Embarcadero – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Light Cannons at the Ferry Building

Posted by Cindy on October 8, 2012

Oct 082012

Ferry Building Plaza
Foot of Market at the Embarcadero

These two light towers, called Light Cannons, are approximately 65 ft in height. They are located in front of the Ferry Building and serve as the focal point of the Mid-Embarcadero Improvement Project. The towers are a combination of stainless steel, structural steel and cast-in-place concrete.

These two ”light cannons” are capable of projecting a pair of column-like shafts of light into the night air. The designer is ROMA Design Group of San Francisco.

Pacific Bird

Posted by Cindy on July 3, 2012

Jul 032012

Golden Gateway

Embarcadero/Financial District

551 Battery Street

Pacific Bird by Seymour Lipton 1961

Seymour Lipton (1903-1986) was an American abstract expressionist sculptor. He was a member of the New York School who gained widespread recognition in the 1950s. Lipton was interested in art as an adolescent. Although his high school teachers wanted Lipton to pursue art, his parents encouraged him in his decision to study electrical engineering at the Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute and later to pursue a course of study in the liberal arts at New York’s City College. After college, Lipton continued his education in the field of dentistry. In 1927, Lipton graduated from Columbia University’s dental school and shortly thereafter established a successful practice in his native New York City.

His early choices of medium changed from wood to lead and then to bronze, and he is best known for his work in metal. He made several technical innovations, including brazing nickel-silver rods onto sheets of Monel to create rust resistant forms.

Much of his art addresses the themes of flight, nature and war.

This piece, nickel-silver on monel metal, was commissioned by Golden Gateway Commons, for their public space.

The Embarcadero – Rincon Annex Murals

Posted by Cindy on November 21, 2011

Nov 212011

The Embaradero

Rincon Annex

98 Howard Street

Panel #10

Panel #10. “Raising the Bear Flag The Bear Flag revolt established the Republic of California, one month before the United States won the territory in the Mexican War. John Charles Fremont was a prime force in instigating the revolt and William B. Ide became president of the short- lived republic. The original Bear Flag, designed by William C. Todd, flew over Sonoma for a brief time. The piece of white cloth seen lying on the ground was originally the Mexican flag. Because some people thought this was disrespectful Refregier painted it out. Its colors are still visible beneath the white overpaint.”

According to Rob Spoor, the Mexican ambassador protested the Mexican flag lying on the ground. The flag was “whitewashed” by the painter, although close examination reveals the original flag’s red and green stripes peeking through the attempted cover-up.

Panel #11

Panel #11. “Finding Gold at Sutter’s Mill. Sutter’s mill was a sawmill on the property of John Augustus Sutter. Located on a fork of the American River, the enterprise was financed by Sutter and constructed under the supervision of his partner in the venture, James Marshall. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s mill on January 24, 1848 and began the California Gold Rush. The nugget Marshall found is known as the Wimmer Nugget named after Marshall’s assistant, Peter L.Wimmer”

Panel #22

Panel #22 ” Reconstruction after the fire Immediately after the quake, the national guard and army troops under the command of General Frederick Funston helped San Francisco police and firemen maintain order in the city. In addition, the soldiers prevented looting, helped with temporary housing, food distribution, communications and sanitation. Soup kitchens and tent cities in the local parks were the first signs of reconstruction. Clearing the rubble and rebuilding the city took years.”

All these descriptions can be found on plaques near the murals.

Rincon Annex Murals

Posted by Cindy on November 20, 2011

Nov 202011

The Embarcadero

Rincon Annex

98 Howard Street

Panel #3

The murals in the Rincon Annex Post Office, have lived a long and very controversial life. In 1941 the WPA held a competition for the murals, it was won by Anton Refregier. He began work immediately and kept at it until they were finished in 1948, with a two year break during the war. He was paid $26,000 for the job, the largest job ever given by the WPA in the painting/sculpture arena.

The twenty-seven murals (29 panels) are actually casein-tempra (a process of painting in which pigments are mixed with casein, or egg, especially egg yolk, to produce a dull finish) on white gesso over plaster walls.

The murals underwent 92 changes while they were being painted, all results of special interest groups. If you are interested in reading the controversy and politics involved in these changes, Rob Spoor has done an amazing job in his education of City Guides.

Panel #3. “Sir Francis Drake – 1579 Sir Francis Drake, an English navigator and privateer, set sail from Plymouth (England) in 1577 on a voyage around the world. According to accounts of that voyage, Drake landed in a California harbor in June of 1579. He stayed for 36 days during which time he had good relations with the Indians, repaired his ship and claimed the land for Queen Elizabeth of England, naming it Nova Albion. The precise location of Drake’s landing is not known. Various theories suggest it may have been Bolinas Bay, Drake’s Bay, the Marin side of San Francisco Bay. Bodega Bay or Point Reyes.” Notice the blood at the end of the sword, depicting the Spanish as a bloodthirsty lot.

Panel #4

Panel #4 “Conquistadors discover the Pacific Baja California was discovered by Europeans in 1533 by a man named Fortún Jiménez of the Cortés expedition. By 1540, Ulloa, another member of that expedition had explored the Sea of Cortés. Also in that year Hernando de Alarcón had sailed up the Colorado River and in 1541 Francisco de Bolaños explored both sides of the Baja Pennisula. The first European to explore Alta California, the land above the Baja Pennisula, was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo who sailed to the Santa Barbara Islands in 1543.”

Panel #6

Panel #6. “Preaching and Farming at Mission Dolores The purpose of all California Missions was to Christianize the Indians. In addition to religion, the Indians learned farming, building, spinning and other basic skills. All instruction was given in Spanish.” According to Spoor the Catholic Church protested the large belly of a friar depicted in a Mission Dolores mural while the Indians appeared gaunt. In response to these objections, Refregier performed “artistic liposuction”.

