stucco covered, reinforced concrete construction is minimal.

While there is lovely tile details in the entry and auditorium, the building is fairly unadorned.

Small little alcoves for teachers are by each classroom door.

There are delightful little details, such as kid high blackboards, and small little boxes to the side of each classroom where teachers can post notes, but few other adornments. Small wood peg closets and built in benches on the top floor hallway, are a sign of more personalized design and construction considerations, but the school is still minimal. This is all made up for in its warmth and stunning views from the East side windows.

Iron grates and decorative tiles, show an attention to craftsmanship.

Born in San Francisco in 1883, John Reid Jr. was born in San Francisco and attended Lowell High School. He then studied architecture at Berkeley under John Galen Howard, a significant mentor and important early Bay Area architect.

With Howard’s encouragement, Reid applied to the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris (the most important design school of the time). His studies in Paris placed him among a very elite class of California architects.

Reid returned to a post 1906 Earthquake and Fire San Francisco. Due to his connections he worked briefly for renowned architects Daniel Burnham and Willis Polk, then established his own practice around 1912.

That same year, Reid’s brother-in-law, Sunny Jim Rolph, was sworn in as mayor, and appointed Reid as a supervising architect to execute the design for San Francisco’s new City Hall, designed by John Bakewell and Arthur Brown Jr.

He became San Francisco City Architect in 1917 and remained in that position until 1927, with school design and construction a high priority, as the earthquake had totally destroyed or damaged most of the city’s schools.

There are three WPA murals in the school, done by David Park in 1934. You can read about those here.

Murals of the Merchant Exchange Building

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2016

Jan 252016

465 California Street
Financial District

Julia Morgan was responsible for the artistic elements, under architect Willis Polk, in the Merchant Exchange Building.

Miss Morgan chose William A. Coulter, the leading marine artist of his time to fill the bays between the marble and bronze columns in what is now a bank lobby.

Arrived All Well was chosen by the U.S. Post Office for the 23 cent stamp in 1923

William Alexander Coulter, (March 7, 1849 – March 13, 1936) was a native of Glenariff, County Antrim, in what is today Northern Ireland. He became an apprentice seaman at the age of 13, and after seven years at sea, came to settle in San Francisco in 1869. A marine illustrator for the San Francisco Call, Coulter has been credited with virtually recording the entire history of maritime shipping in Northern California in his over 5000 paintings.

The five murals in the bank represent Port Costa, Honolulu Harbor and the San Francisco Bay, including the Golden Gate prior to the bridge being built.

The Hayward/Kohl Building

Posted by Cindy on July 30, 2013

Jul 302013

400 Montgomery Street
Financial District

The Hayward/Kohl Building was designed by Percy & Polk (George Percy and Willis Polk both of whom have been written about on this site many times before) for Alvinza Hayward.

Hayward made his fortune from the Eureka Gold Mine in California and the Comstock Silver Mine in Nevada as well as investments in timber, coal, railroads, real estate, and banking. He was a director of the Bank of California and one of the original investors in the San Francisco City Gas Company which become the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Hayward was in his late seventies when he commissioned the partners Percy and Polk to create a first-class office building that would be a testament to his wealth and position in the community. The building was completed in 1901. The footprint of the building is shaped like the letter H, perhaps a giant monogram for Hayward.

Purchased in 1904 by C. Frederick Kohl the building was one of the first steel-frame “fireproof” buildings in San Francisco. It survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire with damage to only the first floors which were reconstructed under Polk’s supervision. (see the end of this posting)

The lower stories have been redesigned several times, but the upper stories with their brick curtain walls clad in Colusa limestone remain unchanged.

As noted in Splendid Survivors: San Francisco’s Downtown Architectural heritage (Michael R. Corbett, 1979):

It was an early and excellent example…of the more formal designs that later came to characterize the city, relying on a relatively restrained and “correct” use of Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation and the two or three part compositional formula….Ornamentation in this three part composition is concentrated in the upper tier with its mannerist giant order and carved garlands and animal heads.”

