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San Francisco — Cultural Changes and Landmark Locations for Advertising Agencies Part Five

Posted on September 26, 2022September 27, 2022 By Hey You

Another Land­mark Loca­tion for VICOM Associates
and a World­wide Cultural Change!

Part Five
In 1987, I moved once again with the medical adver­tising agency that allowed me to rent a room, this time it was at One Lombard Street (National Register #09001300) which was orig­i­nally, an ice storage ware­house built 1901. More inter­esting than the various occu­piers of this address, is the story of the archi­tect who prac­ticed deco­ra­tive restraint to achieve lasting beauty: Willis Jefferson Polk
(October 3, 1867 – September 10, 1924)
He was the Master Archi­tect of San Fran­cisco in the years: 1890s to 1920s.

Willis Jefferson Polk
Willis Jefferson Polk 
East Side of One Lombard
East Side of One Lombard 
One Lombard 2nd Flr 4th window
One Lombard 2nd Flr 4th window 
One Lombard1893
One Lombard1893 

Above: Willis Jefferson Polk and three views of One Lombard.

In 1889, Polk inher­ited the assign­ment of the comple­tion of the San Fran­cisco Ferry Building.
A few years later, Polk designed a logo.
After much dissat­is­fac­tion with their logo, the Sierra Club, in the Spring 1894, adopted a design by Willis Polk. It was used for a century as their logo with small changes, until 1998. https://​www​.sier​r​a​club​.org/​l​i​b​r​a​r​y​/​s​i​e​r​r​a​-​c​l​u​b​-​l​o​g​o​-​h​i​s​t​ory

In 1897, George Wash­ington Percy became Polk’s partner, handling the busi­ness so that Polk could design five large scale designs including One Lombard in 1901.

1892 Le Petit Trianon
1892 Le Petit Trianon 
1892 Sunol Water Temple
1892 Sunol Water Temple 
1904-1907 Merchants Exchange
1904 – 1907 Merchants Exchange 
1907 Flood to Pacific Union Club
1907 Flood to Pacific Union Club 
1914 Hobart Building
1914 Hobart Building 
1915-1917 Fioli Estate
1915 – 1917 Fioli Estate 
1916 Hallidie Building Glass Curtin Walls
1916 Hallidie Building Glass Curtin Walls 
1917 Mission Doloris
1917 Mission Doloris 
1924 St Francis Yacht Club
1924 St Francis Yacht Club 
1925 Beach Chalet
1925 Beach Chalet 
1924 KEZAR Stadium
1924 KEZAR Stadium 

Above: some of the many Polk designs and collaborations.

1904 – 1907 Merchants Exchange Building, (with Julia Morgan) reconstruction.
Hobart Building1914.
1915, Polk oversaw the archi­tec­tural committee for the Panama-Pacific Inter­na­tional Exposition.
1916, when he was tasked to design the Hallidie Building. That glass curtain façade was a precursor to modern skyscraper development.
St. Francis Yacht Club:
The Main Club House (Polk-1924), which occu­pied approx­i­mately one half of its site, burned to the ground in 1976.
The new Club House was designed by Robert Marquis of the San Fran­cisco firm of Marquis & Stoller.
In the early eighties the Yacht Club commis­sioned Eden & Eden Archi­tects to design new facil­i­ties on the other half of the site to house a large regatta center, court yard, obser­va­tion deck, race committed offices, private dining facil­i­ties, library, showers and changing facil­i­ties. Also, the employee’s dining facil­i­ties, lockers etc. were then remodeled.
(With thanks to Ted Eden)

Map of RR at 1 Lombard
Map of RR at 1 Lombard 
1889 Beltline RR Plaque
1889 Belt­line RR Plaque 
Wiew above the Embarcadero
Wiew above the Embarcadero 
Roundhouse with RR tracks
Round­house with RR tracks 

There were close to 30 exam­ples of Polk’s talents before he died (9−10−1924) at age 56.

