The Ferry Station Post Office Building, also known as the Agriculture Building, is a historic building in

San Francisco, California 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 ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It was added to the

U.S. National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1978.

Building

The building is located on the Embarcadero in the SoMa District, at the foot of

Mission Street Mission Street is a north-south arterial thoroughfare in Daly City and San Francisco, California that runs from Daly City's southern border to San Francisco's northeast waterfront. The street and San Francisco's Mission District through which ...

. Designed by A. A. Pyle of the California Board of State Harbor Commissioners, it is a two-story steel-framed building in Mediterranean Revival style reminiscent of a

palazzo A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...

, of brick with ''

trompe-l'œil ; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...

'' stone trim of

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

. It has a reinforced concrete foundation resting on a wharf built at the same time and supported on wood pilings. An arch over the double entrance doors has a phoenix and a flagpole in the center. The upper story is decorated with two terracotta shields and with patterned brick panels.

History

It was constructed in 1915 as the main post office for San Francisco, with mail arriving by water and then being distributed by

streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...

. Construction cost $31,981.50; the contract was signed on October 22, 1914, and it was completed on May 6, 1915. It was enlarged at the rear in 1918. In 1925 it ceased to be a post office and was used for transportation company offices; in 1933 it was transferred to the state Agriculture Department. It was

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's San Francisco terminal, with

buses A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

connecting to trains at

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

and Emeryville, until March 2015, when this moved to the Temporary TransBay Terminal pending completion of the Transbay Transit Center. The Ferry Station Post Office Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 1, 1978.

References

External links

Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in San Francisco Mediterranean Revival architecture in California Government buildings completed in 1915 Former Amtrak stations in California 1915 establishments in California Former bus stations Bus stations in San Francisco Former post office buildings {{SanFrancisco-struct-stub