City Hall in San Francisco has a wealth of history and is where many important events have taken place in the city. It is where Marilyn Monroe was married in 1954, and also, more recently, where over 100 gay and lesbian couples were married by the mayor.
The building itself is impressive and was designed by two leading architects from Paris almost 100 years ago. On the top of the building is a large dome, that was actually based on the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome's Vatican City.
Felix says, “Yes, the gold is real gold. I witnessed their putting gold leaf on the City Hall structures in 1999. Before that happened, the dome had a Copper surface, and the entire dome was blue-green in color due to oxidation.”
The current City Hall was completed in 1915. It's a Beaux Arts-style building that replaced the Old City Hall which had been completed in 1897 but was destroyed just nine years later in the 1906 earthquake and fire. The dome on San Francisco's City Hall is 16 feet higher than the capitol dome in Washington D. C. and yes that's real gold (leaf)—$400,000 worth in 1999.
The typeface on all signs at City hall is called City Hall and was hand drawn by the detail-oriented architect of City Hall – Arthur Brown Jr. Brown designed three other structures at Civic Center as well as Coit Tower and many other buildings in the Bay area and some as far away as Washington DC. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married at San Francisco's City Hall in 1954. Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated there in 1978.
For comparison of the domes I mentioned before, Felix brings me the photo of the famous St. Peter’s Cathedral at Vatican City. Here it is.
1 comment:
Very impressive dome.
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