A Russian Hill Perspective

THE NEIGHBORHOOD

The 1000 block of Chestnut Street is perched above what was the Spring Valley Water Company Lower Russian Hill Reservoir, now being developed as one of San Francisco’s newest neighborhood parks . Another reservoir, the Upper Russian Hill Reservoir, was located within the block bounded by Lombard, Hyde, Larkin and Greenwich . At the turn of the twentieth century, this portion of Russian Hill was dotted with wood frame cottages and a few larger dwellings . There also remained a number of undeveloped parcels . In 1906, the fire caused by the Great Earthquake lapped at the western slope of Russian Hill, but a number of houses along Larkin and Lombard Street survived the conflagration .

Sanborn Map Company, detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries, first gained recognition for creating richly detailed fire insurance maps. Library of Congress. Soon to be Francisco Park opening this year. “To the west of Telegraph Hill lies Russian Hill, named for a Russian colony whose cemetery was allegedly at the crest of Vallejo Street. Its buildings are alternately luxurious apartment towers and modest individual houses; the latter are often old, shingled, and surprisingly rural. To the student of land use San Francisco offers more of such agreeable illogical juxtapositions than most cities, and Russian Hill more than other parts of the city. In spite of slopes so steep that one street is even zigzagged (the famous block of Lombard between Hyde and Leavenworth), this hill has some of the most rewarding pedestrian territory in the city. The reservoir park of Lombard between Hyde and Larkin, the numerous culde-sacs such as Montclair and Culebra Terraces and the end of Vallejo Street offer views of the city which are often missed by those who travel only by car.” 1

Architect T . Paterson Ross designed the handsome, pre-fire set of flats at 1001 Chestnut Street at Hyde, which had a lovely marble entry stair, classical detailing, rounded bays and arched dormers . A house with an extensive garden once occupied a lot that filled the entire middle of the block between Chestnut and Lombard . It was demolished in the 1980s to create the sprawling complex known as Lombard Place .

After World War II, San Francisco became a permanent home to many of the service men stationed at Bay Area posts and to workers who migrated here to support wartime industry . A post-war building boom followed . There are a number of largescale, post-war apartment buildings with a modern aesthetic in the vicinity, including two in the 1000 block of Chestnut Street .

Three of the high-rise residential buildings on the north side of Chestnut Street between Hyde and Larkin Streets were designed by architect Angus McDonald McSweeney (1900-1971) . A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native, McSweeney moved west with his family in 1920 . Finding work as a draftsman, he soon relocated to Sacramento for employment with the State of California . After a short stint in Los Angeles, McSweeney returned to San Francisco and came under the tutelage of architect John P. Parsons, President of 1080 Chestnut Street, with a model of the Willis Polk . However, Polk building as it appeared in a promotional piece in the San Francisco Examiner, died in 1924, just after September 10, 1961. McSweeney entered his office . Polk’s practice carried on under the name Willis Polk & Company until 1934, with Polk’s nephew Austin Moore and architects McSweeney and John H . Mitchell providing leadership . 2 In 1927, Willis Polk & Company designed 1090 Chestnut Street, at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Larkin . Evoking the architecture of an earlier era, 1090 Chestnut Street has restrained classical detailing and the base, middle and top configuration found on many pre-war skyscrapers . McSweeney’s other significant commercial project was the design of the residential towers that accompany the Stonestown Noted architectural critic Allen Temko once wrote of McSweeney, Shopping Center Project developed in 1950 . 4 He was also “One cannot possibly associate his name with a single significant known for his contribution to the design of St . Mary’s, the piece of modern architecture . ”3 Indeed, McSweeney was very Catholic Cathedral where Gough meets Geary Street, in the well-known for his period revival houses, particularly in heart of the redeveloped Western Addition . This project was St . Francis Wood, where he designed a home for his own family . a collaboration with two other local architects John Michael After the Polk & Company practice disbanded, McSweeney Lee and Paul Ryan as well as internationally known architects formed his own practice with both his father and brother, Pier Luigi Nervi and Pietro Belluschi . McSweeney died just Ward, participating intermittently . After World War II, like after the Cathedral was consecrated and his funeral service many architects of his generation McSweeney shifted his focus was held in the building . 5 to a more Modern aesthetic . Indeed, he designed a series of high-end residential projects in San Francisco’s most exclusive neighborhoods . These include: 1190 Sacramento (completed 1954) and 1200 California Street (completed 1962) on Nob Hill; 2288 Broadway (completed 1957) in Pacific Heights; and the two buildings in this block of Chestnut, 1000 (completed 1955) and 1080 (completed 1961) . McSweeney’s design for 1080 Chestnut was touted as being “in a class by itself .”

This advertisement for the building appeared in the June 4, 1961 edition of the San Francisco Examiner. The building’s somewhat exaggerated scale perched on the hill with the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance certainly appealed to potential buyers.

1 Introduction (to Russian Hill section) found in A Guide to the Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Region, Annual Convention of The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco, California, April 18, through April 22, 1960.

2 Willis Polk Collection. College of Environmental Design. University of

California, Berkeley. Finding Aid.

3 Cited in Gerald Adams. “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” California Living Magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner. October 18, 1970: 7 – 9, 25.

4 “Stonestown: A City Within A City.” The Architect & Engineer of California. (July 1950): 12-15.