350 Bush Street

 Posted by on May 10, 2013
May 102013
 

San Francisco Mining Exchange
350 Bush Street
Financial District

350 Bush Street

The San Francisco Mining Exchange, the second oldest exchange in the United States after the New York Stock Exchange, was formed in 1862 to trade mining stocks.  It is San Francisco Landmark #113.

When trading in mining stocks surged in the early 1920s, the Mining Exchange hired the firm Miller & Pflueger, whose work can be found all over San Francisco,  to design this Beaux Arts building. 350 Bush is an adaptation of the classical temple form much favored by financial institutions in the period, the building’s pediment and four pairs of fluted columns recall the New York Stock Exchange, constructed twenty years earlier.

The building was a trading hall for mining commodities for only five years; the Mining Exchange relocated in 1928.

Subsequently the building was occupied by the San Francisco Curb Exchange (1928-1938).  When the Curb Exchange was absorbed into the San Francisco Stock Exchange  the building was occupied by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce (1938-1967), and then Western Title Insurance (1967-1979).

The following is adapted from the San Francisco City Planning Commission Resolution No. 8578 dated 1 May 1980:

“This building is the last visible remnant of the San Francisco Mining Exchange which dissolved in 1967. The exchange was instrumental in making San Francisco the financial center of the West, and its capital was used to develop the mines and other industries of the entire western United States. Names associated with the Exchange include Coit, Sharon, Ralston, Mills, Hearst, Flood, Sutro, Hopkins and many more whose fortunes were founded or greatly augmented on the Exchange.With the discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1859, the need for a central market for trading in mining stocks became apparent. In 1862, the San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board was organized, housed first in the Montgomery Block, then in the Merchant’s Exchange.

By the middle of the 1870’s, the Exchange dominated the Western financial world, with capital from the East Coast and Europe pushing its volume of sales over that of the New York Stock Exchange, helping to establish the California-Montgomery Street area as “Wall Street West”.

By the early 1880’s, the Comstock began its permanent decline, and the Exchange’s specialization in mining stocks proved disastrous. In 1882, the rival San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange, dealing in a wide range of commodities, was formed and prospered.

The silver discoveries in Tonopah, Nevada, in 1903 gave the Exchange new life, and in the 1920’s it commissioned Miller and Pflueger to design a grand Beaux Arts trading hall at 350 Bush Street.

In 1929, the Exchange, hard hit by the Crash, entered its final decline, with a brief revival during the uranium boom of the 1950’s. An investigation of irregularities in its operation by the Securities and Exchange Commission resulted in an order to close, and on August 15, 1967, after almost 105 years of existence, the Mining Exchange came to an end.”

Fluted Columns Mining Exchange

The building has been vacant since 1979. The Swig Company and partners Shorenstein Properties LLC and Weiler-Arnow Investment Company purchased the Mining Exchange building in the 1960s. In 1979, The Swig Company and its partners began assembling the six land parcels around the Mining Exchange for the 350 Bush development. The partners obtained entitlements in the early 2000s.  In 2007 Lincoln Property Company acquired the property from the Swig/Shorenstein and Weiler-Arnow group for $60 million.  The intention was to break ground that spring, at this writing, that has not happened.

According to Heller Manus, the architects for the project, the historic exchange hall will be used as a grand lobby for a modern office building. The building will provide 360,000 sf of office space with a dramatic galleria at the street level as well as a mid-block pedestrian link between Bush and Pine Streets

Jo Mora

The pediment was sculpted by Jo Mora. Joseph Jacinto “Jo” Mora (1876–1947) was an Uruguayan-born American cartoonist, illustrator and cowboy, who lived with the Hopi and wrote extensively about his experiences in California. He was an artist-historian, sculptor, painter, photographer, illustrator, muralist and author. He has been called the “Renaissance Man of the West”.

Mora was born on October 22, 1876 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His father was the Catalonian sculptor, Domingo Mora, and his mother was Laura Gaillard Mora, an intellectual French woman. His elder brother was F. Luis Mora, who would become an acclaimed artist and the first Hispanic member of the National Academy of Design. The family entered the United States in 1880 and first settled in New York, and then Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Jo Mora studied art in the New York and Boston, at the Art Student’s League in New York and the Cowles School in Boston. In 1903 he moved to Solvang, California.  After wandering the Southwest he returned to San Jose, California.

By 1919, he was sculpting for the Bohemian Club, including a memorial plaque dedicated to Bret Harte, completed in August 1919 and mounted on the outside of the private men’s club building in San Francisco. In 1925, he designed the commemorative half dollar for the California Diamond Jubilee. Mora died October 10, 1947, in Monterey, California.

Jo Mora

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 Jo Mora

 The building was reopened in 2018, you can read about the “restoration” here.

The Bell Telephone Building

 Posted by on April 4, 2013
Apr 042013
 

140 New Montgomery
SOMA South of 5th

Pacific Bell BuildingThe building that stands at 140 New Montgomery was built in 1925 for the Pacific Telephone Company, part of the Bell System. It was, at the time, the first significant skyscraper in San Francisco, as well as the city’s first skyscraper in the Moderne style.  According to the  San Francisco Newsletter, published in 1925, “The interiors are entirely fireproof and are exceptionally well lighted. Its features include a cafeteria for women employees and an assembly hall seating 400 people.” It was also the first building to be wired so that each desk could have a personal telephone.