C. Frederick Kohl was a man of leisure who lived on an estate down the peninsula inherited from his father, who made his fortune in the Alaska fisheries. In 1909 a French maid employed by Kohl’s wife got into a dispute with a chauffeur. After Kohl had her arrested she sued him for false arrest. When found not guilty two years later he was shot, by the maid, in the chest while leaving the courthouse . He survived and Adele Verge was required to spend time in a mental institution in her native France. She spent years bombarding Kohl with threatening notes. In 1921 at the Del Monte Lodge in Carmel he committed suicide.

Separated from his wife, Kohl left most of his $4 million estate to his mistress Marion L. Lord, ex-wife of the heir to the Lord and Taylor retail chain Alfred P. Lord.

News clippings after the 1906 Fire and Earthquake regarding the Hayward Building:

Very little fire entered the basement, and the power plant is practically uninjured. The marble finish of the entrance hall is in good condition, the ornamental plaster being but slightly damaged. The second and third stores are fire swept, but a few offices in the northeast corner of the building escaped. In the fourth and fifth stories, the fire did the most damage in the offices around the southwest corner of the building. In the sixth and seventh stories the fire entered the building through windows in the northeast corner, consuming all the combustible contents in a few offices and discoloring the rest of the story by smoke. The upper stories are but slightly damaged by fire and smoke, but are disfigured by a great number of plaster cracks caused by the earthquake (Himmelwright 1906: 168-172).

The building’s unique survival of the disaster was generally ascribed to its construction. One engineer noted that “The advantages of the metal-covered trim and the incombustible floor finish were clearly demonstrated in this building.”(Himmelwright 1906: 172) Another observed that the “metal-covered doors in this building…prevented to some extent the spread of the fire within the building itself, so that where one room burned out, the fire coming through a front window, an adjacent room was not burned because of the resistance offered by the door.”(Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of April 18, 1906, and their Effects on Structures and Structural materials, Bulletin no. 324, Series R., Structural Materials 1, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907, repr: San Francisco Historical Publishing Co., n.p.)

Another reason for the building’s survival was its relative isolation. A local architect, visiting the scene, noted that the “Merchants Exchange building really acted as a screen across the street to the Hayward building, and the one-story Merchants Trust building also served to protect the building, by the fifty-foot open space on the east; California Street on the south and Montgomery Street on the west also protected the building.”(The Architect and Engineer of California, Vol. V No 1 (May, 1906), n.p.)

In 1854 this corner was the site of Sam Brannan’s Express Building, a four-story edifice with a stone facade and New Orleans-style iron balconies around the windows on the upper floors. (source: Rand Richards – Historic Walks in San Francisco) (Photo Courtesy of SF Public Library)

Spring Valley Water Company

Posted by Cindy on June 26, 2013

Jun 262013

425 Mason Street
Lower Nob Hill/Tenderloin

This unassuming and yet intriguing little building has been sitting in my computer waiting to be written about since March of 2012. My late husband, the architectural sculptor Michael H. Casey had driven me by to show me the wonderful detailed sculpture that covered the first floor. I was unable to find out anything about it and so the post was left unwritten.

In the past few months I had the privilege of hearing Gray Brechin, UC Berkeley lecturer and author, speak on the architecture of the UC campus. I purchased his highly detailed tome titled “Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin‘” to further my education on San Francisco’s history. He has chapters dedicated to the fights and corruption of water and its history within our fair city. Most San Franciscan’s familiar with their city’s history know of the fight to bring water to a sea surrounded town, but Gray brings it to life with some underbelly stories that make reading his book worth every second.

An excerpt from the book:

Between the mid 1860s and 1930, San Francisco’s water supply was controlled by the Spring Valley Water Company. As one of the most powerful private monopolies in the state, Spring Valley was controlled by, and used largely for the benefit of, the local land barons and financiers who authorized the development of a wide variety of often-destructive hydrologic projects. Efforts to de-privatize the city’s water supply began under the Progressive mayoral administration of James Phelan, and pressure mounted after the failure of the water supply during the 1906 Earthquake and fire. Eventually the Hetch Hetchy source was secured for the city, ending Spring Valley’s corrupt monopoly.

