Our San Francisco
Amid bouts of contention, S.F. has grown upward
How the skyline has shaped the city and been shaped by its populace.
It was 1874, and plans had just been unveiled for the tallest building in San Francisco. Predictably, a reader wrote to The Chronicle, calling the structure both a blight on the skyline and an eyesore that would block views. “It may be too late, but we hope not, to improve on this lamentable state of things,” the unsigned letter finished. The old Palace Hotel, the subject of the
plea for restraint, was to be just 120 feet tall — barely high enough to scrape the fog on a July morning. San Francisco’s skyline has been shaped by a fierce and protective populace — residents who love their city enough to band together into opposing factions for nearly every change in the city’s physical profile. During any given generation’s growth spurt — including the current tech-fueled boom — the fight for the soul of the city seems to be the great-
est San Francisco has ever faced. But a closer look at history proves that through each change, the city endures as a worldclass beauty. And it has arguably benefited from the passion on both sides. In the 150 years that The San Francisco Chronicle has published, there have been 11 buildings claiming to be the tallest in the city — starting with Old St. Mary’s Cathedral (built in 1854, 90 feet tall) and ending with the current height champ, the Transamerica Pyramid (1972, 853 feet).
The Salesforce Tower, at 1,070 feet, is scheduled for completion in 2017. Looking at The Chronicle’s coverage of the city’s tallest buildings, there have been few conflict-free constructions. The old Chronicle building at 690 Market (also known as the de Young Building), finished in 1890 and at the time the tallest at 218 feet, received nothing but plaudits in the pages of its own newspaper, which ran a 60-page special section in self-tribute. If there were complaints about its height, they ran in the competing Examiner or Call. (The latter newspaper’s new building, across the street from The Chronicle, became the city’s tallest eight years later.) The Timothy Pflueger-designed Pacific Telephone Building at 140 New Montgomery, finished in 1925 at a then-gargantuan 435 feet, was hailed as an architectural and technological triumph. This 1923 description of the proposed elevator system was typical: “Confusion in calling floors during the ride up and down will be avoided through installation of the newest elevator equipment, whereby the operator presses a button for the floor called and the system does the rest.” Since then, each new alpha building has resulted in battle lines being drawn. The Hartford Building at 650 Califor-
nia, completed in 1965, was one of the fiercest fights. The Hartford was built nearly flush against Old St. Mary’s Cathedral, making the then-111-year-old church look comically small in its shadow. True story: A glass worker for the Hartford fell off a scaffold outside the 31st floor and plunged to his death on top of a nearby building. A priest from St. Mary’s administered last rites on the roof. While present and former members of that era’s Planning Commission (two architects among them) suggested that the height and bulk of Hartford might be too big for the location, Mayor George Christopher took a hard-brawling approach to defending the project. “They are fine architects,” Christopher said of his opponents in a 1962 Chronicle article, “but how do we know whether their criticism is based on professional considerations or on jealousy? … Our city is getting a reputation among investors of perhaps encouraging too much opposition. They feel they have to satisfy not only legalities but the artistic whims of the community.” After the Hartford Building went up, the city faced bigger community pushback over plans for the Transamerica Pyramid. The bold and unique proposal led to even more of a civil war atmo-
sphere in the city. The pro-Pyramid interests were led by Mayor Joseph L. Alioto and businessman Cyril Magnin. But this time there was more activism among the citizenry, with young people wearing pyramid-shaped dunce caps at city meetings and protesting publicly in large numbers. At The Chronicle, the newspaper’s editorials cheered the new structure, while the paper’s Pulitzer-winning architecture critic Allan Temko called it “authentic architectural butchery” and a “pseudo-architectural stunt.” “This building would even be wrong in Los Angeles, where it was hatched, or in Las Vegas, where it belongs, or in Dallas, where buildings vie for attention,” Temko testified at City Hall. “It certainly doesn’t belong in San Francisco, which is sensitive and easily hurt.” (Herb Caen was gifted with seemingly endless material from the moment the architectural stalagmite was announced in 1969. A “flaccid” Pyramid was later incorporated into the skyline of his classic column logo.) The protesters lost the greater fight, of course, but won significant battles. The skyscraper was scaled down at least twice, from an initial plan that called for more than 1,000 feet. We’ll leave it to the experts — current
Chronicle Urban Design Critic John King has written thoughtfully on the subject — to opine whether fatigue after the Transamerica Pyramid fight and fears of “Manhattanization” influenced the future of skyscrapers in S.F. The fact is, the Transamerica Pyramid has remained the tallest building in the 43 years since it was built. And one of the arguments by the 1970s opposition, that the city should move its biggest construction sprees South of Market, is the reality of San Francisco building in the 21st century. In the moment these fights were bitter, with clear winners and losers. But looking
with 45, 70 or 140 years of perspective, the pressure levied by both sides, and the resulting compromises, arguably made the city more beautiful than it would have been without the strife. So what’s the lesson from looking at 150 years of tall buildings? We still live in an indescribably gorgeous city, no matter how many times someone predicts its demise. The old Palace Hotel, demolished because of damage caused by the 1906 earthquake, is remembered fondly in old photos and postcards. The Hartford Building has become an uninspiring but
benign fixture on the skyline. And most of us feel a little sadness when the Transamerica Pyramid is destroyed in the latest Hollywood disaster movie. A new tallest building arrives in two years, with its own detractors. But if history teaches us anything, it’s that we’ll someday appreciate the Salesforce Tower as much as, if not more than, the rest of them.