Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Embarcadero
Center
Map
6 D3.
@
1, 32, 41.
v
J, K, L, M, N.
California St.
See Shopping in
San Francisco p233
.
The Embarcadero Center was
completed in 1981 after a
decade of construction. It is San
Francisco's largest redevelop-
ment project and reaches from
Justin Herman Plaza to Battery
Street. Four separate high-rise
towers reach upward 35 to 40
stories above the landscaped
plazas and elevated walkways.
Embarcadero Center's most
spectacular interior is the lobby
of the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Its 17-story atrium contains an
immense sculptured globe by
Charles Perry, entitled
Eclipse
(1973). Glass elevators glide up
and down one wall, carrying
visitors to and from their rooms.
Also housed in the center are an
array of shops and a cinema
screening an impressive
number of independent and
foreign films.
Lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Embarcadero Center
(see pp28-9)
. The Hippodrome
at 555 Pacific Street used to
be a theater; the bawdy relief
sculptures in the recessed front
recall the risqué shows that
were performed there. Today
the buildings are used as
showrooms, law offices, and
antique shops; the best can
be seen on Jackson Street,
Gold Street, Hotaling Place,
and Montgomery Street.
East and delivered mail. Wells
Fargo put mail boxes in
convenient locations and
messengers sorted the letters
en route. The Pony Express was
another mail venture in which
Wells Fargo played a major role.
The splendid stage coaches
(see p110)
, like the one on
display in the museum, are
famous for the legendary stories
of their heroic drivers and the
bandits who robbed them. The
best-known bandit was Black
Bart, who left poems at the
scene of his crimes. He stalked
the lonely roads from Calaveras
County to the Oregon border
between 1875 and 1883,
holding up stage coaches.
In one hold-up he
mistakenly left a
handkerchief with a
distinctive laundry mark,
revealing him to be a
mining engineer
named Charles Boles.
Museum visitors can
experience how it felt to
sit for days in a jostling
stage coach, and listen to
the recorded diary of
Francis Brocklehurst, an
immigrant. Exhibits include
Pony Express mail,
photographs, early
checks, weaponry,
and gold nuggets.
3
Wells Fargo
History Museum
420 Montgomery St.
Map
5 C4.
Tel
396-2619.
@
1, 3, 10, 41.
California St.
Montgomery.
Open
9am-5pm Mon-Fri.
Closed
public hols.
7
=
∑
wellsfargohistory.com
Hotaling Place in Jackson Square
Founded in 1852, Wells
Fargo & Co. became
the greatest banking
and transport
company in the West
and was influential in the
development of the
American frontier. The
company moved people
and goods from the East
to the West Coast, and
between California mining
camps and towns. It also
transported gold from
the West Coast to the
2
Jackson Square
Historical District
Map
5 C3.
@
12, 41, 83.
Renovated in the early 1950s,
this low-rise neighborhood
contains many historic brick,
cast-iron, and granite façades
dating from the Gold Rush era.
From 1850-1910, it was
notorious for its squalor and the
crudeness of its inhabitants and
was known as the Barbary Coast
Black Bart, the
poet bandit