The Spring Valley Water Company was a private company that held a monopoly on water rights in San Francisco from 1860 to 1930. Run by land barons, its 70-year history was fraught with corruption, land speculation, favoritism towards the moneyed elite, and widespread ill will from the general populace.

***

And yet, that is not what led me to write this post. In researching the First National Bank I took quite a long time to find the artist of the canopy over the side entrance to the bank. Emily Michels was a school teacher in San Francisco, and thus did not warrant much space on the hundreds of art sites dedicated to finding artists in the world. However, again thanks to the UC Bancroft Library, none-the-less, I found her.

It was in reading an interview with her that I discovered she was the one responsible for the water pouring down the Spring Valley Water Company building.

The building was designed by Willis Polk, who was a specialist in public-utility architecture and one of San Francisco’s leading architects. He was the architect on the Central Pump Station in San Francisco.

I found this excerpt about the building in The San Francisco Water, Volumes 1-8 dated January 1923

“The first two stories and part of the third will be devoted to the Water Sales Department. The fourth story will house the Agricultural Photographic, Publicity, Purchasing and Real Estate departments. The fifth will be occupied by the executive offices of the president and vice-president and manager. The sixth will be given over to the offices of the secretary and auditor. The top floor will accommodate the Engineering Department.

On the roof there will be a girls’ restroom, with a kitchen, set in the midst of a garden planted to grass and flowers, the latter being an unusual feature for the office building. The distinctive feature of the main floor will be a fountain designed by the distinguished sculptor, Arthur Putnam.

The public spaces in the building will have marble floors and wainscotings. The woodwork throughout will be oak. An intercommunicating Dictograph system will be installed to relieve the pressure on the telephone exchange.”

***

It is interesting that Arthur Putnam also was a sculptor on the First National Bank.

The City and County of San Francisco acquired the property on March 3, 1930 when it purchased Spring Valley Water Company’s water system. The building served as headquarters for the San Francisco Water Department until January 2003. The City declared the property surplus and placed it on the market in June 2007 at that time the sale price was $5,600,000.

Systematic Saving is the Key to Success

Posted by Cindy on June 25, 2013

Jun 252013

1 Montgomery Street
Financial District

This pressed copper decorative marquee graces the side entrance to the First National Bank, now Wells Fargo.

There are two figures, one on each side of the marquee that stand and serve as supports. Cornucopias are placed at their feet. A nude male and female figure recline on either side of a medallion that is repeated on both sides of the marquee. Fruit, leaves, wheat, and a griffin are used as decorations.

The medallion reads Systematic Saving is the Key to Success.

The marquee is the work of Emily Michals and was done in 1924.

Information about Ms. Michals was difficult to find, however, thanks to the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library I found an interview with her done in September of 1984 by Micaela DuCasse regarding Liturgical Art.

Here is the introduction to the interview:

Emily Michels was one of the finest art teachers at high school level in San Francisco. She taught at Mission High School for thirty-nine years.

Many future priests, several that would have an influence on liturgical art in one way or another, passed through her classroom and enjoyed her inspiring influence.

She had an unerring instinct for recognizing hidden or latent artistic talent in a student. She worked hard to develop and encourage such talent whenever possible. Those students who benefited by her excellent training and encouragement to go on with it as a life-work or an avocation were always grateful to her, and gave her the credit due her with gratitude and friendship. Among her students was Rev. Terrance O’Connor, S.J., sculptor and teacher and member of the Catholic Art Forum.

Emily was one of the first artists to join the Catholic Art Forum, and she was one of its most enthusiastic and loyal members to its end.
Her contribution as a teacher of a art was invaluable in that area of its aims which was education. This, combined with her knowledge of art in general and her faith and interest in contemporary art in the Church, was reason enough to interview her.

It goes on:

[Note: In filling out the biographical information form requested of interviewees by the Regional Oral History Office, Emily Michels offered some comments about her own work.] She was an architectural scale model maker in the office of Willis Polk, and other architects after his death. She did architectural ornamental sculpture, such as the facade of the Water Department Building on Mason St., San Francisco, figures over the Post Street entrance of the Crocker National Bank, Montgomery and Post Streets, figures for the forestry department panorama and models for heads of wax and papier-mâché mannequins. She taught arts and crafts at Mission High School for forty years, and at senior centers. She was interested in modeling in clay, pottery, painting, plastic, crafts, screen printing, illustration. She prepared and coached students to win free scholarships to the California School of Fine Arts. She was also interested in decorating tables for teachers and church lunches, dinners, banquets,et cetera.

