| San Francisco Civic Center Historic District | |
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| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| U.S. National Historic Landmark District | |
 San Francisco City Hall
on Civic Center plaza, 2003 |
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| Location: | San Francisco, California |
| Coordinates: | 37°46′45″N 122°24′57″W / 37.77917°N 122.41583°W |
| Built/Founded: | 1912[1] |
| Architectural style(s): | Late 19th and 20th Century revivals Beaux-Arts |
| Governing body: | Local |
| Added to NRHP: | October 10, 1978 |
| Designated NHLD: | February 27, 1987[2] |
| NRHP Reference#: | 78000757[3] |
San Francisco's Civic Center is an area of a few blocks north of the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions. It has two large plazas (Civic Center Plaza and United Nations Plaza) and a number of buildings in classical architectural style. The Exposition Auditorium is the only remaining building from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition[1]. The United Nations Charter was signed in the Herbst Theatre here in 1945, leading to the creation of the United Nations. It is also where the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco (the peace treaty that officially ended the Pacific War with the Empire of Japan, which had come to a close in 1945) was signed. It is designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.[2]
The United Nations Plaza was created in 1975, when the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway was constructed under Market Street. The 2.6-acre (11,000 m2) pedestrian mall was designed by Lawrence Halprin.[4]
Contents |
Notable buildings
- City Hall
- Supreme Court of California
- United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- San Francisco Public Library
- Asian Art Museum, opened in 2004 in the former building of the San Francisco Library.
- Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
- War Memorial Opera House, where the U.N. Charter was signed in 1945 and the Treaty of San Francisco was signed in 1951.
- Davies Symphony Hall
- Herbst Theatre
- Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
- California Automobile Association Building
- University of California, Hastings College of the Law
- Fox Plaza
- The Art Institute of California – San Francisco
Economy
The Consulate-General of El Salvador in San Francisco is located in Suite 280 at 507 Polk Street.[5]
History
In 1978, the Civic Center Plaza was used for the famous final scene in the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the 2008 film Milk, the plaza was the setting for Harvey Milk's speech at the 1978 Gay Freedom Day just months before his assassination.
In 1998, the city officially renamed part of the plaza the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza. Alioto's daughter, Angela, who was a political rival of then-Mayor Willie Brown, claimed Brown led the renaming drive partially to win votes from the city's Italian-American population. She said she had hoped that a grander facility like San Francisco International Airport might have been named after her father, also a former mayor.[6]
In 2000, benches were removed from the public areas of the plaza, due to overuse by homeless people. They were moved within two small fenced enclosures along with the only drinking fountains, and are by law for the exclusive use of adults with children. The law requiring adults without children to stay off the benches is strictly enforced by the local police.
In the summer of 2008, the grassy central strip was uprooted and replaced with a combination of gravelly dirt and two dozen six-foot diameter circular planters. In February 2009, the planters were removed, leaving only the dirt. In March 2009, a public art piece by Patrick Dougherty involving the a series of conical forms made from 4,500 pounds of freshly cut willow saplings interwoven into the tops of the sycamore trees located on the south-end of the plaza was displayed. It is due to be removed in November.[7]
Since 1968, the plaza has been the home of Cannabis Awareness Day in San Francisco, held on the 1st Saturday of each May.
Transportation
Civic Center Station is a subway stop for both BART and the Muni Metro. The F Market historic streetcar line and many Muni bus lines run nearby.
Selected photos
.JPG) Earl Warren (old California State) Building with new state building behind |
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.JPG) War Memorial Veterans Building |
 Farmers' market at United Nations Plaza |
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.JPG) James Lick (Pioneer) Monument |
.JPG) Department of Public Health |
 Civic Center Plaza with San Francisco City Hall in the background, April 2009 |
.JPG)
See also
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Civic Center, San Francisco |
References
- ^ a b NHL Writeup
- ^ a b NHL Summary
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
- ^ 2.6 acres, 1975, part of BART construction, Halprin as designer: [1]
- ^ "Norte América." Consulate-General of El Salvador in Miami. Retrieved on February 1, 2009.
- ^ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1998/10/29/MN76640.DTL
- ^ http://www.sfartscommission.org/pubartcollection/pubart-press-releases/2009/03/02/dougherty-joseph-l-alioto-performing-arts-piazza/
External links
- Photo tour of Civic Center A photo tour of Civic Center complete with narrative text.
Coordinates: 37°46′46″N 122°25′03″W / 37.7795°N 122.4176°W
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