Central Tower is a 21-story office building at

Market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market *Marketing, the act of sat ...

and

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

Streets in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It was built in the Beaux-Arts style. The building has undergone numerous renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building. It was later known as the Spreckels Building.

History

In 1890,

M. H. de Young Michael Henry de Young (September 30, 1849 – February 15, 1925) was an American journalist and businessman. Early life De Young was born in St. Louis, Missouri. The family was Jewish. Michael in later years claimed that his father was a Balti ...

, owner of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'', built San Francisco's first skyscraper, the Chronicle Building, to house his newspaper. In response,

John D. Spreckels John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853 – June 7, 1926) was an American businessman who founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the son of German-American indu ...

and his father

Claus Spreckels Claus Spreckels (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) was a German-born American industrialist in California and Hawaii, during the Kingdom of Hawaii, kingdom and Republic of Hawaii, republican periods of the islands' history. He founded or was i ...

purchased the ''

San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bulleti ...

'' in 1895 and commissioned a tower of their own that would dwarf the Chronicle Building. In September 1895, ''The Call'' wrote: The building eventually stood 315 feet (96 m) tall with an ornate

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

—which housed the offices of

Reid & Reid Reid & Reid, also known as Reid Brothers, was an American architectural and engineering firm that was active from 1880 to 1932. Established in Indiana by Canadians, Canadian immigrants, the firm moved to the West Coast of the United States, West ...

, the building's architects—and four corner

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

s when construction finished in 1897. By the end of 1897, Claus Spreckels had spent over one million dollars on the construction of his new building, nearly every cent of it on local labor and materials. It's opening with electricity drew attention from across the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

including the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Wi ...

because it was so bright. It could be seen from San Jose. It quickly became a popular tourist attraction. The structure was badly burned and damaged by the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

, although the building did not collapse. The collapse of the adjoining Power House during the earthquake may have sparked the fire which burned it. Six months following the Earthquake, the Call was publishing again from the building as restoration continued. Its restoration was seen as a symbol of the reconstruction of San Francisco. In 1913, the newspaper moved out, and the new owners of it allowed it to decline somewhat. The Call reopened its offices at a new location, The Montgomery, and the former Call Building was renamed the Spreckels Building. In 1937, architect Albert Roller refurbished the structure in a Moderne Art Deco style. The building's height was reduced to 298 feet (91 m), the number of stories was increased from 15 to 21, and the ornate dome and the cupolas atop the building were removed. In December 2013, Central Tower was acquired by a new owner, and an extensive capital improvement and renovation project has begun to revive the building and ensure that it meets the needs of today's office tenants.

Reception

The reception to the construction of the then-Call Tower was widely positive. In September 1895, ''The Call'' wrote that "The San Francisco Call is to have the finest building ever erected for a newspaper office'. An unknown admirer wrote: "It is, per se, a beautiful building--that is the unanimous verdict. After that it is imposing, magnificent, costly, a pride to San Francisco, a monument to the good taste and enterprise of its owner and builder, Claus Spreckels; the greatest newspaper building in the world, the handsomest of tall buildings, the tallest of the tall buildings west of Chicago--all these things and more; but first, last and all the time, it is the most beautiful building." Public reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Some of the excitement was based on the idea that the Call Building could be San Francisco's first and only true skyscraper, given the low skylines at the time. File:Call Bldg on fire, San Francisco earthquake cph.3b04298.jpg, On fire after the 1906 earthquake File:No. 314. Call Building crop.jpg, Aftermath of the fire

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , title=Central Tower articles and topics , state=collapsed , list1= {{Financial District, San Francisco {{Buildings in San Francisco timeline {{Buildings in San Francisco {{Buildings west of Mississippi timeline {{Buildings in California timeline Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco Financial District, San Francisco Market Street (San Francisco) Office buildings completed in 1898 1898 establishments in California Reid & Reid buildings Art Deco architecture in California Spreckels family

History

Reception

See also

References

External links