She says about liturgical arts, “I had intended to produce figures and reliefs in terra cotta for the church upon my retirement, but, when I saw the kind of monstrosities in scrap metal and the brutal faces of some statuary being installed in some churches, I quit. I believe that art should inspire beauty, peace. ‘The tranquility of order is peace. ‘ A lot of contemporary confusion and chaos is expressed in what we call contemporary art. I wonder if it has an inspiring place in the church?”

The First National Bank Building

Posted by Cindy on June 24, 2013

Jun 242013

1 Montgomery Street
Financial District

This classic Italian Renaissance bank building was designed by Willis Polk in 1908. Polk has been in this website many times. The Raymond granite entryway is only the tease to a beautiful and highly ornamented interior, replete with a carved white marble staircase; counters and benches of carved marble along with bronze tellers’ windows, and hardware.

Originally the Crocker-Citizens National Bank (absorbed by Wells Fargo in the 1980’s), the building has been extensively remodeled. It originally housed an 11 story office tower above it and was sheathed in terra cotta.

One of its more outstanding features is the rotunda entrance supported by granite pillars, with its coffered ceiling.

Originally a “combination bank and office building” it is now one of the most lavish banking interiors in the city. In 1921 the banking hall and its arcaded base were extended to the north in an exact copy of the original design. This extension made a grand interior even grander but it incurred an interesting reaction from Polk who sued the architect, Charles E. Gottschalk, for plagiarism.

By 1960 the sandstone façade was crumbling. So Milton Pflueger, whose brother Timothy was the city’s most influential architect in the 1930’s and 1940s, redesigned the façade for the upper floors. When Crocker proposed a new world headquarters tower and galleria further west on Post Street, the city provided air space in exchange for the demolition of the upper floors of the building at 1 Montgomery. The roof of the bank is now a garden for the Crocker Galleria Shopping Center.

Found on both the interior and exterior of the windows are these little bats. They were designed by Arthur Putnam. Within the frieze, also done by Arthur Putnam, are mountain lions, wolves and foxes.

Arthur Putnam has also appeared many times in this website. Why bats? I have no idea, other than Putnam was well known for his animal sculptures.

When Infrastructure Buildings Kept Beauty in Mind

Posted by Cindy on May 6, 2013

May 062013

2920 23rd Avenue
Merced Manor / Sunset District

This classical building is the Central Pump Station. Designed by Willis Polk and built in 1936, it sits atop the asphalt capped Merced Manor Reservoir which holds 9.5 million gallons of water to supply the city of San Francisco. The building has been attributed to N. A. Eckart by some, but he was the General Manager and Chief Engineer of the Water department.

The City and County of San Francisco through the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, owns and operates a regional water system that serves 2.4 million people, primarily in San Francisco and the south San Francisco Bay region. The system extends about 167 miles, from Yosemite National Park (Hetch Hetchy) to San Francisco, and develops water supply from three principal watersheds: the Tuolumne River, Alameda, and Peninsula watersheds. The regional water system includes over 280 miles of pipeline, over 60 miles of tunnels, 11 reservoirs, 5 pump stations, and 2 water treatment plants (filtration). The history of the system dates back to the 1860s, and many parts of it are over 100 years old.

The Fish and Trident motif are also used in his design of the Sunol Water Temple.

This is the 23rd street entrance to the lawn area above the reservoir. The Valve House is at the top of the stairs.

The Insurance Exchange

Posted by Cindy on May 4, 2013

May 042013

Insurance Exchange Building
433 California Street
Financial District

Turning 100 years old this year, the Insurance Exchange was designed by Willis Polk. This highly ornamented building is complimented by its sister building the Merchant’s Exchange next door. The highly decorated exterior of the building, flanked with majestic Corinthian columns and topped with a very detailed cornice simply commands attention.