Panel #8

Panel #8 “Hardships on the Emmigrant Trail The Emigrant Trail was a term used to describe various overland routes to California in the 1840’s and 1850’s. The subject of this panel is the trail through Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Both Donner Summit and Donner Lake are named after the Geroge and Jacob Donner brothers of Illinois. Their party of 87 settlers were forced to spend the winter of 1846 along the shore of Donner Lake after being trapped by heavy early November snows. Only 47 group members survived.”

Panel #24

Panel #24. Titled – “The Waterfront 1934. This controversial panel depicts events surrounding the San Francisco dock strike of 1934. On the left a shakedown operator demands bribes in exchange for longshoremen jobs. The center shows labor organizer Harry Bridges addressing dockworkers. The right third refers to what is known as “Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934, when employers battle strikers to open the docks. Two longshoremen died and many on both sides were injured.”

Again, according to Spoor, The VFW and even some labor organizations were incensed that labor organizer and alleged Communist Harry Bridges appeared to be rallying workers, including one with a VFW insignia on his hat, in the mural “Maritime and General Strike,” and pointed out several inaccuracies in the three historical events depicted. The longshore workers union was especially sensitive to the association with 1930s-era Communism, from which they’d distanced themselves by the late 1940s. In response to their objections, Refregier painted out the VFW symbol.

From: Anton Refregier: Renaissance Man of WPA
Of the 27 panels covering the walls of Rincon, the most widely reproduced (via silkscreen) is the scene “San Francisco ’34 Waterfront Strike,” which takes on the 82-day strike that crippled the shipping industry all along the West Coast. Workers were striking against low wages caused by corruption and graft, and before the outrage and rioting died down, three men were killed, out of the 31 who were shot by police and the dozens who were beaten and assaulted with gas. Refregier did not paint violence or defeat in his mural, but instead focused on the solidarity of the union workers.

All these descriptions can be found on plaques near the murals.

The Embarcadero – History of our Street Names

Posted by Cindy on November 15, 2011

Nov 152011

The Embarcadero

Looking Down and Learning History

Archetypical Gold Rush San Franciscan, Sam Brannan was first in many achievements. He arrived in Yerba Buena by sea in 1846, leading two hundred Mormon pioneers, and founding the city’s first newspaper. He rode through the streets of San Francisco in 1848, announcing the discovery of gold for all to hear. In 1851, he inspired the vigilantes to take the law into their own hands and restore order to a chaotic city. The first California millionaire, he spent his fortune in building Calistoga as a health resort and lost it all. He died in 1889 with a twenty dollar gold piece in his hand.

Pioneer physician in California, Dr. John Townsend and his wife came overland from Missouri in 1844 as part of the first immigrant party to cross the Sierra by way of Truckee. A founding member of the school board in San Francisco in 1847, he was elected town Alcalde (traditional Spanish municipal magistrate) in 1848. He abandoned his office at the first news of the discovery of gold, but later returned to practice medicine at a time when the new city was being swept by epidemics of dysentery and cholera. Moving to a farm near San Jose, Townsend and his wife died of cholera there at the end of 1851.

“A good feeling man, Townsend is much attached to his own opinions, as likewise to the climate and country of California. His wife, a pleasant lady, does not enter into all her husband’s chimerical speculations.” James Clyman, 1845

The wording of an actual hand lettered sign found near this spot circa 1850.

Now back to the view

Embarcadero – History of Street Names

Posted by Cindy on November 13, 2011

Nov 132011

The Embarcadero
Continuing on our journey of “Looking Down”

Quartermaster’s clerk of the Stevenson Regiment of First New York Volunteers, Edward H. Harrison came from an obscure post to occupy a respectable role in the nascent civic affairs of San Francisco, becoming Port Collector in 1848 before returning to the East in 1850. Harrison typified the ordinary men of the Stevenson Regiment, recruited from the Irish mechanics of New York, who arrived in California too late in 1847 to effect the course of the War with Mexico, but stayed to rise to prominence in the state.

“And when the Future shall mature, which now receives its birth, when California stands among the mighty powers of earth; then Californians, pause to think who brought these blessings rare. Think who it was first pealed the note of Freedom on the air and you will learn with heartfelt praise, to bless the happy day, when Freedom took its westward flight to California.” Anonymous member of the Stevenson Regiment – 1847

Looking up Harrison Street today.

Boston born Nathan Spear went to sea to better his health in 1819, and never returned for long. After several journeys to the Pacific Islands he came to Monterey in 1831 and became one of California’s pioneer merchants. Five years later he opened the first store in the new village of Yerba Buena, and ran a schooner to collect grain from around the bay for milling in the region’s first flour mill. Always proud of his American citizenship, his dreams were realized when the stars and stripes were raised over San Francisco. Hard working and modest, he exemplified the pioneer New England entrepreneur.

Spear street today, under one of the footings of the Bay Bridge.

First publicist of California Edwin Bryant came overland from Missouri to the coast in 1844. Arriving after many hardships, in 1846 he worked to secure California for the United States. His account, What I Saw in California, published in 1848, made the overland journey attractive for legions of settlers. After holding positions of civic distinction in San Francisco, he returned to Kentucky to lead the life of a gentleman scholar. He lived to see the state whose interests he had done so much to advance joined to the Union by the transcontinental railroad, and retraced his wagon route by palace car in 1869.

“The heads of thousands of grave and prudent men are turned, at the distance of two thousand miles from the scene of enchantment, at the stories of wealth in California to be had for the asking”

Edwin Bryant 1849

In the mid -1850’s a Chinese settlement appeared along the bluff, above a narrow beach–just south of Bryant Street, and west of First Street. Believed to be a small fishing encampment, numbering about 30 small structures on the 1859 Coast Survey Chart, the site has been the subject of archaeological investigation.

Looking up Bryant Street today.

Embarcadero – History of Street Names

Posted by Cindy on November 12, 2011

Nov 122011

The Embarcadero

Continuing to look down.

