SFist Photo: Our Changing Skyline, Old vs. New
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!]