Manhattanization revisited

People enjoy the sun around lunchtime in the public plaza at the corner of California and Davis streets in the Financial District despite being surrounded by tall buildings and concrete, a bit like New York City. less People enjoy the sun around lunchtime in the public plaza at the corner of California and Davis streets in the Financial District despite being surrounded by tall buildings and concrete, a bit like New York ... more Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Manhattanization revisited 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

It's tough to beat a beautiful April day in San Francisco, a little breeze, a few puffy clouds. I was a bit early for an appointment in the Financial District, so I stopped for a minute or so at the plaza at California and Davis streets.

I sat in the sun on a terrace and looked around. There were people sitting all over the terrace, on cushions and benches, basking like cats in the spring sunshine in the heart of the city. This is pleasant, I thought.

Manhattanization

But wait. We were in a concrete plaza, surrounded by tall buildings of glass and concrete, like walls, rising up and up into the April sky. This corner is ground zero of what people used to call the Manhattanization of San Francisco. Native San Franciscans are supposed to hate places like this.

A quick glimpse was not enough, so I came back at noon the next day and watched for an hour or so.

There were hard-hat workers on the terraces eating their lunch; there were young women from the offices, chatting away. There were couples flirting. There were earnest-looking businesspeople holding outdoor conferences. There was a man taking a nap, his suit coat folded under his head, like a pillow.

The California Street cable cars went by, red cars with blue trim, not packed with tourists like the Powell Street cables, dignified as elderly bankers.

There were lots of taxicabs and lots of noise, but it was city noise, a kind of roar. If this is Manhattan, I thought, it's not so bad.

It is a San Francisco kind of Manhattan, a mini big city. New York intensity? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Down one end of California Street is the Southern Pacific Building, nearly 100 years old and once headquarters of the largest railroad in the West. The tenants now: Autodesk and Salesforce.

Nearby is the Hyatt Regency Hotel. When it opened in 1973 it was a vision of what the future might look like. It had a bar called Equinox on the top floor that revolved. We went up there, had a drink and watched the city go by. Now the hotel looks dated, like Clint Eastwood's sideburns.

On Market Street, just a block or so away, the stolid, old-line Matson and PG&E buildings. But they are overpowered by 101 California St., 48 stories, by the 38-story 1 Front St. and by 50 California St., 37 stories tall.

They are clumped together, and with the Embarcadero Center form a wall - steel, concrete and glass.

Not San Francisco

It was impressive, people used to say, but it was not San Francisco. You may have seen the posters: an old San Francisco skyline and the 1980s one. The old one was the city Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac first saw, when they were young and the world was new - a city of white towers, rising on the hills. It looks Mediterranean.

The newer skyline? Manhattan by the Bay.

I called Jasper Rubin, a former San Francisco city planner who is now a professor of urban studies at San Francisco State University, for a second opinion.

He said there was a time, not so long ago, when Manhattanization was a pejorative. "There was a feeling these buildings would destroy the feel of the city, and block out the sun. They would be counter to the San Francisco heritage."

It hasn't worked out that way, he said. Careful planning has produced open spaces, like breathing rooms in the city.

But a bit of Manhattan isn't bad. "Who doesn't like Manhattan?" Rubin said. "Times Square is pretty amazing. It's busy, it's exciting."

Manhattanization? "I would say it's a good thing," Rubin said. Besides, he said, the younger people like tall buildings.

That's cool because the San Francisco skyline you see now is SO 20th century.

They are building the Transbay Tower right now at First and Mission. It will be 1,070 feet tall, 217 feet taller than the Transamerica Pyramid, more than 400 feet taller than the glass 101 California tower.

There are more. Just look at the construction cranes. In a couple of years, today's skyline will look like the Good Old Days.