Vallejo Street

These four are so badly worn, but this is what General Vallejo looked like

It reads: Soldier, land-owner and diplomat, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo started life as the son of a Spanish soldier, and rose from cadet to Commandante of Monterey. From there he assumed command of the Presidio of Yerba Buena and later was made General of all Northern Forces in California. Founder of Sonoma, Vallejo, and Benicia. Vallejo became the most influential Californian in the decade leading to the American conquest. Early on General Vallejo clearly foresaw the fate of the country and through his many acts of friendship to American immigrants he became the diplomatic bridge that joined two cultures.

“The Yankees are wonderful people. If they emigrated to hell itself, they would somehow manage to change the climate.” General Mariano Vallejo

In 1845, W.D.M. Howard opened a store in Yerba Buena with Henry Mellus and in 1848, bought out the Hudson Bay Trading Company one week before Marshall found gold. With well-supplied stores in Sacramento, San Jose and San Francisco, Howard developed his waterfront property and Rancho San Mateo. A gifted mimic he improvised theatricals, serenading his friends with invitations to his midnight champagne suppers. Actively generous, Howard funded the city’s first public school, first hospital, first fire engine, and first churches. Over six feel tall with a portly build, a direct gaze, and a deep persuasive voice, Howard organized the California National Guard, presided over the Society of California Pioneers, and chartered the Vigilance Committee. His early death, at age 37 revealed the extent of his many hidden charities.

Howards living depended on sea trade

Looking up Howard Street today.

I don’t know why there wasn’t a bio plaque for Folsom, and instead I found this way off in a corner. This is far more appropriate for Sam Brannan, I wonder if the installer got something wrong.

According to Wikipedia Folsom was a U.S. Army officer and real estate investor in the early days of California’s statehood. He is the founder of what is now Folsom, California. Folsom’s controversial purchase of Rancho Rio de los Americanos from the heirs of a San Francisco merchant William Alexander Leidesdorff remained tied up in litigation for many years, eventually reaching the Supreme Court of California after Folsom’s death.

The view while standing at the plaques on Folsom

Embarcadero – History of Street Names

Posted by Cindy on November 11, 2011

Nov 112011

The Embarcadero

When this is the view from the Embarcadero it is hard to look down at your feet. If you do however, you will find some fascinating little historical tidbits. I searched everywhere to see what organization is responsible for the following and I found nothing. But welcome to a bit of San Francisco history.The Embarcadero runs along the waterfront. The streets that we will be looking at run down to the Embarcadero. These signs are all on the city side of the Embarcadero where the streets end.

It reads: In February of 1853 the United States Topographical Engineers published their first detailed survey of the city, showing new streets, many named for army and naval officers. Fremont and Folsom were prominent officers; Harrison, Bryant and King held important city and port positions; Spear and Brannon had been pioneers in Yerba Buena before San Francisco had its name.

At every street there were these arrows. They pointed you to the street that you were reading about.

As this one is a tad worn, in case you can not read it – here is what it says. Businessman, City Councilman and mayoral candidate, Talbot H. Green, while at the high point of his career, was attending a charity ball, when confronted by a young woman before his friends and supporters. She denounced him as being Paul Geddes, the defaulting bank clerk who had absconded from Pennsylvania deserting his wife and two children. The charge proved true; but Geddes, protesting his innocence, left for Panama to return East to clear his name. Green Street had already been named for this prominent pioneer citizen and San Franciscans kept his name, perhaps as a reminder that in this city of new arrivals, not every man came wearing his true identity.

Here is the view looking up Green Street. Another reason why it is so hard to look down.

The Embarcadero – Sidney Walton Park

Posted by Cindy on July 6, 2011

Jul 062011

Sydney Grant Walton, for whom the park is named, was a San Francisco banker who lived from 1901 to 1960. Reportedly he was a multitalented business- man, cultural leader and vice-chairman of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. As the plaque outside the park states, he was “vital in the formation of the concept and development of the Golden Gateway.”

The above sculpture is my favorite in the park. It has always appealed to me on many levels. In 1962, Perini-Alcoa (joint developers) held a sculpture competition to locate a fountain which would complement the Peter Walker designed park. They chose “Four Seasons.” Created by frenchman, Francois Stahly, “Four Seasons” is a cast bronze and stone sculpture created in an Italian foundry then shipped to San Francisco where it was installed in this spot. The fountain, with four cast- bronze vertical water features representing the four seasons of the year, was designed so that water would cascade over the bronze spires onto a labyrinth of stones at the base.

Big Heart on The Rock

Jim Dine 1974

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1935 and studied at the Boston Museum School. Later he moved to New York. He is known for his heart sculptures.

“Pine Tree Obelisk” Joan Brown, 1987

Sydney Walton Park

Posted by Cindy on July 5, 2011

Jul 052011

This is one of the entries to Sydney Walton Park in the Embarcadero Area of San Francisco. It sits surrounded by Jackson, Pacific, Davis and Front Streets. This wonderful park is full of art, and history. It is just a marvelous oasis in the middle of lots and lots of high rises. You will also find Kokkari Restaurant across the street on Jackson, one of the best Greek restaurants you will ever have the pleasure of dining in.

The Arch above is the Colombo Market Arch on Front Street, it is the only structural piece remaining from the old San Francisco produce market, a series of brick buildings that occupied this area. This is the part of town nicknamed the Barbary Coast. By 1892 it had become a raucous district of prostitution, dance halls and thievery. The Coast continued to flourish until 1911, when Major James (Sunny Jim) Rolph initiated a clean-up. Shut down for good in the early 1920’s, it became the Produce District.

Golden Gateway Center, created in the 1960s, was designed as a mixed-use, urban residential community. At that time, it was the largest project of its kind in the country. By law, art was required as part of the project, originally the pieces were slated to be spaced around the project, and indeed some are, but later it was decided to put all the art in the park, and this is the result. The two-acre site was designed by the well-known landscape architect Peter Walker (managing partner of Sasaki Walker, later to become SWA).

Penquins by Benny Bufano was one of the original pieces and it stands outside the park on Davis Court. Bufano is one of San Francisco’s most prolific artists and you can find his pieces in many places on this website.