The ornamentation is derived from Renaissance/Baroque sources. The building exemplifies the City Beautiful Movement in its simultaneous success as urban architecture, achieved through form and composition, and as an individual building, achieved in the quality of its details.

Insurance Exchange Cornice

From the San Francisco Call September 7, 1912

“Final Plans Accepted and Financial Arrangements Made for $500,000 Building

After some variations in the original plan the design for the Insurance Exchange building has been finally accepted. Work will be started in a few weeks on this great structure at the southeast corner of California and Lledesdorff streets. The building has been financed through stock in the corporation, the Insurance Exchange, and a bond mortgage for $500,000 which was executed last week to the Savings Union Bank and Trust Credit Company as trustee. The plans of Willis Polk & Co., the architects, have been finally approved acd adopted by the directors of the Insurance Exchange, and contracts will be awarded Immediately for excavating the lot and laying the foundations. Immediately thereafter contracts will be awarded for various parts of the superstructure, beginning with the steel frame which is to be of the cage type. With a frontage of 107 feet on California Street the new Insurance building will be one of the largest office structures in San Francisco. It will cover the entire lot. Besides a basement there will be 11 stories, with the ground floor arranged for banking houses or Insurance offices. The offices in the upper floors will be largely occupied by Insurance brokers and agents and others engaged in some way with insurnace business, although others may locate in the building. The steel frame work will be covered with re-inforced concrete fireproofing and the floors, walls and roof will also be In concrete, the fronts having a facing of pressed brick with terra cotta ornament in the same color tone. In the first story marble and stone will be used. On the California street front will be a colonnade running up three stories to a cornice, the columns and pilasters to be of the Corinthian order. The shaft of the building will be plain, after the style of the Merchants’ Exchange building, and the top will be ornamented-with a classic cornice. Tbe interior throughout Its 11 floors will be finished in first class style similar to the best office buildings of the city.”

Willis Polk (1867-1924) was born in Jacksonville, Illinois. In 1989 he joined the office of A. Page Brown and moved with Brown’s firm to San Francisco. He took over the Ferry Building project following Brown’s death. Polk published the Architectural News from 1890-1891 and wrote a series of short critiques for The Wave, a San Francisco weekly review. In 1901, he moved to Chicago to work with Daniel Burnham. Polk returned to San Francisco in 1903 and worked on the master plan for the City of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire. After opening his own office he was named supervising architect of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Besides the Insurance Exchange he was responsible for such famous buildings as the Hallidie Building (the first glass curtain-walled building ever constructed) the Bourn estate at Filoli and Grass Valley and the water temple in Sunol, California.

Polk’s architectural firm, Polk and Company completed more than one hundred major commercial and residential buildings in the Bay Area.

Lobby Elevators of 433 California Street

The coffered ceiling in the lobby of the Insurance Exchange

The Beach Chalet

Posted by Cindy on March 5, 2013

Mar 052013

Designed by architect Willis Polk, the Beach Chalet has served as a gathering spot on Ocean Beach for most of its life. With its hipped roof and hand-made roof tiles, this Spanish Revival building survived a takeover by the US Army, the raucous residence of a biker bar and 15 years of abandonment. Today it houses two restaurants, offering visitors a variety of dining fare to accompany the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean (more on that later).

The City of San Francisco built the Beach Chalet in 1925, at a cost of $60,000, to provide facilities for beach goers. The ground floor consisted of a lounge and changing rooms, while the upstairs held a 200-seat bar and municipal restaurant.

Labaudt’s mural of sunbathers with a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge under construction

In 1936, under the auspices of the Works Project Administration (WPA), Lucien Labaudt was hired to execute 1500 square feet of frescoes on the first floor. California WPA artists believed that their art should be inspirational, and they often painted the world not as it was, but as how they wished it to be. The Beach Chalet murals depict a serene and simple San Francisco life, which contrasted with the harsh reality of what many were experiencing during the Great Depression.

Two other WPA projects can be found at the Beach Chalet: a magnolia wood staircase titled Sea Creatures by Michael von Meyer, and a series of mosaics designed by Labaudt and installed by Primo Caredio.

