The Flood Building is a 12-story highrise located at 870 Market Street on the corner of Powell Street in the
downtown shopping district of
San Francisco,
California completed in 1904 and designed by
Albert Pissis. Situated on Powell and
Market streets, next to the
Powell Street cable car turntable,
Hallidie Plaza
Hallidie Plaza is a public square located at the entrance to Powell Street Station (the third-busiest BART station as of 2015) on Market Street in the Union Square area of downtown San Francisco, California, United States. Hallidie Plaza was desig ...
and the
Powell Street BART Station entrance, it is one of the few structures that survived the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
.
The site formerly housed
Baldwin's Hotel and Theatre
Baldwin Hotel was a 19th-century luxury hotel and theatre built by Comstock Lode millionaire, entrepreneur, and gambler Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin, formerly in downtown San Francisco, California. It was located on Powell Street at the cor ...
, which was destroyed by fire in 1898.
It was later purchased by
James L. Flood
James is a common English language surname and given name:
* James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambigua ...
, who constructed the building as a tribute to his father,
James Clair Flood (1826–1889, the
Comstock Lode millionaire).
In 2003, it was still owned by the Flood family.
John King, the architecture critic of the ''
San Francisco Chronicle'', praised the Flood Building as "twelve stories of orderly pomp with a rounded
prow that commands the corner of Powell and Market Streets ... Every detail is rooted and right, from the tall storefronts that beckon cable car daytrippers to the baroque cliff of the sandstone façade with its deep-chiseled windows and just enough ornamentation to enliven the mass rather than clutter the scene."
Major tenants
The
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...
company maintained its headquarters in the building after its earthquake renovations from 1907 until 1917 when it moved to its own building now at
One Market Plaza. The
F. W. Woolworth Company store located on basement level and first and second floors was the largest in the chain until 1992, when it was downsized, and later closed in 1996. More recent major tenants include the flagship stores for retailers
Gap,
Urban Outfitters, and
Anthropologie.
The
Pinkerton Detective Agency had an office in Room 314 of the building, and employed
Dashiell Hammett, an author of hard-boiled detective novels, as an operative.
See also
*
List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks
References
External links
*{{Commons category-inline, James Flood Building
Official Flood Building website
1900s architecture in the United States
Beaux-Arts architecture in California
Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz buildings
Market Street (San Francisco)
Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco
Office buildings completed in 1904
San Francisco Designated Landmarks
Union Square, San Francisco