“Portrait of Georgia O’Keefe” Marisol Escobar, 1982

O’Keefe sits on an old tree stump like an ancient wizard, loosely dangling her walking stick and flanked by two compact woolly dogs.” This description is based on photographs Marisol Escobar took while visiting the 90-year-old O’Keefe in New Mexico. Her sculpture, with her two pet show dogs, is the product of that visit. Marisol Escobar was born in 1930 in Paris to wealthy Venezuelan parents who were traveling through Europe. As a child, Marisol was educated in private schools in Los Angeles, then continued her art studies in New York City. In 1963 the Venezuelan Marisol became U.S. citizen.

Embarcadero – Commuting

Posted by Cindy on May 23, 2011

May 232011

This is our temporary Transbay Terminal. The old one has finally been demolished. The Transbay terminal was originally built in 1936 to handle the trains that came across the Bay Bridge into downtown San Francisco. However, after WWII, the train lines were removed and the terminal became a bus depot. Over the years it has become nothing more than a run down homeless refuge. I am all for their tearing down the old one, and I am all for building a new one, but I am not sold on the new ultra modern design to come.

The new Transbay terminal will take years to build. It has been designed by Pelli Clark Pelli Architects. The plan is for a 5.4 acre rooftop garden, 1 million square feet of space, 100 foot high windows and 11 transit agencies. We shall see.

In the meantime, this is our temporary station. I really love this, clean open, easy to navigate. Granted, can be a tad wet and cold in the winter, but hey, this isn’t Chicago.

Here is a short – silent video illustration of what the new terminal is going to look like.

Embarcadero – Fly me to the Moon

Posted by Cindy on May 22, 2011

May 222011

Embarcadero at Pier 14

“Raygun Gothic Rocketship” is a temporary art installation on the Embarcadero. The project is sponsored by the Black Rock Arts Foundation, (the Burning Man group), with support from the Port of San Francisco. The rocket ship is a retro-futurist sort of thing, and according to the artists group “A critical kitsch somewhere between The Moons of Mongo and Manga Nouveau”.

The piece is the work of dozens of Bay Area artists with three lead artists headed by Sean Orlando. They have a website that is really, really cool. It tells you all about the rocket ship and how to rent or even buy it if you are so inclined.

This area of the Embarcadero is near the foot of Mission Street and Pier 14.

The Embarcadero Ribbon

Posted by Cindy on January 29, 2000

Jan 292000

The Embarcadero

The Ferry Building, built in 1898, sits at the foot of Market Street.

In 1953, San Francisco proposed the Embarcadero Freeway that was to connect the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges. Construction started at the Bay Bridge end; after 1.2 miles of freeway were built, neighborhood organizations began to gather and oppose the project. In 1959 the Board of Supervisors voted to stop the construction, marking the first time a government body had ever taken such an action. For years, the stub of freeway running across the waterfront stood as a monument to both grand freeway construction and its opposition. In 1986 the Board of Supervisors put forth a new urban plan for the waterfront that included a measure to tear the freeway section down, but the voters, afraid of gridlock, rejected it. The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake changed everything.

The Embarcadero Freeway

After the earthquake, the California Department of Transportation proposed three scenarios: 1) retrofit the damaged freeway, 2) rebuild a depressed freeway or 3) demolish the freeway and replace it with a grade level street. The third choice was determined to be the wisest and most cost effective decision.

Demolition began and the revival of the waterfront became the mission of the Port of San Francisco and the Planning Department. The Port’s goal was to attract more people to the waterfront and to transform the area from an industrial service road serving the piers to a grand urban boulevard. The planning, which had begun in the 1980s, was revamped, and construction took place from 1993 to 2000.

Freeway deconstruction doesn’t occur often. As a result, there are not a lot of successful examples for designers and planners to learn from. The deconstruction process along what is now simply called The Embarcadero in San Francisco is ongoing. As the Port and city learn how the public utilizes the waterfront area, its redesign and reconstruction continuously evolves.

The Embarcadero runs under the San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Art Ribbon, one of the first projects to bring design cohesion to the Embarcadero, was a collaboration between architects Vito Acconci, Stanley Saitowitz and Barbara Staufacher. Begun in 1991, it is two miles of lighted glass block set in paving. Due to extensive committee review and resulting modifications to the project, the architects complained Art Ribbon was not the grand idea that they thought the waterfront deserved.

Restaurants and art work are a vital part of the new Embarcadero. See Cupid’s Span

Farmers Market at the Ferry Building

Art Ribbon was not only the first step in the process of turning The Embarcadero into a grand boulevard, it was also a pioneering project in which various art and governmental agencies began learning how to interact and live with San Francisco’s vibrant skateboard community.

When Art Ribbon was first constructed, the skateboard community found the sharp edges and different lengths of concrete very appealing; however, chips started appearing almost immediately in the structure from the skateboards. The differing reactions of the architects mirrored the various responses from the community.

Saitowitz asked furiously, “Can’t you understand you’re ruining something that belongs to you, the people?” Solomon, however, responded differently, “I love it that the skateboarders love it, and Stanley hates it that the skateboarders love it.” She felt that skateboarder’s usage was “part of the world.” Acconci also supported the skateboarders with this statement: “Our goal is to make spaces that free people-to make devices and instruments that people can use to do what they’re not supposed to do, to go where they’re not supposed to go.”

Pig Ears on the raised portion of the Art Ribbon

In 1999 the debate once again become a front burner issue when the city installed SkateBlocks, or “pig ears,” as the police department calls them, on the raised concrete portions of the Ribbon. SkateBlocks are manufactured in Seattle, Washington, by a company called Ravensforge. They are 3-inch high metal brackets that mount onto a surface and are designed specifically to deter skaters and skateboarders.

In December of 1999 the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter to the editor with this comment from reader Caroline Finucane: “I contend that the clips are far uglier and distracting than the skateboard marks and that the kids are actually using the benches in the only way possible. Concrete benches at the water are cold. You can’t sit on them. The Art Commission should lighten up and look at the Art Ribbon as a work in progress, thanks to the skateboarders. By the way, I am a middle-aged lady with a bad leg and I do freeze in my tracks when I hear the kids rolling, but the joy of their riding … pleases me.” Finucane went on to say that the clips were “mean spirited.”

