Stewart Bloom
Market Street at Post & Montgomery, 1920
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This poster shows three fine old Landmarks
that once stood at the gateway to the "Wall Street of the
West." The Crocker Building, at Market, Post, and Montgomery, built in 1891, at a cost of $1.4 million, was designed by Architect A. Page Brown. This steel frame flatiron structure, faced with light buffcolored brick and terra cotta trim, incorporated Romanesque and classic Italian Renaissance elements in its design. The interior was finished in marble and natural woods. According to newspaper reports, the building featured "Steam heat, open fireplaces, electric lights, and all the modern conveniences...." The CrockerWoolworth National Bank of San Francisco (predecessor to Crocker Bank, which was absorbed by Wells Fargo Bank in 1986) occupied the main floor banking room, entered from the corner through a large elliptical vestibule with domed ceiling. Although structurally unaffected by the 1906 Earthquake, the building suffered substantial fire damage on the inside. It was reoccupied after extensive renovations. The Crocker Building was demolished to make way for the present building on the site, constructed in 1969. The Union Trust Building was constructed on the northeast corner of Montgomery and Market in 1894, to the classicallyinspired design of Architect Clinton Day. The first two of this steel frame building's original seven stories were faced in granite, the upper stories with buffcolored brick and terra cotta. The structure was raised to ten stories in 1903. The first floor banking room was finished in mahogany and marble. Floors and wainscoting in the hallways of the upper stories were marble. Offices were fitted in marble and oak. In 1906, the upper five floors were badly burned, while the lower floors suffered less severe damage. Newspapers reported that calendars on the walls in the basement safe deposit offices were not even scorched. Within a month of the disaster, lower floors were being occupied, and extensive renovation of the upper stories was undertaken. Wells Fargo Bank absorbed the Union Trust Company in 1924 and maintained the building until replaced by the present Wells Fargo Building in 1966. For the central corner, at One Montgomery Street, Architect Willis Polk designed a 13story building for the First National Bank of San Francisco (in 1870, the first bank to be nationally chartered in California, consolidated with ( rocker in 1926). The steel frame building with reinforced concrete floors was completed at a cost of $1,350,000, in 1908, in a recordsetting ten months, as part of the post Earthquake construction boom. It was faced with granite and Indiana sandstone. The jewel of Polk's design was the groundfloor banking office A rotunda supported by granite Doric columns marked the entrance, at One Montgomery Street, to First National's opulent marble banking room. Massive fluted columns supported a gold leafed, coffered ceiling, whose design was taken from the Paris Opera. The tenstory tower, which had been sheathed in polished tile veneer in 1960, was removed to accommodate the development of Crocker Center. The splendid groundfloor banking space, with its 1921 extension along Montgomery Street by Charles Gottschalk, was left intact, and an attractive roof garden was added, accessible to the public through the Galleria. This is all that remains of the three guardians of this important San Francisco intersection. Copyright © The Foundation for San Francisco's Architectural Heritage. A non-profit member-supported organization dedicated to the preservation of architecturally, historically and culturally significant structures in San Francisco. For information, call (415) 441-3000. |
