San Francisco City Hall

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Infobox building

San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by Template:Convert.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, which was two blocks from the present one.

The principal architect was Arthur Brown, Jr., of Bakewell & Brown, whose attention to the finishing details extended to the doorknobs and the typeface to be used in signage.Template:Cn Brown also designed the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, Veterans Building, Temple Emanuel, Coit Tower and the Federal office building at 50 United Nations Plaza.

Architecture

File:San Francisco City Hall 3.jpg
The Rotunda and grand staircase

The building's vast open space is more than Template:Convert and occupies two full city blocks. It is Template:Convert between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, and Template:Convert between Grove and McAllister Streets. Its dome, which owes much to Mansart's Baroque domes of the Val-de-Grâce (church) and Les Invalides<ref>Rough Guides; Edwards, Nick; Hodgkins, Charles; & Keeling, Stephen (2014) The Rough Guide to California Rough Guides Limited. Template:ISBN</ref> in Paris, rises Template:Convert above the Civic Center Historic District. It is Template:Convert higher than the United States Capitol, and has a diameter of Template:Convert, resting upon 4 x 50 ton (44.5 metric ton) and 4 x 20 ton (17.8 metric ton) girders, each Template:Convert deep and Template:Convert long.Template:Cn

The building as a whole contains 7,900 tons (7,035 metric tons) of structural steel from the American Bridge Company of Ambridge, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. It is faced with Madera County granite on the exterior, and Indiana sandstone within, together with finish marbles from Alabama, Colorado, Vermont, and Italy. Much of the statuary is by Henri Crenier.

The upper levels of the Rotunda are public and handicapped accessible. Opposite the grand staircase, on the second floor, is the office of the Mayor. Bronze busts of former Mayor George Moscone and his successor, Dianne Feinstein, stand nearby as tacit reminders of the Moscone assassination, which took place just a few yards from that spot in the smaller rotunda of the mayor's office entrance. A bust of former county supervisor Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in the building was unveiled on May 22, 2008.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The inscription that dominates the grand Rotunda and the entrance to the mayor's small rotunda, right below Father Time, reads:

<poem>SAN • FRANCISCO O • GLORIOVS • CITY • OF • OVR HEARTS • THAT • HAST • BEEN TRIED • AND • NOT • FOVND WANTING • GO • THOV • WITH LIKE • SPIRIT • TO • MAKE THE • FVTVRE • THINE 1912 JAMES ROLPH JR. MAYOR 1931<ref>Template:Cite web</ref></poem>

The words were written by the previous Mayor Edward Robeson Taylor, and dedicated by Mayor James Rolph.

While plaques at the Mall entrance memorialize President George Washington's farewell address and President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the primary themes of the statuary are to the past mayors, with the dates of their terms in office. The medallions in the vaults of the Rotunda are of Equality, Liberty, Strength, Learning and, as memorialized in the South Light Court display, Progress.

History

File:City hall, San-Francisco, Cal. - Lith. & publ. by Quirot & Co., corner California and Montgomery Sts., S. Francisco. LCCN2012646051.jpg
City hall, 750 Kearny Street, between Washington and Merchant streets, formerly housed the Jenny Lind Theatre<ref name="Soulé-1855" />Template:Rp

From 1849 to 1850, San Francisco's municipal government was on the west side of Portsmouth Square at the Office of the Alcalde,<ref name=Soulé-1855>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Rp who was the municipal magistrate, with both judicial and administrative functions, and the ayuntamiento, the town council, or cabildo.

In May 1850, after the first City Charter was adopted, the first San Francisco City Hall was established at the former luxury hotel Graham House<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> on the corner of Kearny and Pacific streets, which was later consumed by the great fire of June 1851.<ref name="Soulé-1855" />Template:Rp In 1852, San Francisco City Hall was at 750 Kearny Street between Washington and Merchant Streets,<ref name="ohp.parks.ca.gov/21482">Template:Cite web</ref> at the converted Jenny Lind Theatre building and Parker House,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> located then between the El Dorado Hotel and The Union, opposite the east side of Portsmouth Square. Later, this was the site of a Hall of Justice, as seen on the TV series, Ironside.

Template:Multiple image The current 1916 City Hall building is a replacement for the 1899 building, construction for which began in 1871 designed by Augustus Laver and Thomas Stent<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>.The 1899 city hall also contained a smaller extension which contained the city's Hall of Records, which housed the very first Flag of California. It was bounded by Larkin Street, McAllister Street, and City Hall Avenue (a street, now built over, which ran from the corner of Grove and Larkin to the corner of McAllister and Leavenworth), largely where the current public library and U.N. Plaza stand today.Template:Cn Noted city planner and architect Daniel Burnham published a plan in 1905 to redesign the city, including a new Civic Center complex around City Hall,<ref name=Burnham05>Template:Cite report</ref> but the plans were shelved in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which destroyed the 1899 City Hall.

