Part Two: Mid-Market Street

For Sale

^{STRAND THEATER & NATIONAL HOTEL}

From the time of the Great War, the stretch of Market Street between 5th and 10th Streets had been a lively and prosperous entertainment district. Then, in 1963, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency demolished the celebrated Fox Theater, a San Francisco landmark at Polk and Market Streets. It was replaced by Fox Plaza, a combination of high rise apartments and commercial space that was the first, large step toward the ruination of the district’s character, culture and prosperity. A year later, BART began construction of its subway system, which for a decade turned all of downtown Market Street into a massive, gaping trench.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
Fox Theater, 1929.

The destruction of the Fox was a death knell signaling the end of an era. When traffic was diverted away from Market Street by BART construction, the district’s fate was sealed and it nose-dived into a decline from which it has never recovered. Stores and theaters that had thrived for many years struggled on for awhile, then closed forever. Mid-Market Street became a constantly changing landscape of liquor stores, fast food outlets, porn shops, strip clubs, predatory check cashing companies and gaudy storefronts, few of which have survived more than a few years. The downturn in quality and character of mid-Market businesses, combined with a proliferation of empty buildings and abandoned storefronts, has obscured the district’s glorious past and left in its stead an oppressive hollowness and blight. Transience and decay have become ingrained, attracting derelicts, outcasts and petty criminals from far and wide. It is, of course, the area’s residents who have suffered most from these changes.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
The fenced-off post-demolition pit at Polk & Market, 1964.

National

^{NATIONAL HOTEL - 1139 MARKET ST.}

Erected in 1906, the National Hotel is typical of rooming houses built to house a maximum number of occupants in a small space. There are storefronts at street level, all of which have been vacant for years, while the hotel occupies the second and third stories. The building is long and narrow, with 45 roughly 10′ by 10′ rooms on each floor. There is no lobby, the entrance to the hotel being a stairway that leads directly to the second floor, where a small room with a teller’s window serves as the hotel office. The rooms have small sinks and case closets, with windows that open onto narrow light wells providing room ventilation. Bathrooms are located in the back of the building. Monthly rent in 2006 was $600, about average for SROs at the time.

Odd Fellows

^{ODD FELLOWS HALL – 26 7th ST.}

From the time I first laid eyes upon this building, I have admired it; partly because it is architecturally such an odd duck, partly for its name, Odd Fellows, and partly for the wonderful three-story-tall terra cotta cartouche illustrating the Odd Fellows’ symbols.

Formerly the Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, this unusual building was built as a replacement for the original lodge that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake and fire. While their Grand Lodge is now in Saratoga, California, four Odd Fellows lodges still meet here, including their Apollo Lodge #123.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
The original Odd Fellows Hall, 1885.

I.O.O.F. Windows

^{ODD FELLOWS HALL - 26 7th STREET}

In need of repair and a paint job, the Odd Fellows’ elaborate windows show the building’s age. In the background is the old Federal Building.

Looking closely at this photograph, you will note in a window at the very bottom a sign proclaiming the end is near.  Another sign indicates that this corner of the building is the studio of one Richard L. Perri. Both of these signs have been there for as long as I can remember, and as I have always relished dark humor, I often wondered who this Mr. Perri could be. At last, near the beginning of 2008, I met Richard when I was invited to a meeting of the Yerba Buena Lodge of the Odd Fellows. There, I discovered him to be a most charming and witty fellow (as I had suspected all along), who was delighted to know that for years I had been an admirer of his sign.

Early Morning - Market Street

^{7th & MARKET STREETS}

The Grant Building and Odd Fellows Hall are seen in this late autumn view, taken around seven o’clock in the morning.

Grant Building

^{GRANT BUILDING - 1095 MARKET ST.}

Constructed in 1904, the Grant Building was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and fire. The eight story office building has been upgraded over the years, but the original interior marble finishes and beautiful cast iron staircases have been preserved.

