235 First Street
Foundry Square
This wonderful building, sitting amongst all of the surrounding high-rises brings joy to the eye and a question to the mind.
The City of San Francisco has labeled this the H.N. Cook Belting Company designed by Ward and Blohme. However the American Architect and Architecture Magazine, Volume 113 disputes that fact with this photograph.
The photo was accompanied by a full length article in the January to June 1918 issue.
The Western Architecture and Engineering Magazine – Volume 40-41 states that the building is the home to the B.C. Van Emon Elevator Company.
This 1915 article stated that the B. C. Van Emon Elevator company had been in the building for several years.
Throughout the 1930s the building was occupied by the Thomson Machine Company with ads in Motor Boating Magazine. They left their mark with the ghost sign barely legible above the door.
Unfortunately the architect of the building, and the actual date of construction has been impossible for this writer to find.
None the less, it is a great building holding its own amongst the glass and steel that towers over it.