During WWII the Army commandeered the Beach Chalet for use as its Coastal Defense Headquarters. The military considered San Francisco a potential target during WWII, so several defensive fortifications were established throughout the Bay. The soldiers moved out in 1941, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) took over.

Members of the 78th Coast Artillery pitch camp behind the Beach Chalet. October 1941. (Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library)

The VFW used the upstairs as a meeting room, and the downstairs became a biker bar of some disrepute. The VFW held the lease on the building for 15 years. In 1981, when the bar became a public nuisance, the City raised the rent by $500. The VFW moved out, and the building was shuttered.

In 1981 the National Park Service declared the Beach Chalet a National Landmark, but the building was padlocked and surrounded by a chain link fence, left to remain unused for 15 years-with the exception of feral cat squatters and an occasional fire-inciting vagrant.

In 1987 the city allocated $800,000 for infrastructure repairs, including restoration of the artworks. This work was completed in 1989, and yet the building continued to sit empty.

Beginning in 1993 restaurateurs Gar and Lara Truppelli saw the commercial potential of this historic building and led a movement to reopen the chalet.

A $1.5 million grant in 1996 to the Friends of Recreation and Parks (courtesy of the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund) gave the building its second life. Under the supervision of the architecture firm Heller Manus, an elevator was installed, and the bathrooms were made ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant. The Beach Chalet opened its doors to the public once again.

The Brewery sits behind the second-floor bar.

The upstairs now houses the Truppelli’s Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant, which makes beer with wonderful local names like VFW Light, Riptide Red and Presidio IPA. The downstairs lobby is open for visitors to enjoy the murals and mosaics, and has a few small displays of San Francisco trivia. Behind this main lobby is a sunny window-filled restaurant, the Park Chalet, serving lighter fare for those not inclined toward pub fare.

The Beach Chalet has shown the resilience of so many San Francisco buildings, surviving abuse by man and Mother Nature for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.

The Art of the Jessie Street Substation

Posted by Cindy on January 9, 2013

Jan 092013

The Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Substation
222-226 Jessie Street
Market Street/Yerba Buena Gardens

Tucked away in a dead-end alley between Market and Mission, is one of San Francisco’s few great examples of the architectural possibilities of the brick facade. Originally built in 1881, and subsequently enlarged twice, the substation was damaged in a fire in February, 1906, and almost destroyed in the earthquake and fire of April, 1906. Rebuilt in 1907, the building owes its present character to Willis Polk, at that time head of the San Francisco office of D. H. Burnham and Company, the Chicago firm that had prepared the 1905 plan for the conversion of San Francisco to a model of the “city beautiful” along the lines of Paris and Washington. As a result, it is not altogether surprising that the architectural ideas of Polk and Burnham should have been applied to an electric substation in a South-of-Market alley.

This noble structure is a simple (but quite sophisticated) exercise in the development of balance, line, and texture. Though the eye focuses on the ornamental, vertical, and symmetrical piercings and moldings, it is the horizontal line of the rough, red wall that catches the breath. Yet, of course, it is the elaborate applied inventions that make the plain surface more than just another brick wall. This is a building that many San Franciscans have never seen, and it is worth going out of one’s way to look at it. The above Here Today, San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage by Roger Olmsted and T.H. Watkins, 1969.

The Substation, which served as a power station until 1924 is now part of the Contemporary Jewish Museum (designed by Daniel Liebeskind). This lovely pediment sculpture is part of the original substation building.

facade_lg

The pediment sculpture is located above the left door and features matte-glazed terra cotta cherubs holding garlands above a plaque that reads 1907, the date the original building was completed. Restoration of the brick facade took six months during which time damaged pieces of terra cotta were built out using fiberglass and putty. The fixtures were then re-glazed to protect them from future environmental damage.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum addition

There are a lot of beautiful ornamentation on buildings throughout San Francisco, and like much of it, it was done by artists and craftspeople that left us with a legacy but not their name.

