Moscone Center – Public Art and Architecture from Around the World

Hellenism in San Francisco

Posted by Cindy on July 7, 2015

Jul 072015

This plaque sits, somewhat neglected in an ivy bed at the corner of 3rd and Folsom Streets at the Moscone Center. I, like so many people, have seen it, read it, and continued on my way. I began wondering what was behind it.

The Greek immigrant community was one of the largest and most conspicuous communities South of Market prior to the 1960s. Greeks had begun coming to San Francisco even before the 1906 Earthquake, the community grew rapidly prior to the First World War as Greeks escaped their own war-torn and poverty stricken homeland. Many made their way across the country as railroad workers. According to the San Francisco Chronicle (December 9, 1923) by 1923, 11,500 Greeks lived in San Francisco. In that year, San Francisco contained 26 Greek-owned coffee houses, 380 Greek grocery stores, and 120 Greek shoe shine stands. Many other Greeks worked in auto repair shops, banks, or upholsterers’ shops. Some with transit experience got jobs with the San Francisco Municipal Railway. San Francisco’s Greek community, although dispersed across the city, was centered on the intersection of 3rd and Folsom streets. For a while, the presence of so many Greek businesses gave the area the name Greek Town.

The First Holy Trinity Church

What is left of this vast Greek population in the South of Market area is Holy Trinity. This edifice, the first Greek Orthodox Church west of Chicago, was founded in 1904 at 345 7th Street. The church was destroyed in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. It was rebuilt, at an original cost of $20,000 in 1907 with additions throughout the years immediately following. In 1964 the church was sold to St. Michael’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The architect for the second church was an S. Andrio and the contractors were R.R. Thompson of San Francisco. In 1922, the church was radically remodeled and the architect for that job was John Bowers of San Francisco.

According to volume 7 of the Architect and Engineer “the building will be of frame construction, ornately decorated, the dome and roof being supported by eight pillars.

The San Francisco Call on October 15, 1906 reported “New Church Plans Approved by Representative Greeks Edifice Will Be Built on Seventh Street. A new Greek church on Byzantine Greek lines of architecture is destined to rise in San Francisco, according to the plans accepted by the Greek Society. A meeting of representative Greeks was held yesterday afternoon at 1735 Market street, at which the plans were displayed and discussed. The edifice, which will be called Holy Trinity, will be located at 317 Seventh street, and will cost more than $20,000.

In addition to the church a school will be attached, in which the children of the Greek population of over 3000 in this city will be educated. The church itself is to be ornately decorated, the dome and roof being supported by eight pillars. The building will measure fifty feet by seventyflve. The architect Is S. Andrio. –

The historical photos are from the great website for Hellenistic history in San Francisco San Francisco Greeks.

Yerba Buena Gardens

Posted by Cindy on April 9, 2013

Apr 092013

Yerba Buena Gardens
SOMA South of 5th Street

Yerba Buena Gardens is a two-block public park that anchors the three sides of the Yerba Buena Center (YBC). The area got its name in 1835 for the “good herb”-mint-growing in the area.

YBC is officially in the South of Market Area (SOMA). Jack London first called this area “south of the slot,” in reference to the cable-car tracks that ran down the center of Market Street.

In 1847 when the city fathers laid out the SOMA, it was partitioned into lots twice the size of those in the north of market area. SOMA also had easy access to the piers, making it a likely location for industrial development. Businesses that eventually settled in the area included factories, gas works, machine shops and laundries. After the 1906 earthquake and fire wiped out the area, reconstruction of SOMA was hasty, resulting in residential hotels, boarding houses, flats and the occasional single-family dwelling.

The 1950s brought a groundswell among business leaders-especially real estate developers-for urban renewal. In 1953 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors designated twelve “blighted” blocks as a redevelopment district. The controversial head of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, Justin Herman, led the charge, commenting that “The South of Market Area ranks among the most severely blighted sections of the city…[T]he conditions of the blight are such as to be highly conducive to social disintegration, juvenile delinquency, and crime. The present wasteful use of potentially valuable land must be stopped.” The proposed redevelopment plans included theaters, restaurants, office spaces, hotels, a convention center and a sports complex-all intended to comprise the Yerba Buena Center.

The November 3, 1965 Official Bulletin of the San Francisco Labor Council ran an article by their secretary-treasurer, George John. He wrote, “Speculative real estate operators…seem to have taken over the planning functions of our city….Convention halls and sports arenas have their place. But the loss of millions of square feet of industrial space can only extend unemployment, suffering and poverty….A redevelopment program is certainly needed there. However…a rehabilitation and conservation program makes for better sense than the program of massive clearance…”

Ohlone Indian Memorial: Oche Wat Te Ou

Despite opposition efforts, official removal of SOMA residents began in 1967. By 1969 the Redevelopment Agency had acquired 44% of the properties required for the project. Buildings began to sink into states of disrepair, and the neighborhood continued to decline.