Lower McAllister

2007 Survey

^{CLASSIC APARTMENTS, DOROTHY DAY CENTER, CIVIC CENTER APARTMENTS, HIBERNIA BANK BUILDING, (right) U. N. PLAZA FEDERAL BUILDING}

Evangeline

^{CIVIC CENTER RESIDENCE - 44 McALLISTER}

(Formerly Salvation Army Girls Hotel/Young Women’s Boarding Home of the Salvation Army/The Evangeline). 1922. Architect: Norman R. Coulter. 8 stories, reinforced concrete structure, scored stucco facade with end bays surmounted by Salvation Army symbols, Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation; vestibule: pilaster order at entry; alterations: ground level mostly remodeled, aluminum windows, cornice removed.

Built “for working girls employed at a small wage” by The Salvation Army, The Evangeline has been renamed the Civic Center Residence by its current owner, the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation.

McAllister & Market

^{INTERSECTION - McALLISTER, MARKET & JONES STREETS}

Before it was converted to a tourist hotel, the Renoir was a residential/tourist hotel named the Shaw, complete with street-level lounge and barbershop. On the right, glowing red in the sunset, is the McAllister Tower.

Postcard of the McAllister Tower, circa 1940.

Hibernia

^{HIBERNIA BANK – 1 JONES STREET}

1892. Architect: Albert Pissis

The Hibernia Bank Building was designed by Albert Pissis (rhymes with “crisis”), an architect whose work changed the face of San Francisco in the late nineteenth century. The building suffered heavy fire damage following the 1906 earthquake, but it was soon after repaired. Architect and Engineer reflected in 1909 that

the (Hibernia Bank) became famous at once and marked an epoch in San Francisco architecture and placed its designer in the forefront of his profession, where he has remained ever since.

After it was vacated by the Hibernia Bank, the building was the headquarters of the SFPD Tenderloin Task Force until the new Tenderloin Station was finally completed. An out-of-town speculator bought the building in 1995 and has left it empty and unmaintained ever since. Rain pours in through broken skylights onto polished marble and wood and large portions of the exterior have become stained and discolored. This prominent landmark, which should be a proud showpiece of the central city, has instead become a focal point of neighborhood blight.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
View from the old I.O.O.F. building, 1895.

Source: USGS Photographic Library
After the earthquake & fire, 1906.

Hibernia Grillwork

^{HIBERNIA BANK - 1 JONES STREET}

Fallen from Grace

^{HIBERNIA BANK – 1 JONES ST.}

The Hibernia Bank Building is still beautiful despite longtime neglect and abuse, although its condition has deteriorated substantially in recent years. The current owner, Professor Lin-Yun, Supreme Leader of Black Sect Tantric Buddhism At Its Fourth Stage (sic), purchased the building in 1995, stating a desire to transform it into a Buddhist temple and school. The reason he has not done this, he claims, is that the building is in “a bad neighborhood” — sardonic words, reflecting a strangely unenlightened mindset. Professor Lin-Yun is willing to sell, however. His asking price: twenty million dollars, twenty times the assessed value of the building when he purchased it.

Hibernia Dome

^{HIBERNIA BANK - 1 JONES STREET}

A closeup of the Hibernia’s beautiful dome, photographed one morning in springtime. In the background is the Renoir Hotel.

Billiards, Furniture & Carpets

^{1017 – 1021 MARKET STREET}

From a Market Street sidewalk perspective, the Furniture & Carpets building’s huge, monotonous expanse of brick is mostly hidden by the buildings on either side. The illusion created by the false front is largely dependent on looking upward at the building from street level. The faux columns with Corinthian capitals were constructed with terra cotta tiles and the entablature these columns support, that seems so massive, is just a hollow, metal box. Architecture like this is for me transcendent. It turns the street into a stage set, which is probably why I like being able to see the entire building. The deus ex machina, you might say, is the utilitarian brick that makes up the building behind the facade.