Nob Hill – Pacific Union Club

Posted by Cindy on April 1, 2012

Apr 012012

Nob Hill

Pacific Union Club

Flood Mansion

This house, built in 1886 forJames Clair Flood , was the first Brownstone west of the Mississippi. It was the only great Nob Hill house to survive the 1906 Fire, saved just barely, thanks to its Connecticut brownstone walls. The Pacific Union Club purchased it’s shell and William Bourn, who was on the building committee, secured the reconstruction commission for Willis Polk.

This bronze fence surrounding the property is the city’s finest; Flood allegedly employed one man just to polish it. With those days gone, it has been allowed to mellow to a fine patinated green. The pattern was supposedly taken from a piece of lace that Mrs. Flood admired, and surrounds all four sides of the property.

At the time it was built the fence cost $30,000. (around $715,000 in 2012 dollars)

Flood was one of the “Bonanza Kings“, a saloon Keeper that came from New York in the 1870s, he made his fortune in one of the richest silver strikes in the United States – The Nevada Comstock Lode.

The Pacific Union Club is a highly private mens club. Entry to the PU club for non-members is difficult at best.

Kezar Stadium

Posted by Cindy on March 15, 2012

Mar 152012

Golden Gate Park

Kezar Stadium

What it looked like originally

Every San Francisco 49er faithful knows that this was the first home of the team. What they may not know is who played their first.

An appropriation of $200,000 from the City of San Francisco and a $100,000 endowment by Mary Kezar in 1922 gave San Francisco Polytechnic School and San Francisco a football field. The stadium was designed by Willis Polk and built by contractor Palmer and McBride. Most stadiums are built from North to south so that a majority of the spectators don’t sit with the sun in their face, however, Golden Gate Park Superintendent McClaren insisted that the stadium be oriented East to West to protect acreage belonging to the park.

The stadium was opened to a crowd of 22,000 for a race between two major track stars of their day, Paavo Nurmi and Willie Ratola. The field served the 49ers from 1946 until 1971. President Gerald Ford played a shriners East-West game here in 1935.

The stadium was demolished in 1989 due to structural deficiencies. The arch is a replica of one that was part of the original stadium, the columns are a hat tip to the old stadium but not original.

This sign, which was on the original stadium, can be found near a field level bench:

This Stadium And Oval Presented To Golden Gate Park By Mary A. Kezar As A Memorial To Her Mother, Nancy H. Kezar, And Her Uncles, Bartlett Doe, John Sanborne Doe, Charles Franklin Doe, Pioneers Of California, Erected By Her Executor, 1924.

If you are a football fan, and want to read all about Kezar through the ages you will love the NFL’s history page.

Robert Louis Stevenson in Chinatown

Posted by Cindy on December 2, 2011

Dec 022011

Chinatown

Portsmouth Square

San Francisco remembers Robert Louis Stevenson with the first monument to Stevenson in the United States. It sits in Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. In 1876 Stevenson was at an art colony in France and fell in love Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne, who was not only married with several children, but was 11 years his senior. In 1878, Fanny was called home by her husband in San Francisco. After a while Fanny telegraphed asking Stevenson to join her and he headed to San Francisco.

At the time Stevenson was not the world renown author of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he was just a sickly and unknown writer. When he arrived in San Francisco he rented a room at 608 Bush Street, and often visited Portsmouth Square for the sunshine.

In 1880, once Fanny was free to marry Stevenson, they did and after a honeymoon in Napa Valley (home of the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park and a museum that is dedicated to his work), they headed back to Europe. In 1888 the Stevensons chartered a boat for the South Seas and eventually settled in Samoa. Stevenson died there in 1894 at the age of forty-four.

This monument was designed by Bruce Porter, landscape designer of Filoli Gardens and architect Willis Polk. It was unveiled in 1897. The inscription is from the Christmas Sermon in Stevensons’ book Across the Plains.

It reads: To remember Robert Louis Stevenson – To be honest to be kind – to earn a little to spend a little less – to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence – to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered to keep a few friends but these without capitulation – above all on the same grim condition to keep friends with himself here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

In his novel The Wrecker, Stevenson said this of San Francisco: “She is not only the most interesting city in the Union, and the hugest smelting-pot of the races and the precious metals. She keeps, besides, the doors of the Pacific, and is port of entry to another world and another epoch in man’s history.”