This type of dialogue continuously confronts designers of public spaces, but it also helps to define and redefine how public space is used. Grassroots movements initiated by local communities help designers and government officials stay on top of changing attitudes regarding public property.

In the coming years Art Ribbon will be altered. The present plans call for making much of the Ribbon flush with the promenade. This will essentially make it disappear. Is this just another iteration for the promenade, a spiteful gesture toward skateboarders or the beginning of banal, bland and committee-designed public space?

Embarcadero Interpretive Signage and Walkway

Posted by Cindy on January 28, 2000

Jan 282000

The Embarcadero

Waterfront Transportation Project Historic and Interpretive Signage Program

This interpretive signage program was created in 1996 and covers 2.5 miles of the Embarcadero. The project includes 22, 13 foot high posts, vertical history stations and bronze inlays. these metal black-and-white-striped pylons are imprinted with photographs, stories, poetry in several languages and drawings commemorating the waterfront’s historical significance.

They are a collaboration between historian Nancy Leigh Olmstead and artist Michael Manwaring.

This was funded by a grant from Americans for the Arts, and California State’s Transportation Enhancement Activities

Lou Seal at ATT Park

Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2000

Jan 252000

Lou Seal is the official mascot of the San Francisco Giants. “Born” on July 25, 1996, Luigi Francisco Seal has been a regular part of the Giants baseball team since then. The name is a play on the name “Lucille.” Todd Schwenk, an Oakland Athletics Fan, named the mascot in a KNBR Sports Radio phone-in contest. Schwenk named Lou for the seals always hanging out on the wharves at Fisherman’s Wharf. It also refers to the San Francisco Seals, the baseball club that was a mainstay of the Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1957.

The Seals Plaza statue replicates the logo of the Pacific Coast League team that played in San Francisco from 1903-1957. Sculpted by Alfredo Osorio, in 2000, the statue depicts a seal balancing a baseball on its nose.

You can even make your own stuffed Lou Seal when you attend a game.

Alfredo Osorio is from Hawthorne, California. The bronze was cast at F&M Fine Art Foundry in Buena Park, California

The Embarcadero – Sea Change

Posted by Cindy on January 24, 2000

Jan 242000

The Embarcadero

Sea Change by Mark di Suvero

At Pier 40 on the lawn near the baseball park is this giant sculpture, that you can see from blocks away. Constructed in 1995 it is 70 feet tall and weights 10 tons. The circular top moves with the wind.

Marco Polo “Mark” di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended UC Berkeley to study Philosophy. While working in construction, he was critically injured in a freight elevator accident and focused all his attention on sculpture.

While in rehabilitation, he learned to work with an arc welder. His early works were large outdoor pieces that incorporated railroad ties, tires, scrap metal and structural steel. This exploration has transformed over time into a focus on I-beams and heavy gauge metal. Many of the pieces contain sections that are allowed to swing and rotate giving the overall forms a considerable degree of motion.

Embarcadero – Hills Brothers Coffee Drinker

Posted by Cindy on January 23, 2000

Jan 232000

2 Harrison Street

The Embarcadero

This is the Hills Brothers Coffee Drinker. He is located at 2 Harrison Street in the plaza of the original Hills Brothers Coffee Building. This sculpture was created by a dear friend of mine Spero Anargyros. (1915- 2004) Spero finished this sculpture in 1992. It is a 9′ tall bronze beauty.

The “drinking man” or “Taster” was designed by a San Francisco artist named Briggs, in celebration of vacuum packing. It is said that the original was a tribute to the Ethiopian roots of the coffee itself. After gracing the first vacuum packed can, the Taster remained the company logo for many years. Folgers, an original San Francisco company is now part of the Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA brand of companies.

2 Harrison is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cupid’s Span

Posted by Cindy on January 22, 2000

Jan 222000

Embarcadero

Foot of Folsom Street

Cupids Span

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

2002

This is the artists statement regarding this piece: “Inspired by San Francisco’s reputation as the home port of Eros, we began our project for a small park on the Embarcadero along San Francisco Bay by trying out the subject of Cupid’s stereotypical bow and arrow. The first sketches were made of the subject with the bowstring drawn back, poised on the feathers of the arrow, which pointed up to the sky.

When Coosje van Bruggen found this position too stiff and literal, she suggested turning the image upside down: the arrow and the central part of the bow could be buried in the ground, and the tail feathers, usually downplayed, would be the focus of attention. That way the image became metamorphic, looking like both a ship and a tightened version of a suspension bridge, which seemed to us the perfect accompaniment to the site. In addition, the object functioned as a frame for the highly scenic situation, enclosing — depending on where one stood — either the massed buildings of the city’s downtown or the wide vista over the water and the Bay Bridge toward the distant mountains.

As a counterpoint to romantic nostalgia, we evoked the mythological account of Eros shooting his arrow into the earth to make it fertile. The sculpture was placed on a hill, where one could imagine the arrow being sunk under the surface of plants and prairie grasses. By slanting the bow’s position, Coosje added a sense of acceleration to the Cupid’s Span. Seen from its “stern,” the bow-as-boat seems to be tacking on its course toward the white tower of the city’s Ferry Building. “

Electrified Earth

Posted by Cindy on January 21, 2000

Jan 212000

The Embarcadero

Electrified Earth by Jill King

The Cool Globes project came to San Francisco, set up in Crissy Field, in 2008. Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet, is a public art exhibition designed to raise awareness of solutions to climate change. Cool Globes grew out of a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2005, and was incorporated as a non-profit organization in 2006. It is their hope that the millions of people who have experienced the exhibit, leave with a vast array of solutions to climate change, and with one clear message….we can solve this.

The globes were prefabricated fiberglass and arrived at the artists studios ready to be transformed into their own vision. They are 7′ High and 5′ wide. They were later auctioned off. This particular globe on the Embarcadero is by artist Jill King, it is covered in colored sand, and glow-in-the-dark sand.

