Historical Streets and Pyramids

Leidesdorff Street, mixed media photo collage on board, 14”x11”

I still remember the first time I arrived in San Francisco.  Coming across the Bay Bridge and seeing the Transamerica Pyramid for the first time — at 11 years old, it made a big impression.  It is a 1970s skyscraper, that in the 21^st Century, still feels modern and not all dated.  The Pyramid was built on the edge of the Financial District surrounded by historic buildings, some that even survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.  It is a unique neighborhood for San Francisco with many small quiet streets and alleys that are more typical in much older cities.  If it were 1848, the Pyramid would have sat just off the waters edge.  Eventually land was filled in and the waterfront is now five blocks to the east.  The neighborhood is built over the remains of ships that were abandoned by their crews in the rush to get to the gold fields. 

At 11 years old, little did I imagine that, 16 years later, I would work in the shadow of the Pyramid.  One of the things that made my boring job bearable was not being stuck in some sterile office building.  I worked in buildings with some history and even a few ghosts.  Spending time down there, made me want to learn more about the City’s history.  Leidesdorff was an unusual name and I wondered whom that street was named for.  William Leidesdorff was a remarkable and quintessential San Franciscan.  He was a multi-ethnic, immigrant who was the citizen of three countries.  Leidesdorff was a successful entrepreneur who started the first regular steamboat service across the Bay, built the first hotel and operated a warehouse in a spot at the water’s edge that was to become Leidesdorff Street (more about Leidesdorff can be found here). 

This layered Time Travel Photo illustrates the present and the natural past and also few layers in between.

The new series of Time Travel Photos will be presented in a new show at San Francisco’s Glama-Rama Salon and Gallery.  The show runs from October 11 to November 27, 2016.  Mark your calendar for the opening reception on the evening of Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 pm.

Vaillancourt Re-imagined

The Vaillancourt Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza gets no respect.  The Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt titled the piece Québec libre! when it was installed in 1971.  The City sent out a crew to remove the title from the fountain and did so numerous times after the artist himself repainted it — so much for respecting an artist’s work and artistic intent.  Today the piece is universally known as the Vaillancourt Fountain in San Francisco.  It also has a poor reputation in part fueled by San Francisco’s legion of self-appointed art critics and hack newspaper columnists.   I LOVE the fountain, it’s one of San Francisco’s best works of public art and, of course, looks best when water is gushing through it.

Now, I would never be so disrespectful as to suggest modifying an artist’s finished work, but I would love to see some changes made to the setting for the piece.  When the fountain was installed in 1971 it was placed in front of the Embarcadero Freeway and off ramps wrapped behind the fountain.  Today the freeway is gone and the space is more open and welcoming. 

Let’s re-imagine the Vaillancourt Fountain, or to be exact, Justin Herman Plaza.  Currently the fountain uses fresh water.  Imagine if an underground conduit pumped saltwater from San Francisco Bay into the fountain.  Imagine if we remove some of the concrete perimeter.  We could create a shore around the fountain filled with tide pools and native marsh plants.  The fountain’s basin would even start to fill with native wildlife.  Water could flow in and out, and like a natural salt marsh, act as a filter for bay water.  Imagine restoring a small piece of Justin Herman Plaza to the state it was back before 1849.  When there were tidal flats instead of skyscrapers.  We successfully restored Crissy Field now it’s time to bring a bit of nature back to the concrete jungle at the foot of Market Street.