Tag Archives: apartment building

4 July 2015 · 10:03 am

Mid-Market 2014, Parts 3 and 4

The fair and wondrous city that embraced me half a century ago has been transfigured. In the space of just a few years, so much of San Francisco’s urban fabric has been effaced that I barely recognize it anymore. My documentation of what has been and will be so carelessly thrown away and forgotten is necessarily limited and leaves much of the City unaccounted-for, although it is representative of what is happening to San Francisco as a whole. As San Francisco is transformed, so too is my relationship with the City. My daily life is infused with sadness, a wistful kind of sorrow, the melancholy of lost hopes and forgotten dreams.

Matrix

“Matrix” (2014)

Gateway

“Gateway” (2014)

Rooftop

“Rooftop” (2014)

Stacks

“Stacks” (2014)

6th Street Hotels

“6th Street Hotels” (2014)

SoMa and Beyond

“SoMa and Beyond” (2014)

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16 December 2013 · 9:00 am

Beyond the Central City

Discolandia Despedida

“Discolandia Despedida” (2013)

For those who are interested, I have started documenting other parts of the City besides the Tenderloin, mid-Market and Sixth Street in a new blog I call Through Unsealed Eyes. Check it out, especially if you like nice, large photos.

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28 April 2012 · 9:17 am

Anamnesis

hotel-von-dorn-site

“Anamnesis” (2007 Survey)

(338/9) 256–266 Turk Street; Granada Garage; two stories; reinforced concrete withstucco facade; giant order with semicircular parapet; temple frontcomposition; Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation. Alterations: none. Owner: James J. Walker Co. (1920). Contractor: Monson Brothers. 1920.

(338/6, 24) 230–250 Turk Street; building under construction (2007).

(338/5) 218-220 Turk Street; apartment building with eight rooms and four baths. 3B stories; reinforced concrete with stucco facade; galvanized iron lintels and cornice; two-part commercial composition; Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation; vestibule with mosaic flooring; lobby: stair landing. Alterations: storefronts replaced by aluminum and glass, aluminum sash. Owner: Chas W. Dixon (1921). Contractor: Monson Brothers. 1921.

(338/4) 201-217 Jones Street; 205 Jones Apartments; stores and apartment building with fifty two-room units; 6B stories; steel frame structure with brick curtain walls; galvanized iron belt courses, cornice; three-part vertical composition; Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation; vestibule: cornice molding; marquee and sconces at entry. Alterations: security gate, storefronts. Owner: Walt A. Plummer, W. A. Plummer Mfg. Company (bags, tents, etc.). Architect: Edward E. Young. 1924.

Antonia Manor (formerly Hotel Governor). 180 Turk Street. Architect: Creston H. Jensen. 1925.

Here photographed in mid-construction and completed in early summer 2008, the Salvation Army’s Ray and Joan Kroc Community Center was built with funds that were part of a 1.5 billion dollar bequest made in 2003 by hamburger heiress Joan Kroc. It replaces the Army’s old community center, which many years ago had been the Hotel Von Dorn, one of the buildings erected during the first wave of the Tenderloin’s reconstruction. In its heyday, the Von Dorn was clearly a very charming and cozy hotel.

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Hotel-Von-Dorn-trifold02

Tri-fold postcard, circa 1908. Faintly visible behind the Hotel Von Dorn’s steel frame is the Hotel Cadillac on Eddy Street.

hotel-von-dorn-lobby

Postcard, circa 1915.

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3 August 2011 · 8:12 am

Geographic Heart of the Tenderloin

Lower-Leavenworth-

“Lower Leavenworth” (2007 Survey)

The area that forms the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District was entirely constructed in the years between the earthquake and fire of 1906 and the Great Depression. Social, economic and legal forces together made the most marketable structure a three- to seven-story, multi-unit residential apartment, hotel, or apartment-hotel constructed of brick or reinforced concrete.

View-from-the-Empire-Market

“View from the Empire Market” (2007 Survey)

A limited number of architects, builders and clients produced a visually consistent, classically oriented group of buildings that conform to the same vocabulary of ornament and utilize the same decorative materials: brick or stucco facings enhanced with molded galvanized iron, terra-cotta, or cast concrete.

Leavenworth-above-Eddy-

“Leavenworth above Eddy” (2007 Survey)

The reconstructed district’s hotels and apartments appealed to those who wanted or needed to live within walking distance of downtown: people who couldn’t afford or didn’t want to set up independent households, young professionals and young couples not settling in a single city or house, clerical and service employees whose incomes didn’t stretch far enough to permit full apartments or suburban flats, and seasonal workers.

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