The City Hall of San Francisco, California, was first opened in 1915 in the city's Civic Center. It is a Beaux-Arts monument during the American Renaissance of the period 1880–1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world. The present building is actually a replacement for an earlier City Hall that was completely destroyed during the 1906 Earthquake.The building occupies two full blocks of San Francisco. It is 119 m long on Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, by 83.25 m on Grove and McAllister Streets. Its dome, which owes much to Mansart's Baroque dome of Les Invalides, Paris, is the fifth largest dome in the world, rising 94 m above the Civic Center Historic District. It is just 35 cm higher than the United States Capitol.
The building contains some 7,900 tons (7,035 metric tons) of structural steel from the American Bridge Company near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 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 Rotunda is a spectacular space and the upper levels are opened to the public. 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. I wonder why there were so many assassinations in the States.
I am glad to show you what Dianne Feinstein looks like.
1 comment:
From the photo the building is very grand indeed.
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