Designed by James Rupert Miller and Timothy Pflueger, the Bell Telephone Building is often categorized as both Neo Gothic-a style that borrows details from medieval Gothic architecture-and Art Deco, a style introduced at the 1925 Paris Exhibition that flourished throughout the 1930s and during WWII. Art Deco is based on geometric forms and places an emphasis on sleek appearances, reflecting the modernity of science and industry in the 20th century. The term “Moderne” is the United States Landmarks Commissions’ general term for styles of architecture that were popular from 1925 through the 1940s. It has expression in styles traditionally classified as Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and WPA Moderne.

Pac Bell Logo*

Ornamentation over door*

Front DoorThe building is 436 feet high with 26 floors. It is clad in nine different shades of grey granite-like terra cotta. Its original construction cost: $4.55 million dollars.

Miller and Pflueger were heavily influenced by Eliel Saarinen, winner of the 1922 second-prize design for The Chicago Tribune Tower, a design that was never executed. Saarinen used vertical elements and gradual setbacks in his design, which are characteristics of the Bell Telephone Building. (Set backs are step-like recessions in walls, initially used for structural reasons.)

In 1926 The  San Francisco Examiner  called 140 Montgomery “the shimmering gleaming monument to talk.”

LobbyThe lobby floor is black polished marble. Overhead a red stenciled ceiling features intertwining black and gold designs of unicorns, phoenixes, clouds and odd creatures. All this is complimented by very elaborate elevator doors.

The building’s exterior is a paean to the Bell Phone system. The logo over the main entryway is surrounded by stylistic blue bells, the company’s iconic flower. There are small bells in panels across the facade as well.

Bells

The building has no Historic Landmark Status meaning it is not recognized by the US government for its historic significance. Because, however, it is categorized by the City of San Francisco as being of “individual importance” and “excellent” in architectural design, it is protected from demolition.

Elevator BellsBell Telephone Logos over each elevator

 

 

TheaterThe Theater

Bought in 2007 by developers Wilson Meany, the building is undergoing a $50 plus million renovation. The new owners worked closely with numerous preservation boards and organizations responsible for historic building oversight to keep as much of the building intact as possible.For example, bas reliefs depicting a snake charmer, a bear, and other exotic figures on the walls of the assembly hall’s proscenium (the area between the curtain and the orchestra) will be saved. The original Bell logos will be recreated, mounted on hexagon medallions, and placed over each of the elevators in the lobby. Much of the terra cotta will need to be repaired, and every single window frame above the third floor will be replaced.

Flying Phone BoodsFlying phone books ornament the exterior of the building.

A large part of the construction process includes seismic retrofitting, which involves the modification of existing structures to make them more resistant to earthquakes.  The engineers were concerned mostly with the exterior shell of the building: the terra cotta had not been maintained properly and there was some concern that it was in danger of breaking off in pieces and falling.

Originally slated to be high end condominiums in 2007 when it was purchased, the project focus changed when the office-space boom came back. The building is slated to hold 280,000 square feet of office space.  The space will include amenities like a private outdoor tenant garden, showers, bike parking and repair rooms. There is plans for either first-class ground-floor dining or retail.  The building is expected to open sometime this year. (2013)

 

 

The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange

 Posted by on March 12, 2013
Mar 122013
 

301 Pine Street
Financial District

301 Pine Street-one of the historic buildings that comprised our financial system on the West Coast-began its life in 1915 as a sub-treasury building for the United States Treasury. In 1930, when the San Francisco Financial District was fast becoming the Wall Street of the West, the “gentlemen of the tape and ticker” sought a building to express the important financial work they were doing. They chose the San Francisco firm of Miller and Pflueger to remodel the old government building into a new Exchange.

Pacific Coast Stock ExchangeFront of the building features a colonnade and granite staircase, the only remnants of the building’s original design.

At this point in his life architect Timothy Pflueger was interested in throwing out Classicism, a style of architecture modeled after ancient Greek and Roman structures; however, his commission required that he keep the colonnade and the granite stairs leading to the building, part of the original design by J. Milton Dyer of Cleveland, Ohio. As a result, the original building was completely gutted, and the only thing that remained was the front of the building we see today. The colonnade consists of ten Tuscan columns, and as part of the Tuscan Order, the entablature, the area above the columns, should have remained plain and simple. Instead, Pflueger chose to break the classical rules and placed two Art Deco medallions inside the entablature. Art Deco began in the 1920s and lasted for a good twenty years. Known for its linear symmetry, it was a nice fit with the simple Tuscan style that Pflueger was forced to keep.

Medallions*

MedallionArt Deco medallions inside the entablature of the Pacific Stock Exchange Building:

The massive Art Deco pieces that grace the Exchange were sculpted out of Yosemite granite by Ralph Stackpole. They are meant to show the polarity of agriculture and industry and are named accordingly. The sculptures were an important part of Pflueger’s move toward modern architecture, as he did not want any of the “classic” repetitive art on the exterior of the building.

AgricultureAgriculture

IndustryIndustry

The Pacific Coast Stock Exchange has a long history in the financial world of the United States. In 1882 nineteen gentlemen anted up $50 each to form the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange. In 1957 they merged with the Los Angeles Oil Exchange to become the Pacific Stock Exchange, although each town kept its own trading floor. In 1976 they began trading options, and options are still traded in a building around the corner. The trading floor closed in 2002, and the building was later sold to private developers. In a wonderful example of historic reuse, the tenant today is Equinox Fitness.

The Russ BuildingThe Neo-Gothic Russ Building towers over the classical Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.

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