This situation brought out the fight in 80-year-old George Woolf. A retired union man, he was perfect to head up the Tenants and Owners in Opposition Group (TOOR) formed by the residents of the Milner Hotel. Their biggest concern was the displacement of the elderly: 33% of the residents of the area were men over the age of 60, and the average income in the area was $2734, only one quarter of the average income across the city.

In response to Justin Herman’s statement that the folks of SOMA were “nothing but a bunch of skid row bums,” Woolf responded, “I’m not a bum, and I resent being discredited and discounted.”

In an ironic twist, some of the strongest supporters of the YBC were the Building and Construction Trades Council, as well as the Bartenders and Culinary Workers and Cooks Union; they all saw the redevelopment as an opportunity for more jobs. While it was pointed out that most of the men being evicted were on union pensions, one union representative was reported to have said, “They poor-mouth a lot, but under our system the residents can’t remain. A few can’t hold up progress.”

Demolition halted at the Hotel Dewey located at 4th and Howard streets. Photo Credit: San Francisco Public Library

TOOR and their lawyers were able to bring an injunction against the San Francisco Housing Authority in 1970, and construction was stopped. The two sides agreed to bring in an outside party to help with the negotiation process. Their choice, former California Governor Pat Brown, recommended that the project should include 2000 low-income housing units. The judge ruling in the case lowered this number to between 1500 and 1800, and the San Francisco Housing Authority found a way to circumvent the priority list, limiting the number of original SOMA residents to receive this housing.

Cho En Butterfly Garden

Delayed for several more years by additional lawsuits, construction did not recommence until the 1980s, and designs for the sports complex were eliminated.

The first portion of the Yerba Buena Center to be built was Moscone Center South. It was completed in 1981, and the Democratic Convention was held there in 1984. The second portion was Moscone North, completed in 1992, the Yerba Buena Gardens along with the Yerba Buena Center for the arts followed in 1994.

Now YBC is a tranquil San Francisco spot, perfect for tai-chi, dog walking and people watching. Few people making use of the lawn built atop the underground Moscone Center ever know about the long, contentious history of this serene garden oasis.

Driving Me Up A Wall

Posted by Cindy on November 17, 2012

Nov 172012

255 Third Street
SOMA

These three paintings are on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors near the elevators of the Moscone Center Garage. Painted by Dan Rice in 1982 they convey the artist’s impression of motorized existence and depict the frenzy and banality of the daily commute.

Autoscape #3, Twin Spin, Driving Me Up a Wall by Dan Rice

Dan Rice who received his MFA from UC San Diego said this about the paintings in 1982: ” “My paintings reflect my perceptions of the contemporary american way of life,’ Rice said. ‘They deal with symbols abstracted from our economy, transportation, national defense, technology, religion and government.”

Rice’s paintings, with their luminous color, have been compared to works by Monet, Matisse and Bonnard.

He came out of the American Expressionist school but was sometimes called an abstract impressionist. He was hard to classify and didn’t fit into trends, and therefore didn’t receive the acclaim he deserved. Nevertheless, his paintings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Wadsworth Atheneum and the Princeton University Art Museum.

Rice now lives in Montana

Hidden Sea near Moscone Center

Posted by Cindy on September 22, 2012

Sep 222012

321 Clementina
SOMA

Hidden Sea by Ned Kahn 2000

Recipient Organization: Tenants and Owners Development Corporation

In late 1999, artist Ned Kahn collaborated with the staff of the Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (TODCO) and the residents of their housing projects to create a public artwork for the exterior wall of Ceatrice Polite apartment building at Fourth and Clementina Streets. The apartment is in the Yerba Buena redevelopment area.

Ned Kahn’s public artworks encourage people to observe and interact with natural processes. Upon talking with the advisory group, his concept for this project became to create a piece that captures the feeling of watching a field of tall grass blowing in the wind. Both Kahn and John Elberling, Executive Vice President of TODCO, felt that the residents would benefit from being offered a glimpse into a natural phenomenon, a bit of calm and beauty in the context of their increasingly dense and bustling urban landscape.

The artwork, “Hidden Sea” consists of 6,000 small aluminum “leaves” mounted in an aluminum framework and hinged to move freely in the wind. The individual leaves measure three inches by three inches and are held by low friction bearings. The entire 40-foot tall by 25-foot wide artwork reveals the shape of the wind and creates the intended impression of waves in a field of metallic grass. The mirror-like surfaces of the aluminum leaves reflect light from different parts of the sky and the surrounding buildings.

“Hidden Sea” was fabricated by Ace Precision Machine in Santa Rosa and assembled in Ned Kahn’s studio. Benji Young and Michael Ehrlich of Young Rigging in San Francisco installed the artwork at the beginning of the year 2000.

Ned Kahn writes of the context for this project:

For the last 15 years, I have created public artworks that use wind, water, fog and other natural processes as their primary medium. Many of these artworks were intended to reveal a hidden or unnoticed force in the site such as the air currents or the ambient light from the sky. The design of a number of these projects was based on an aspect of the natural history or geology of the region that was not commonly known. My artworks often function as small-scale “observatories” in that they frame and enhance our perception of natural phenomena and create places that encourage contemplation.