608 Bush Street

Market Street’s Flatiron Building

Posted by Cindy on March 23, 2001

Mar 232001

Flat Iron Building
540 Market Street
Market Street / Financial District

Built in 1913 the Flatiron Building was designed by Havens & Toepke. It is one of the few, and most distinctive extant flatirons on Market Street. Flatirons were common north of Market both before and after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, but the destruction of many of them such as the 1892 Crocker Building at Post and Market for high-rises has made them rare.

The skeletal structure of the building is well-adapted to an unusual (for San Francisco) Gothic treatment in which three-part bays are separated by thin piers of reinforced concrete scored to imitate masonry. A highly distinctive cantilevered cornice of Gothic pendants appears to be a prototype for Willis Polk’s 1917 Hallidie Building one block west. Described in 1913 as “pure English Gothic,” the medieval ornament also is used for interior railings, grilles, and elevator doors.

The most well known Flatiron in San Francisco is most likely the The Sentinal in North Beach, but since this is actually called The Flatiron Building the two are often confused.

Flatiron buildings are among the earliest skyscrapers. Their triangular shape was determined by real estate parcels created by diagonal streets, such as Market Street, that sliced through streets designed on a grid. They were named for their resemblance to clothes irons of the period.

The most famous flatiron building is the Fuller Building, of New York City and generally considered that city’s first skyscraper. It was designed by Daniel H. Burnham and built in 1902.

Charles I. Havens was born in New York in 1849 and arrived in California in 1856. Havens served for twelve years as City Architect of San Francisco, designing many of the early schools, none of which survive. He died in 1916.

William H. Toepke was born in California San Francisco July 12, 1870. He attended public schools and then entered the office of William Mooser in 1886 to study architecture. Four years later he became an employee of C.I. Havens and formed a partnership with Havens in 1897 that continued until 1915. Toepke died in 1949.

Path of Gold Street Lamps

Posted by Cindy on March 13, 2001

Mar 132001

Market Street

The Ferry Building to Castro Street

Known as the Path of Gold due to their golden hue which emanates from yellow sodium vapor lamps the 33-foot high lampposts along Market Street were designated historic landmarks in 1991.

The 327 Path of Gold standards are a legacy from the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century, which also gave San Francisco the Civic Center. Their distinctive color and pattern of light identify Market Street from distant viewpoints.
The Winning of the West bases by sculptor Arthur Putnam feature three bands of historical subjects: covered wagons, mountain lions, and alternating prospectors and Indians.

Willis Polk designed the base and pole in 1908 for United Railways’ trolley poles with street lights. The City required the company to provide highly ornamental poles, with lamps and electricity, as the price of permitting the much opposed overhead trolley wires.

The tops were designed in 1916 by sculptor Leo Lentelli and engineer Walter D’Arcy Ryan, whose lighting designs for the Panama Pacific International Exposition of 1915 had inspired emulation on the City’s principal thoroughfare.

This project was linked to graft payments to Mayor Schmitz, political boss Abe Ruef, and seventeen of the eighteen members of the Board of Supervisors.

A timeline to help simplify things:

1916: The original installation, from the Ferry Building to Seventh Street, was a cooperative effort by private companies including Pacific Gas & Electric. To service the tall poles, PG&E invented an ancestor to the cherry picker.

1920s: Path of Gold tops were added to the Winning of the West bases from Seventh Street to Valencia Street.

1972: As a component of the Market Street Beautification program which followed BART construction, all the poles and ornaments were replaced with replicas and fitted with new high pressure sodium vapor lamps.

1980s: The original Path of Gold standards were used to extend the system out Market Street to just beyond Castro.

Lentelli was born in Bologna, Italy. He studied in both Bologna and Rome and worked as a sculptor in Italy. Immigrating to the United States in 1903 at the age of 24, Lentelli initially assisted in the studios of several established sculptors. In 1911 he entered the Architectural League exhibition and won the Avery Prize. The following year he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Chosen to provide sculptural ornament for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, Lentelli moved to San Francisco in 1914.