The Guardian Does Not Want You Driving, or Parking
Scene from Today's Pro-Life Protest On Van Ness
Fisher Pulls Museum Out of the Presidio
Why Are You at Work Today?
Sarah Palin Quits
Yet another flashy graphic shows the view looking east through the trees from Alamo Square in the Western A. This skyline view that hasn't changed for the past eight decades is now changing rapidly.
Our tag team match begins with two players needing little introduction. Wearing gold (half a million worth of real bling bling), is our City Hall, the largest dome in the Western Hemisphere. It put the beautiful into City Beautiful. In the same corner we find the Urban Survivor, McAllister Tower. Originally named after local head case and messianic street preacher William Taylor, this building has enjoyed a storied history. What used to be the tallest hotel in the west is now student housing for UC Hastings, the oldest and largest law school in the west.
In the other corner, wearing blue-green, we have the "slender" tower, (do these candy stripes make me look thinner?) One Rincon along with some other blue-ish building, the "Las Vegasy" Intercontinental San Francisco at triple-8 Howard (thanks commentors!), that we don't know much about.
Which team will win? The cool blue of the new, or the warm glow of the Beaux Arts, Art Deco and Gothic Revival? See you after the jump.
Of the old and new, which is better? Well it all depends on how you look at it. Ask yourself this: which of these buildings will be considered unfashionable after another eight decades have passed? Which will be first to suffer the indignity of implosion ala Geneva Towers? Let's hope we'll all be around to see.
[Update: The good people at Telstar Logistics (it's a girl! Congratulations!) learn us about the stripes on One Rincon here. But what's up with that radiation symbol? Looks scary. If only we had the time or were paid enough to dig for hard-to-get information!]
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Isn't the other blue building the Intercontinental hotel?
That bluish green building is the new Hotel Intercoursetinental (bit Vegasy isn't it?) And that's my old apartment in the immediate foreground ('wonder who lives there now). My neighbor offered to climb down that ladder for me when I was locked out once. I told him not to bother as I didn't want his death on my conscience.
Thinner, no. More aerodynamic, yes.
Sharp move including a link to the Geneva Towers implosion. That makes my day.
the intercontinental makes one Rincon look like a well-crafted and well-detailed architectural triumph. they're not even in the same league. that intercontinental is about the worst thing since the jukebox marriot. the bathroom tile exterior, bulbous and inelegant proportions, and bright, almost neon, blue-green windows looks like it escaped from the ranks of cheapo highrises on of the countless chinese insta-cities screaming "look at my flashy 80's hairdo!"
Why do we have to choose between the old and the new? I love McAllister and City Hall both, and am only lukewarm to One Rincon Hill; but that doesn't mean I want an entire city of the former. Beaux Arts is a lovely style, but I don't know if it works at a scale closer to that of ORH.
I also think it's a tad unfair to compare an altogether unremarkable, if admittedly visible, building to the ultimate icon of San Francisco civic pride. It's really not apples to apples.
Stay tuned for the August 6th unveiling (flip on cable channel 26 to watch live, or get over to City Hall at 6pm) to see the proposed designs for the Transbay Tower and new terminal.
I'm happy to see Rincon Hill developed ... now if I can just figure out how to increase pedestrian/bicyclist safety in the area.
uh- did anyone consider how this bldg would effect the integrity of the view of City Hall from the Fulton Axis?
This appears to be a major error in skyline sculpting. Is it too late to take it back?