Its Always Better To Look Up...

On November 3^rd all of us contestants got a taste of what it will be like for the winner of the scholarship. We experienced an actual walking tour just a little over an hour from Sacramento… in the city of San Francisco. During the ride to San Francisco I kept going over in my mind what the tour might be like. Traffic was on our side and we got to San Francisco really fast, so fast that we were a few hours early.

Our first stop was St. Mary’s Church which miraculously during the 1906 earthquake managed to stay up when everything around it was turned to rubble. The inside of the church was beautiful it almost reminded me of the cathedral here in Sacramento. We saw a replica of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture “Pieta”. I had no words when I thought that this church was still standing even though everything around it was destroyed it was truly amazing. We walked through China Town and little Italy to Coit Tower. We had to walk up Telegraph Hill to get to the tower. Like in life the journey is difficult but once you reach your goal the view is great. When we reached the top of the hill I saw all of San Francisco it felt like I was on top of the world. After reaching the top of the hill we walked up to Coit Tower and the view was even more amazing. Coit Tower was created by a wealthy socialite who loved to chase fires throughout the city with the fire department her name was Lillie Hitchcock Coit. Inside of the tower they had a huge mural of the working class people. When we were done walking around the tower we headed back down the steep hill our legs feeling like jelly from the walk up.

We walked back through China Town which was more packed than when we headed to Galleria Park Hotel to meet up with our tour guide, Rick Evans. When we met Rick Evans he first told us about how San Francisco was trying to change their city to be more pedestrian friendly one of the main goals was to get cars out of the city all together it was to be known as the Rincon area. He told us that he would be showing us what that meant at the end of the tour. He started the tour by sending us on another climb up three flights of stairs which took us to the roof top garden. When we got to the garden it was beautiful and peaceful. Imagine seeing a lot of buildings that look down on you. He explained to us that the garden we were standing on was a POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Space). San Francisco has 68 different POPOS all over the city. He added that New York also has POPOS, 190 of them. He explained that for every building that is put up or owned the owner needs to give back to the public so that’s what these POPOS are they are privately owned space that is open to the public. Although they are open to the public they are usually hidden or no one knows about them.

As Mr. Evans walked us over to the other side of the garden he pointed out 5 different buildings to us. The first building he pointed out was a brown brick building that was a street over from the hotel that really stuck out. He told us that it was the Bank of America building that went up in 1969. He told us that it was hated for being the tallest building in the city at the time it took everyone out of their comfort zone when they saw this huge building. Then soon after that the Transamerica Pyramid went up in 1972 and it was also hated and called “The Devils Spike”. The Transamerica building was the first building to start the POPOS. They gave a little piece of land back to the community by making a park around the building that was open to the public. Then he showed us 4 buildings that were right in front of us and they were of an older type of architecture unlike the Bank of America building and Transamerica Pyramid. He showed us that with all these different types of buildings they all had something in common and that was the cornice. A cornice he explained was how an architect signed their building. He told us to look up more often to see the cornices on the buildings all of them were beautiful in their own way and each one was never the same. There was a specific building that he showed us that was under construction. It was the Halidie building which was built in 1917 and is one of the most famous buildings in architecture. It was the first building to have a glass wall. The building was designed by William Polk who decided to make his building look like a Glass Curtain wall. This was a turning point in architecture as no one had ever done this before. His creation later inspired the “Glass” to be a part of many new modern buildings we see today.

Mr. Evans took us to another POPOS. This next one we reached without leaving the hotel we just passed on through this shopping center that was in between the two POPOS. This POPOS was on top of the Wells Fargo Bank, but it wasn’t always there. The building was originally built by William Polk in 1908. The floors above the bank were destroyed and air rights were bought that prevented anything from ever being built there again. Then in 1983 a roof garden was created on top of the bank as a POPOS. Mr. Evans showed some other different examples with buildings and air rights. One that really made me laugh was this little bakery that was right across the street from the bank that had a building built around it. Preservationists made it clear that the bakery building was to never be brought down. So with that a building was built around the bakery and the building now has to pay the little bakery for the air that it’s using above the bakery. This means that whether or not the bakery does well or not they will always receive money for the air rights.

We were then taken down to the bank. It was funny because we were all squished into this elevator and then it jumped when we all were going down and everyone was scared it was too funny. When we walked out he showed us this HUGE VAULT and it was just like what they show in movies. He said that the vaults were usually kept somewhere where the people at the bank could show the customers the vault to make them think that their money was safe. Then he showed us this squirrel and said that usually at old banks look for a squirrel because it’s a symbol that all the money is safe. He showed us upstairs this beautiful ceiling and the inside with more symbols of griffins and eagles and angels. It was a beautiful bank. Then we walked through the bank to the next building still not ever going out on the street. The building was built in 1926 and not until 2005 did they find a painted ceiling due to cigarette smoke. That’s crazy and amazing but the paint looked perfect as if it had only been painted a few years before. He told us about an elevator captain that worked there for 50 years pointing to people which elevator to go to and then we looked down on the floor and HIS FOOTPRINT WAS IN THE FLOOR!!! I was seriously shocked that was probably one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life.

We then scrambled down the street to go and see another POPOS which was more open to the public and not so hidden and secrecy. Then we arrived to the Crown Zellerbech paper company building. After 42 years another building with glass was being built. It was one of the newest forms of modern architecture. We then saw the Shell building which was one of the last iconic buildings to be built before the depression. Mr. Evans told us that it’s awesome to see the old in the reflection of the new. When we looked into the reflection of the Glass Building the reflection of the Shell building was in it, like a reminder of what we used to be and what we are now. Our tour unfortunately ended soon after that. Mr. Evans as promised showed us the Rincon District which was soon to be only for people and no cars. In one area we saw a lot of construction being built. He also let us know that most of it was being built on land fill which is something I never knew before. He showed us the Rincon Hill South Tower and said if ever there be an earthquake a system was created where that building has a 50,000 gallon tank which is supposed to steady the building in case such a disaster would occur but it’s not known to work for sure because it’s never been tested. The Rincon area was to be a neighborhood of skyscrapers that won’t be done for a long time. It was interesting though to hear and see what advancements San Francisco is creating. That was the end of our tour.

I left that experience with a new respect and love for architecture and learned how much more it is connected to art than I thought. I was able to understand a lot of things that had confused me before. I definitely need to be careful walking now because I have been looking up to see buildings lately instead of ahead, but it’s neat to see the different types of buildings. I’ve got to say that day was a really good day I had fun and I’m thankful for the tour guide he was fun to listen to. In all the times I’ve been to San Francisco I’ve never left it having the respect and inspiration I had when leaving on Thursday. I plan to go back and learn more it is more than just a Concrete Jungle.