The artists themselves are not credited on the globes, this is the only sign you will find on all of them.

The piece is owned by the Gap Foundation and as of August of 2015, the globe has been removed.

The Embarcadero – Aurora

Posted by Cindy on January 20, 2000

Jan 202000

The Embarcadero

Aurora by Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa is an American artist, who is nationally recognized for her wire sculpture. Ruth, at the age of 16, along with her family, was interned in Rohwer camp in Rohwer, Arkansas at a time when it was feared the people of Japanese descent on the West Coast would commit acts of sabotage. It was the first step on a journey into the art world for Ruth. In 1994, when she was 68 years old, she said of the experience: “I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am.”

Honoring the Workers

Posted by Cindy on January 20, 2000

Jan 202000

Corner of Mission and Steaurt

An Injury to One is an Injury to All – The rallying cry of the Wobblies. That is the name of this sculpture found on the corner of Spear and Mission Streets, San Francisco.

The brass plaque that accompanies it reads

“In memory of Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise, who gave their lives on Bloody Thursday, July 5, 1934, so that all working people might enjoy a greater measure of dignity and security.

Sperry and Bordoise were fatally shot by San Francisco police at the intersection of Mission and Steuart Streets, when longshoremen and seamen attempted to stop maritime employers from breaking joint strike. Community outrage at these killings sparked a general strike by all San Francisco unions.

The maritime strike continued through the middle of summer, concluding with a union victory which brought decent conditions to the shipping industry and set the stage for the birth of a strong and democratic labor movement on the west coast.”

Painted in 1985 by an artist’s collective on steel forms shaped to evoke images of the sea, the six panels depict the events before, during and after the 1934 Maritime Strike. This mural-sculpture was placed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union near the Sperry and Bordoise Memorial (which consisted of the brass plaque, mounted on a stone monument). When the Hotel Vitale was built in 2004, the sculpture and plaque were moved a short distance and re-erected, with the plaque now mounted on the wall of the hotel.

The artists were: Miranda Bergman, Tem Drescher, Nicole Emmanuel, Lari Kilolani, James Morgan, Raymond M. Patlan, Eduardo Pineda, James Prigoff, O’Brian Theile and Horace Washington.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Posted by Cindy on January 16, 2000

Jan 162000

Justin Herman Plaza
Embarcadero

American Lincoln Brigade Memorial
Painted Steel, Onyx, Concrete and Olive Trees

In 1936, General Francisco Franco led a military uprising to overthrow the elected government of Spain. Forty thousand people went to Spain to fight for democracy. The 2,700 Americans who joined the fight were known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (ALBA). After Franco gained control of Spain in 1939 with help from both Hitler and Mussolini, the Nazis invaded Poland and World War II began.

The members have continued to fight injustice, supporting various international causes ever since. On Sunday, March 30, 2008, the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade unveiled this national monument in Justin Herman Plaza near Vaillancourt Fountain.

The monument was designed by Ann Chamberlain (1951-2008) and Walter Hood. Visual artist Ann Chamberlain is a former Program Director at the Headlands Center for the Arts who taught at several Bay Area colleges. In collaboration with Ann Hamilton, she designed the card catalog display in the San Francisco Library made with fifty thousand library cards, each with a hand-written note. Walter Hood is professor and former chair of the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

The memorial cost $400,000, and was donated by the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives and Veterans and Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

The Embarcadero and The San Francisco Bay Trail

Posted by Cindy on January 15, 2000

Jan 152000

The Embarcadero

The San Francisco Bay Trail is a bicycle and pedestrian trail that will eventually allow continuous travel around the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. As of 2011, approximately 310 miles of trail have been completed. Twenty six miles of the trail lies in the City of San Francisco one half of which is finished. The portion in San Francisco is expected to be completed in 2030 at a cost of approximately $6 million. The stretch along The Embarcadero is decorated with wonderful brass plaques set into the sidewalk explaining the fauna found in the area.

The following plaques will be found on the water side of The Embarcadero between Candlestick and Pier 39.

Each creature is accompanied by an explanatory brass plaque.

Pacific Tree Frog

Mostly nocturnal, this native amphibian seeks shelter not in trees but in fissures of rocks, in nooks and crannies of buildings and in plants along stream beds. It ranges from deep green to brown to gray with a tell-tale eye mask extending from nostril to shoulder. With a voice disproportionate to its two-inch body, a chorus of tree frogs’ kree-eks drowns out all else.

Burrowing Owl

Nesting in vacant burrows, this small, earth-brown owl is often seen in open country, hovering just above its prey it has a stubby tail and always stands upright, whether perching or on ground. When startled, it bobs up and down on long legs, making a sound like a rattlesnake. Burrowing owls mate for life, their song is a soft coo-c-o-o.

Dungeness Crab

Looking much less clumsy underwater than on shore, this big crab slides lightly over the sea floor on the tips of its legs. When startled or preying on fish, it can move with great speed. Spending much of its life almost buried in sand, the Dungeness Crab is found in water from 100-300-feet deep, coming to shallow water only to molt. It has a grayish-brown shell tinged with purple.

Red Tailed Hawk

Sadly, the Red Tailed Hawk’s explanation plaque was missing but if you are interested in reading about them here is the Wikipedia link.

Ochre Sea Star

This coastal sea star is 10-inches across; it has five stout, tapering arms and a center disk embossed with a geometric pattern of stark white spines Its color actually ranges from yellow to orange and brown to purple. Found in great abundance on wave-washed rocky shores, both above and below the low-tide, it creeps about with a slow, gliding motion.

Mule Deer

Feeding on grass, twigs, fruits and acorns, this black-tailed deer inhabit forests; open woodlands and chaparral. Throughout Fall and Winter, bucks and does stay together, but in Spring does wander off to bear their young. Mule Deer bed down during the day in leafy thickets where newborn fawns, with their lightly-spotted coats, are perfectly camouflaged.

Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse

This petite mouse has rich brown fur on its upper parts and a lighter, tawny belly. It avoids open fields, making its home in the dense pickle weed stands of salt marshes. Though a good swimmer a feeding Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse might scurry to higher ground when the bay tides rise, briefly exposing itself to an awaiting egret or hawk.

Chinook Salmon

Most of their lives, these fish are seagoing, but starting in mid-December, they journey up-river to spawn and die in the very waters where they hatched. From the time they leave the ocean until they spawn, five to eight months later, they survive without feeding. At sea, Chinook Salmon have gray backs and silver sides, when spawning, they range from olive to maroon.

Vaillancourt Fountain

Posted by Cindy on January 15, 2000

Jan 152000

Vaillancourt Fountain – the controversy in Justin Herman plaza – San Francisco.

This fountain has been the center of controversy since the day it was installed. Created by Armand Vaillancourt in 1971, it is actually entitled “Québec libre!” It is representative of the relationship between Vaillancourt’s art and his political convictions. It is a huge concrete fountain, 200 feet long, 140 feet wide and 36 feet high. The night before its inauguration, Vaillancourt inscribed Québec libre! in red letters, to note his undying support for the Quebec sovereignty movement and more largely, his support for the freedom of all people. The following day, seeing that the city’s employees erased the inscription, he jumped on the sculpture to reinscribe the sentence many times.

In 1987 the fountain became the object of a polemic involving U2’s Bono. During a free concert, Bono climbed the sculpture in front of the 20,000 people in attendance and wrote Rock & Roll stops the traffic. Reacting to the act, the city’s mayor (Dianne Feinstein) declared that she deplored the sculpture’s vandalism and that this kind of act could be punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment. Vaillancourt was then contacted to learn if he supported the gesture, which he answered by going to U2’s concert in Oakland the following day, where he wrote “Stop the madness” on the stage, in front of 70,000 people. He defended Bono’s gesture, after a speech on injustice, declaring that graffiti is a necessary evil as young people do not generally have the same access to newspapers, and media in general, as politicians do to express themselves.

All this seems so silly today, but we have come so far in our regards to what is free speech and how public art and graffiti are accepted today.

The other “controversy” is that you either love it or hate it. There is rarely any in between when it comes to this piece of public art. At its dedication, people handed out handbills calling it a “howling obscenity” and “pestiferous eyesore”. I personally love it. You can climb on it, you can wade in it, it makes a very powerful noise which is amazing in itself.

In 2004, Aaron Peskin, a local supervisor spearheaded a drive to have the fountain removed, he says the city doesn’t want to pay the annual $250,000 in electricity costs to pump 30,000 gallons of water through the square tubes; and it has become an “attractive nuisance,” providing a sheltered public space where the homeless sleep at night. While one can’t argue with those facts, the entire city has warrens of places for the homeless, and most great cities have great fountains, sometimes, you just have to admit, yours is a tad odd, but it is part of your city’s history.

Movement – The First 100 Years

Posted by Cindy on January 14, 2000

Jan 142000

Embarcadero Center

Susan Bierman Park

Drumm Street

Movement: The First 100 Years – by Man Lin Choi

The First 100 Years, is also known as the Korean Monument. It was created to symbolize the bond between our two countries. On May 22, 1983, the sculpture was donated to the City and County of San Francisco by the government and people of the Republic of Korea to commemorate the centennial of diplomatic relations between the United States and Korea. Then Mayor Diane Feinstein and California Secretary of State March Fong Eu presided over the ceremony. Formal diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America were established when the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce and Navigation was concluded on May 22, 1882 at Inchon, Korea. It was in San Francisco that the first Korean delegation set foot on American soil on September 2, 1883.
Two identical sculptures were commissioned. The other is located in Inchon, Korea.

Man Lin Choi, is a Korean artist born in 1935. He was the Director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea from 1997-1999 and then listed as a Emeritus Professor at Seoul National University.

Update: In October of 2011 Movement: The first 100 years was moved to Susan Bierman Park on the Embarcadero.

Sun Swarm at the Exploratorium

Posted by Cindy on January 13, 2000

Jan 132000

Pier 15/17
The Embarcadero

San Francisco’s Exploratorium has moved to a new and much bigger location. This new location is allowing lots of outdoor exhibits that anyone can enjoy without paying the entry fee.

This fun piece is titled Sun Swarm and is by Chris Bell.

According to the Exploratorium’s website: This is an elevated topography of silvered squares inserted between the water and the sky, Sun Swarm is an architectural intervention that collects and disperses bits of sunlight across the deck of Pier 17. Clusters of tiny mirrors on the end of steel rods reach up from a series of pier pilings, swaying with the tide in unpredictable ways. Stretching for nearly 100 feet, Sun Swarm is an understated and elegant complement to the natural light play that occurs elsewhere over the water.

Chris Bell is an artist and a Sculptor who makes site-specific installations: total environments, considering all features of an interior space and using these to construct a place with a cause. Bell was born in Sydney, Australia in 1966. Two years study in Industrial design was followed by his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sculpture at Sydney College of the Arts, graduating in 1992. He has since exhibited sculpture or installations yearly, mostly with experimental art organizations. He has received support from The Australian Council of the Arts, Arts Victoria and the Pollock-Krasner foundation, (1999). He won Melbourne’s Fundere Sculpture Prize in 2003 and a major public commission for Melbourne’s new civic square in 2000. He has worked as resident artist at Belfast’s Flax Art Studios, the Noosa Regional Gallery and California’s Headlands Center for the Arts. He currently lives in San Francisco, having recently completed his MFA with Stanford University.

Have a seat at Pier 7 in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on January 13, 2000

Jan 132000

Pier 7
Embarcadero

Bay Bench by Steve Gillman in 1996
Sunset Red Granite and Bronze

These two identical sunset red granite benches with curved bronze grill insets, are reminiscent of ship’s hatch covers.