Orig­i­nally. there were 70 miles of rail­road track reaching almost every pier and berth along the Embar­cadero and it reached the Presidio. The tracks reached Fisherman’s Wharf, Aquatic Park and the Fort Mason Tunnel. It was the State Belt Rail­road of 1889. The San Fran­cisco Bay Rail­road was the successor to the Belt Rail­road. In 2000, it received approval to operate only the five miles of track near One Lombard.
The view from my window was the old round­house which had been turned into offices,
In the photo of the round­house, rail lines can be seen. (Currently: archi­tec­ture and design offices, not open to the public.)

San Fran­cisco Land­mark #114
Belt­line Rail­road Roundhouse
(Inter­sec­tion Sansome, Lombard, The Embarcadero)
Built 1913 (1918?) by Newman, Freeman & Alden.

The offices in One Lombard, which faced out to the street, had exposed brick in the inte­rior (like my previous loca­tions at the Belli Building and the Wharf­side Building). Little bits of brick would often drop down, but this building had been recently re-structured with I‑beams. One diag­onal beam crossed inside (2nd floor fourth window) of my room.

When the ​’89 Loma Prieta Earth­quake hit (on October 17, 1989) I was there when the 6.9 shaking reached our building.The ceiling lights swayed as I stood at the opened sliding glass doors of my room. The I‑beams did their job and the bricks stayed where they belonged!

The Computer Culture
The Computer Culture changed every­thing world-wide!

There were, already a great number of computers in San Fran­cisco, from the early Commodore in 1971 to the Apple computers. It was in 1984 when Apple’s Macin­tosh offered its graph­ical user inter­face that Vicom moved quickly to intro­duce them to the whole art department.

Technology
Technology 
Painter Software
Painter Software 
Apple Ilos owners Guide
Apple Ilos owners Guide 
Quick page plan Vitamins
Quick page plan Vitamins 
Computer planning
Computer planning 
Roughs and Computer Art
Roughs and Computer Art 
Heath House
Heath House 

As this maga­zine story wrote, ​”throw away your brushes”.
Because of the training that I needed, I accom­plished most of my learning process at home using the early graphic soft­ware prod­ucts: Studio‑8, Painter and Adobe’s Photo­shop and Illustrator.
There were Apple manuals then. Actu­ally, I was learning from one that I was asked previ­ously to illustrate.
Back in the agency, I could accept the new chal­lenges. Just simple plan­ning could be done, putting photos and parts of the photos together, which offered new ideas.
Thumb-nail sketches were still needed to deter­mine the choice for the computer art.
Then when a ​“health house” was suggested, no previous sketch was needed, parts just come together.

As the agency was moving toward digital art, I was still required to create layouts with pencil and markers on large layout pads, The computer didn’t yet offer a layout that could be presented to another artist or photog­ra­pher to complete the finished art or photo­graph. (See my layout of a hip replace­ment and Vince Perez’s finished art). I show one example were my layout became the finished art for JAMA.

JAMA Layout as finished art
JAMA Layout as finished art 
NAPROSYB Can Do
NAPROSYB Can Do 
Knee Joint action
Knee Joint action 
Ivac Doctors action
Ivac Doctors action 
Cytovene
Cytovene 
NAPROSYB Can Do
NAPROSYB Can Do 
Activase LOs Printed
Acti­vase LOs Printed 
At the Drawing Board
At the Drawing Board 

On July 18,1986 Vicom merged with Foote, Cone & Bending Healthcare.
The Christmas party that year was held at the Haas-Lilienthal House, San Fran­cisco Land­mark #69.
(Archi­tect Peter R. Schmidt and contrac­tors McCann & Biddell. it was built in 1886 for William and Bertha Haas.)

I was asked to make this quick Xeroxed invi­ta­tion, details of the occa­sion were added and it was handed out to all employees and to inde­pen­dent contrac­tors, like myself.