Across Market Street, the rough, brick wall advertising Hollywood Billiards used to abut the beautiful Paramount Theater, which was razed by the Shorenstein Company to make way for… a parking lot.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
Paramount Theater

Paramount Theater Site

^{VANTAGE POINT - 1049 MARKET ST.}

When the Paramount was demolished, two small storefronts were hastily erected to plug the resulting gap between adjacent buildings. Incongruous, insipid and cheaply made, they are emblematic of the poor planning that ruined this once-vibrant district.

Grand Illusion

^{1017 – 1021 MARKET STREET}

I remember wishing I could levitate upward and in through the open window above me when I captured this image. As often as I have photographed this building’s exterior, I have never been able to gain access to the inside. The little, round holes in the window frames are light sockets, which unfortunately have not had light bulbs in them for many years. Ever since the Eastern Outfitting Company went out of business, the storefront has been leased by a succession of two-bit bargain stands and the upper levels have been occupied by sweatshops.

Pre-WWI postcard.

Mid-Market blight.

Furniture & Carpets

^{1017 – 1021 MARKET STREET}

The Furniture & Carpets building is close to where Market Street intersects with 6th Street, Golden Gate Avenue and Taylor Street. The upper stories of the building in the foreground are the San Cristina residential hotel. The ground floor is currently empty after having being occupied by a succession of restaurants, all of which failed because of the surrounding blight. The building is also where Christian Slater interviewed Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire. It is shaped like a long, narrow triangle in order to fit the acute angle of Market Street intersecting Golden Gate Avenue. What appears to be a turret-like structure is actually just the narrow tip of the triangle.

Empty Buildings

^{VANTAGE POINT - 1055 MARKET ST.}

The two most prominent buildings in this photograph, the Golden Gate Theater and the Warfield Building, were designed by G. Albert Lansburgh, one of America’s preeminent theater architects. Raised in San Francisco, Lansburgh worked for both Bernard Maybeck and Julius E. Krafft while studying at U. C. Berkeley. Following his graduation, he moved to Paris and studied at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux Arts, earning his diploma in 1906. He returned to San Francisco one month after the city’s devastation by earthquake and fire, beginning here his long and illustrious career.

Where the Tenderloin Begins

2007 Survey

^{INTERSECTION: MARKET ST., GOLDEN GATE AVE, & TAYLOR ST.}

Golden Gate Theater

^{GOLDEN GATE THEATER - 1 TAYLOR ST.}

1922. Owner: The Shorenstein Company. Architect: G. Albert Lansburgh (also designed Warfield Theater & S. F. Opera House). 8 stories, dome, arcaded top story, brick & fine terra cotta facade, wrought iron balconets, entry & marquee altered, storefronts boarded shut.

The Golden Gate Theater stands at one of the busiest entries to the Tenderloin. Featuring vaudeville, the theater first opened its doors in 1922. Over the years, theatergoers saw everything from the Marx Brothers to Cinerama. Most recently, it was a venue for Broadway shows, including Rent, the film version of which was shot less than a block away on 6th Street. All programming was discontinued near the end of 2007 and the theater has been unused ever since.

The building’s owner, one of San Francisco’s wealthiest families and the City’s largest owner of downtown commercial properties, has boarded up storefronts along Taylor Street and Golden Gate Avenue that once housed colorful theater-related businesses and has kept the office space at 25 Taylor vacant since evicting from there an entire building of non-profit organizations in 1995. The terra cotta and wrought iron details of this Art Deco palace have suffered greatly from neglect and the six-story neon signs haven’t worked in ages. The building’s run-down, semi-abandoned aspect and the interdiction of small business have suppressed neighborhood commerce, driven down property values and proliferated blight.

Warfield

^{WARFIELD THEATER - 982 MARKET ST.}

1922. Owner: Fair Market Properties LLC. Architect: G. Albert Lansburgh

Opened May 23, 1922 as the Loew’s Warfield, the theater was named for People’s Vaudeville Company co-founder David Warfield (born David Wohlfeld in San Francisco on November 28, 1866), one of Marcus Loew’s best friends and one of the first investors in the corporate empire that became Loew’s-MGM. Originally a venue for both vaudeville and cinema, the theater operated as a first-run movie house until the late 1970s, when it began to occasionally host live music by artists such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Devo. The theater was leased by Bill Graham Presents about the same time that Graham closed down his North Beach venue, Wolfgang’s, after a suspicious fire. Since then, just about every top name in rock has performed at the Warfield. Gerry Garcia set the record for most performances at the theater by appearing 88 times with the Grateful Dead and various side bands.