The 1899 building was designed as a complex of buildings to be built on a triangular park, the former site of an old cemetery. The state appropriated the land and auctioned off portions of the property. Construction began in 1870, was finished 27 years later, in 1897, costing six million dollars ($146,472,824.43 in 2025 dollars). With seven chief architects and twenty-seven years, corruption built up. Even the materials were compromised; the building's cast bricks were rumored to be shoddy and the walls were found to be padded with sand. Fireplaces were built and later heating systems were installed. There were major sewage problems, the place was said to stink all the time. The floors didn't match up, chimneys didn't draw so the rooms were smoky. It was a badly designed building, and fell with the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, only nine years later.

Template:Quotebox Reconstruction plans following the earthquake for the Civic Center complex called for a neo-classical design as part of the City Beautiful Movement, as well as a desire to rebuild the city in time for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. A bond was authorized for $8.8 million on March 28, 1912, of which the new City Hall was budgeted for $3.5 million to $4 million.<ref name=SFC-131025>Template:Cite news</ref> After Arthur Brown Junior's design was selected from the competition, construction started in 1913 and was completed by 1915, in time for the Exposition.<ref name="avoc">Template:Cite web</ref>

File:General View of Civic Center and New City Hall (Engineering News-Record, vol 75 no 26 p 1222 fig 2).jpg
Civic Auditorium (left) and the 1916 City Hall (right) under construction (Template:Circa), with Civic Center Plaza in the foreground

Ground was broken for the 1916 City Hall at Van Ness and Fulton on April 5, 1913,<ref name=SFC-19130406>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the cornerstone was laid on October 25 of that year.<ref name=SFC-131025 /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Mayor Rolph moved into City Hall on December 28, 1915,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the final stone was laid on March 31, 1916,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and scaffolding was finally removed on July 28, officially marking the end of construction.<ref name=SRPD-160729>Template:Cite news</ref> The ruins of the old City Hall were sold shortly thereafter in August 1916 for Template:US$, with removal to be completed within 40 days.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The main rotunda served as the site where many prominent politicians and public servants were laid in state. General Fredrick Funston, hero of the Spanish–American War, Philippine–American War, and the 1906 earthquake laid there in 1917.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> President Warren G. Harding laid here in 1923.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Former mayor and governor James Rolph was laid in state in City Hall following his death in 1934.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married at City Hall in January 1954.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In May 1960, the main Rotunda was a site of a student protest against the House Un-American Activities Committee and a countering police action whereby students from UC Berkeley, Stanford, and other local colleges were fire hosed down the steps beneath the rotunda. This event was memorialized by students during the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley four years later.Template:Cn

On November 27, 1978, former Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk inside of City Hall.

The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 damaged the structure, and twisted the dome four inches (102 mm) on its base. Afterward, under the leadership of the San Francisco Bureau of Architecture in collaboration with Carey & Co. preservation architects, and Forell/Elsesser Engineers, work was completed to render the building earthquake resistant through a base isolation system,<ref group=notes>In an earthquake, the mass of the dome threatens to act as a pendulum, rocking the building's structure and tearing it apart, but the base isolation system of hundreds of rubber and stainless-steel insulators inserted into City Hall's underpinnings should have the effect of disrupting seismic waves before they can affect the structure.</ref> which would likely prevent total collapse of the building. City Hall reopened after its seismic upgrade in January 1999, and was the world's largest base-isolated structure at that time.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Prior to the retrofitting, the San Francisco County Superior Court’s civil courtrooms were located in City Hall but have been located across the street at the 400 McAllister courthouse since it opened in 1997.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The original grand plaza has undergone several extensive renovations, with radical changes in its appearance and utility. Prior to the 1960s there were extensive brick plazas, few trees, and a few large, simple, raised, and circular ponds with central fountains, all in a style that discouraged loitering. The plaza was then extensively excavated for underground parking. At this time a central rectangular pond, with an extensive array of water vents (strangely, all in several strict rows and all pointing east, with identical arcs of water, and completely without sculptural embellishment), was added, with extensive groves of trees (again, in 60s modernist style, planted with absolute military precision on rectangular grids). In the 1990s, with the rise of the problem of homelessness, the plaza was once again remodeled to make it somewhat less habitable—although the most significant change, the replacement of the pond and pumps with a lawn, could be reasonably justified on the basis of energy and water conservation.Template:Cn

File:SF City Hall Election Day 2018.jpg
San Francisco City Hall with red, white and blue lights on 2018 Election Day

The building features color changeable LED lighting at the outside of the Rotunda, and between the exterior columns. The colors change to coincide with different events happening in the city and elsewhere.<ref name="kqed-27apr2017">Template:Cite news</ref>

During the COVID-19 pandemic, City Hall was closed from March 2020 until reopening on June 7, 2021.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

Template:Stack

References

Informational notes Template:Reflist

Citations Template:Reflist

Template:Commons category

Template:Civic Center, San Francisco Template:San Francisco Attractions Template:Neighborhoods of San Francisco Template:Authority Control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=San_Francisco_City_Hall&oldid=548400"