I’ve searched for my photo of VICOM and FCB atten­dees posed on the steps, but I must’ve shared that photo, also.

VICOM FCB Announcement
VICOM FCB Announcement 
VICOM FCB Art CU
VICOM FCB Art CU 
Haas Lilienthal House
Haas Lilien­thal House 
Haas Lilienthal House
Haas Lilien­thal House 

And now, where did we eat? McGovern’s on Vallejo Street, had closed and that loca­tion became ​“Grumpy’s” (Although it was owned by two adver­tising men, it was what we called: a ​“fern-bar”). But farther south on Battery Street, was ​“Bricks Bar and Grill” (with that name only from 1992 — 1999) run by Bill Duffey before he changed the name to ​“The Old Ship”. The hotel rooms above, were still being rented.
Briefly: ​”The Old Ship Alehouse” was created from a hole cut out of the bow of the ship, Arkansas, after it ran aground in 1849 hitting ​“Bird Island” (now Alca­traz). ​“The Old Ship” was towed to the Pacific Street Wharf.
The bartender,19 year old James ​“Jimmy” Laflin,” (previ­ously the ship’s cabin boy) ran the place and used the loca­tion as one of many ​“shang­haiers” in San Francisco.
It was a historic lunch loca­tion and a nice walk south to Pacific Street. (I show the full building in color, as ​“Bricks” …and a close-up corner view, as it is now.)
It presently has the status: San Fran­cisco Legacy Business.

And parking? – – as I’ve shown this before, a VICOM reserved space on the neigh­boring roof top.
(I didn’t save the Datsun 510, but i’ve saved this Isuzu Impulse.)

Old Ship Saloon
Old Ship Saloon 
Old Ship circa
Old Ship circa 
As Bricks 1912-99
As Bricks 1912 – 99 
Bill Duffy after
Bill Duffy after 
The Old Ship today
The Old Ship today 
Isuzu
Isuzu 

Then Bob Buechert retired, I had twenty four years working for Bob’s accounts and attending mutual social occa­sions. On 12 – 1‑1990 there was a ​“black-tie” retire­ment party, again at the Haas-Lilienthal Mansion. (I don’t show Bob in his tux, as I gave most our photos to his family.) I have these photos and one of Bob at one of our get-togethers at about that time.

Buecherts Retirement Party
Buecherts Retire­ment Party 
Buecherts in white
Buecherts in white 

I stayed at One Lombard until 1996.
I could still free­lance at home.

Looking Back

There were our good friends, Stan and Frances Galli, who did not want or need to move into the computer-age. They were so very well known for their tradi­tional painting that a new method would be a loss to their estab­lished collec­tions of work.
In 1995, at Frances Galli’s retro­spec­tive, I was able to see Bill Davis who set me onto my graphic career… 34 years earlier.

IJ Photo 1995 34 years later
IJ Photo 1995 34 years later 

There were very many inde­pen­dent graphic artists (and groups) that found work-space in various old San Fran­cisco build­ings. Many in our our creative fields were able to work at home. It is only now, on-line, that I could find the history of the build­ings where we spent many years.

(For my research on Willis Polk, exten­sive history of computers, and the Old Ship restau­rant — I thank, and I donated to, Wikipedia)

Jack Kerouac Alley
Jack Kerouac Alley 
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights Bookstore 
Specs
Specs 

The Beatniks…there still are some …and only today, in the Sunday Chron­icle, I read that there are now many new art galleries appearing on upper Grant Avenue. The City Lights Book­store and ​‘Specs’” still exist.
The Hippies? The music lives on.I remember thinking that I would always see those colorful Hippie vans. Now, I might see one— once in a great while, ​“movin’ along the highway”. And recently, there was a gath­ering at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park for a ​“4−20 smoke-in”.
Old build­ings and past cultural places and events still exist, and others remain in our memories.

Ann Thompson


Geezerpedia, Of That Time, Recollections

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