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The Bethlehem Steel Building

Posted by Cindy on August 12, 2016

Aug 122016

Pier 70
Dog Patch

The Bethlehem Steel Office Building, also known as Building 101, was designed by San Francisco architect Fredrick H. Meyer. The building anchors Pier 70, sitting at its entry on the corner of Illinois and 20th Street. Built in 1917, the building is Classical Revival in style. The three story building consists of 56,268 square feet. There is an iron perimeter fence framing the entrance to the building that originally extended down both 20th and Illinois Streets.

Building 101 was designed as a new main office building in 1917, at this point Bethlehem Steel was growing by leaps and bounds with two factories, the one at Pier 70 and another in Alameda, just across the bay.

Art Deco Elevator of Building 101 in the San Francisco Port

Photo courtesy of the SF Port

The building was originally intended to house offices for 350 people, including executives, draftsmen, and naval architects, and included blueprint facilities. By 1945, it also included a Navy cafeteria and a private branch exchange for telephone service.

Photo courtesy of SF Port

Despite not having been used since 1992, the building is in fairly good shape. It contains an octagonal main lobby with cast stone walls over pink marble wainscoting and a pink marble floor. Centered on the coffered ornamental plaster ceiling is an octagonal bronze and glass pendant light fixture. The elevator, has art deco doors and a pink marble door surround.

As of February of 2016 Restoration Hardware has taken a lease on the building. The entire structure will be restored honoring the recognition of the buildings cultural significance and place in San Francisco’s urban landscape.

Peter Donahue, one of San Francisco’s three Donahue brothers, who were known as the “iron men”, established the Union Brass and Iron Works in 1849. It was sold to Bethlehem Steel in 1906 but continued to use the Union Iron Works name until 1917. Ships built at Pier 70 served the United States military from the Spanish-American War in the late-1800s through the two World Wars and into the 1970s.

The area around Pier 70 is now the Union Iron Works Historic District and has been officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

1140 Harrison Street

Posted by Cindy on August 4, 2016

Aug 042016

This nondescript industrial building is about to be torn down for a giant condominium project. I thought it time to get it documented before it disappeared.

Part of the SOMA Light Industrial and Residential Historic District, the building has been marked historical due to its age, but that does not prevent it from being torn down, it is simply a designation.

Built in 1907, the building is a 75,625 square-feet, 1-story, brick masonry industrial building in a modified Renaissance Revival style. The rectangular-plan building, clad in smooth stucco on the primary façade and brick on the secondary facade, is capped by a series of 6 multiple-gable roofs.

The building was originally built for the Metropolitan Laundry Company an interesting company with an interesting history. The building wass first listed in the San Francisco City directory in 1907, just one year after the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Today, the most significant thing about it is the wall on Berwick that has been the home to significant tagging and interesting murals, including one that has been recognized around the world and is included in most circulated shots of great graffiti around the world, a man holding an umbrella with a rainbow of rain.

Rainbow Rain Umbrella Man

The building was built in 1907 and designed by Frederick H. Meyer.

Frederick Herman Meyer (1876-1961) was born in San Francisco. Although he had no official architectural education he began his career working as a draftsman with Cambell and Pettus. He eventually joined the architectural firm of Samuel Newsom, making partner.

The portion of the building on Berwick closest to Harrison Street.

With Newsom, Meyer designed homes in the Pacific Heights area.

Meyer eventually joined forces with Smith O’Brian in a partnership that lasted 6 years. During this time they designed the Rialto Building , as well as a few residences, again in Pacific Heights.

On his own Meyer designed the Humboldt Bank Building on Market Street, where he eventually moved his offices.

In 1911, after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, Meyer was appointed to the team that laid out the plan for the new Civic Center

Over the years Meyer joined with many others in partnerships to design homes, schools and office buildings such as the one at 1140 Harrison.

On Berwick Place at Heron. The side of 1140 Harrison Street

This has always been a large single parcel. Before it was the Metropolitan Laundry it was a storage area.

This is from the 1905 Sanborn map, showing the building as storage.

This is from the 1905 Sanborn map, showing the building that sat there pre-fire and earthquake as storage. Mariposa Terrace eventually was renamed Berwick Place. Harrison Av was renamed Hallam, and Bruce Pl. was renamed Brush.

The building that stood before the ’06 quake and fire was most likely brick as well. Often brick from previous projects was scavenged for the newer construction, this can be seen with the use of the black bricks and the lack of a unifying pattern in the brick laying.

This is the wall on the backside of the building. Notice the lack of a regular pattern and the black bricks throughout.

The Humboldt Bank Building

Posted by Cindy on March 15, 2001

Mar 152001

785 Market Street

When the 1906 earthquake struck, construction of the Humboldt Bank Building was already underway. Fortunately only the foundation had been laid, leaving the architect the leeway to make necessary changes. The architect, Frederick H. Meyer, used this opportunity to incorporate every known fire and safety feature of the time into the new structure.

The Humboldt Bank Building is a classic Beaux Arts building. One of the many Beaux Arts principals Meyer incorporated into the design was a hierarchy of space. In this case, a grand entrance lobby is topped by 19 floors of functional office space.

The entryway to the tower features a highly ornamented arch. Arched windows tied together with banded pilasters punctuate the tower-another classic Beaux Arts feature. All of this is complemented with richly detailed ornamentation.

Meyer chose to crown the building with a highly stylized dome. This dome was originally intended to mimic the Call Building, which survived the 1906 fire, but was subsequently altered so much in 1938 that it stands today, a former shell of itself.

In his second (post-earthquake) attempt, Meyer kept his original design for the façade, but changed the structural design significantly.

The exterior shell of the building was redesigned to be all concrete. Originally the entire building was to be clad in Colusa stone-from Colusa County, CA-however, Meyer knew that Colusa stone spalls (chips) when exposed to heat, so he limited the Colusa stone to the first three floors and clad the remaining floors in a terra cotta veneer.

The original plans called for the floors to be made of hollow tile; this was changed to reinforced concrete. Throughout the building, metal trim was used in place of high quality oak, at almost double the price.

The exterior windows are wire glass. Wire glass-thick glass with embedded chicken wire-is meant to prevent glass from shattering in the case of fire.

Many buildings built prior to the fire had water towers placed on their roofs. However, Meyer noticed that these often shook loose during the earthquake, rendering them useless in case of fire. As a result, the Humboldt Bank Building has standpipes and hoses on all floors. These are served by via pneumatic (not electric) pumps from a water tank in the basement.

Meyer saved his most advanced work for the elevators. Elevators often work as an air column during fires, and can feed a fire very rapidly. Meyer worked to separate the elevator shafts from the rest of the building. First, he completely lined the shafts in concrete. Then he placed “automatic doors” on the top and bottom of the shafts. If fire were to occur, the doors would close, isolating the elevator shafts from the rest of the building.

While the 1906 earthquake and fire were tragic, the lessons learned from the catastrophe spurred design innovation. This is what allows us to continue to enjoy such great buildings as the Humboldt Bank Building.