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1898
The Ferry Building was the city's largest project when it opened in 1898
A. Page Brown designed it in 1892 in the Beaux-Arts style. At its opening on July 13, 1898, it was the largest project undertaken in the city up to that time. It replaced a wooden predecessor built on the same site in 1875.
Earthquakes
The arched arcades survived the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes
The reinforced building suffered little damage in either earthquake. After 1906 a two-track balloon loop was installed in front for streetcar transfers, and a third loop was added in 1918, when the Twin Peaks Tunnel began carrying streetcars.
A busy hub
It was the second busiest transit terminal in the world
Until the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge were completed in the 1930s, it was second only to London's Charing Cross Station. After the bridges opened, passenger ferry use fell sharply.
The clock
The clock tower has four dials, each 22 feet across
The original clock was made in 1898 by a Boston clock maker and was the largest wind-up, mechanical dial clock in the world. An electric motor now drives it, but the entire mechanism is still there. Its weight hangs in a 48-foot shaft.
245-footclock tower above the building
The freeway
A freeway hid the building until the October 1989 earthquake
In the late 1950s the Embarcadero Freeway was built right in front of it and greatly obscured views from Market Street. After the freeway failed in the Loma Prieta earthquake, the city chose to remove it. A restoration began in 2002.
660-foot-longGreat Nave, restored
Day 1, morning
Next is Chinatown.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article San Francisco Ferry Building, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.