The Warfield Building, comprised of the theater and attached office space, was purchased for $12 million in 2005 by David Addington, principal at Fair Market Properties LLC. The theater lease was taken over in May 2008 by AEG* Live, the nation’s second largest concert promoter, following the acrimonious departure of Bill Graham Presents (owned since Graham’s death by Clear Channel). Concerts are slated to resume in September 2008, following renovation and improvements to the theater, hopefully including a much needed face-lift for the entrance and marquee. The building next to the Warfield was formerly the Crest Theater, which folded around 1980 to become the Crazy Horse “Gentlemen’s Club”.

*Anschutz Entertainment Group is owned by David Anschutz, who also owns the San Francisco Examiner.

Source: San Francisco History Center, S.F. Public Library
The Warfield in 1948. The theater’s spectacular marquee was removed in the late-60s to facilitate BART construction.

St. Francis

^{ST. FRANCIS THEATER - 965 MARKET ST.}

Closed since May 2001, the St. Francis is another Market Street cinema with a long history. Opened first as the Empress in 1910, the theater was taken over by Sid Grauman and renamed the Strand in 1917 and renamed again as the St. Francis in 1924. When the theater was twinned in 1968, the upstairs screen was christened as the Baronet Theater, while the downstairs screen retained its name as the St. Francis. In 2006, I had an opportunity to see the interior of the theater and was amazed to find that everything from the lobbies to the projection booths was completely intact.

Storm Season

^{FLOOD BUILDING & ALBERT S. SAMUELS CLOCK - 870 & 856 MARKET ST.}

James C. Flood (1826-1889), one of the Silver Kings of the 1870s, was the financial mind behind the Consolidated Virginia mine, which yielded the largest mineral strike in U.S. history. The grandiosity of the building that bears his name reflects his tremendous wealth. Truly a monumental edifice, its facing is entirely of hand carved stone and the elaborate ornamentation looks like an architect’s holiday. The four-faced clock, now a historical landmark insured by Lloyd’s of London, was built by jeweler Albert S. Samuels in 1915.

Source: Museum of the City of San Francisco

Before the Flood Building, there was the Baldwin Hotel, photographed during the fire that destroyed it in 1897. The thick, black smoke on the left is from S. F. Fire Department pumping engines.

Late Winter - Hobart Building

^{HOBART BUILDING - 582-592 MARKET ST.}

(Although both this image, and the one following fall outside the area covered in this chapter, I have included them to illustrate how San Francisco’s architectural legacy is being bankrupted as it is supplanted with impersonal, antiseptic constructions that stand cold and aloof to what remains of our history.)

I had taken a walk down Market Street to my favorite tobacco shop to buy a handful of cigars, and on my way back home I stopped at a sidewalk cafe to have a double cappuccino. A glorious morning on the first day of March seemed like a good time to give myself some treats. While seated at one of the sidewalk tables, I was admiring some of the surrounding architecture and noticed what was happening with the shadows that played across the facade of the Hobart Building. It was Pythagorean poetry.

The 500 block on Market Street contains two structures by Willis Polk, 564 Market and the Hobart Building at 582 Market, which is thought to have been his favorite commercial building. Polk was the most active architect during the reconstruction of the city after the earthquake & fire, designing 106 buildings between 1906 and 1914.

Abyss

^{(VANTAGE POINT: MARINES’ MEMORIAL HOTEL – 609 SUTTER ST.)}

When a building has been around for a while it shows signs of time’s passage, revealing its history in a wonderfully arcane visual language. What I captured with my camera here can’t be seen from street level. It is a hidden world. With the new skyscrapers in the distance, this image symbolizes for me what is happening to all cities in America today.

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