Steve Gillman received a BA from San Francisco State College and and MFA in sculpture from the University of Oregon. His work is site specific. This is what he had to say about Bay Benches:

Bay Bench granite and bronze, 17″H x 8’6″ square. The bronze grill provides visual access to the undulating bay water below. What’s important here is not how the sculpture looks, but rather, it is the experience of sitting on the stone and being able to visually access the water moving and swelling below that is focus of this work. San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, CA. 1990

Levi Plaza Brings the Sierras to San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on January 11, 2000

Jan 112000

1155 Battery
The Embarcadero

In 1982, the Haas family (heirs to Levi Strauss) were looking to build a new corporate campus for the Levi Corporation. They called upon Lawrence Halprin to design the plaza for the campus. While prolific, Halprin is best known for Sea Ranch in California and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C. Sometimes referred to as “Modernism’s Olmsted,” Halprin is one of the most celebrated landscape architects of the late-20th and early-21st century.

From the beginning, the Haas family requested that the company’s values be incorporated into the design. They desired a “sensitivity to detailing and high standards of workmanship” and expressed the following sentiments: “monumental architecture is not our style,” “The Plaza too should be distinctive,” and “Quality never goes out of style.”

Halprin divided his design for Levi Plaza’s five acres into two parts: a hard park and a soft park. The hard park is similar to a European plaza. The soft park was described by Halprin as a “transplanted piece of the Sierras.” In part, this is in homage to Levi Strauss himself, who got his start selling riveted, denim work pants to miners in the Sierra Nevada.

The soft park is an open space easily accessible to anyone that chooses to enter. This portion of Levi Plaza fills a triangular lot surrounded by The Embarcadero, and Battery and Union streets.

This “transplanted Sierras” includes open water, fountains and attractive nuisances (anything on a premises that might attract children into danger or harm) that would not work in another environment. Thanks to 24-hour, 365-day security, this type of appealing, open design is allowed to exist in an urban environment. Unlike public parks that are funded by tax payers and subject to public use-be it for picnics or protests like OWS-Levi’s Plaza has an autonomy that comes with private funding.

A waterfall at the end of the park is a well recognized fixture of Halprin’s designs. This waterfall flows into a gentle stream that snakes throughout the park. Lined with granite boulders that act like sculpture, the stream is caressed by artificially constructed grassy burms sheltering the visitor from noises that emanate from the streets surrounding the park.

When the park ran $4 million over budget, the Haas family chose to pay for it out of their own personal funds. They have also made provisions to keep the park maintained in perpetuity.

The Embarcadero Belt Railroad Engine House

Posted by Cindy on January 10, 2000

Jan 102000

The Embarcadero

Belt Railroad Engine House

Lombard, Sansome and the Embarcadero

According to the National Park Service: The State Belt Railroad of California was a shortline that served San Francisco’s waterfront until the 1990s and played an important role in World War II. Its tracks extended the length of the Embarcadero from south of Market Street to Fort Mason and the Presidio. The Belt transferred cargo between ships and main line railroads such as the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific and the Santa Fe. It also loaded trains onto car ferries for ports across the Bay. Although locals nicknamed the line the Toonerville Trolley and the Wooden Axle Line, the State Belt had an illustrious career. The first section of the State Belt was built by the Board of State Harbor Commissioners in 1890. In 1913, the State Belt built the Belt Line Engine House, a five-stall roundhouse at Sansome Street and the Embarcadero in San Francisco. This engine facility housed a modest number of oil-fired steam switchers, and later, ALCO S-2 diesels. An accessory building to the engine house, the sandhouse, was built the following year. Both buildings are simple utilitarian buildings of this period, constructed with reinforced concrete and plaster. The buildings were altered in the 1950s replacing five main doors with industrial type roll-up doors set back from the façade. Renovation work done in 1984 included replication of the original doors and reinstallation in their original location.

In 1914, the State Belt tracks were extended on a wooden trestle across a shallow stretch of the Bay known as Black Point Cove. There, at the end of Van Ness Avenue, a new railroad tunnel built by the Army took the track under Fort Mason to the dock area on the fort’s western edge. The Army’s railroad went on to the Presidio, and was used through World War II and beyond to transport supplies, and occasionally troops.

The State Belt contributed greatly to the movement of materials during the war. Army and Navy switchers were added to provide enough locomotive capacity. The State Belt also delivered trainloads of fresh troops to debarkation points, and picked up hospital trains and returning troops.The railroad moved 156 troop trains and 265 hospital trains in 1945 alone.

Check out the fencing materials

This fountain is in the little courtyard behind the Roundhouse building.

Skygate

Posted by Cindy on January 9, 2000

Jan 092000

The Embarcadero

Skygate by Roger Barr

This is not the first time, and I am sadly sure, it will not be the last, when researching an artist I find the information in their obituary. The San Francisco Chronicle carried Roger Barr’s obituary on January 14, 2000 and it was so eloquent I will simply repost it here.

Roger Barr, a prominent sculptor among whose works is “Skygate,” the first piece of public art along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, died Friday in a hospital in Joshua Tree from complications of diabetes.

Mr. Barr had lived in Santa Rosa for 25 years. His works are in the collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Natural Art Museum in Goteborg, Sweden, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Art in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Erected in 1985 as San Francisco’s first piece of public art financed by a corporation, the 26-foot-high Skygate is an arch-shaped structure near Pier 35 that was dedicated to longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer.

At its dedication, Hoffer’s friend, journalist Eric Sevareid, praised the work a “shining link between sea and sky.”

Mr. Barr was born Sept. 17, 1921, in Milwaukee and studied and taught art in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Los Angeles, Paris, San Francisco, Hayward and Santa Rosa.

He was a Navy flier during World War II, spending part of the war as the flight deck officer of the USS Fanshaw.

After the war, he studied and taught art in Los Angeles, then Paris. He was a professor of art at American College in Paris in the early 1960s.

He returned to the United States in 1969. His third marriage in 1971 was to painter and printmaker Elizabeth Quandt. The couple traveled together in England, France and Japan.

Eric Hoffer was a fascinating man as well. An American social writer he authored ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work.