Audiffred Building

Audiffred Building
Location 100 The Embarcadero / 1–21 Mission St.,
San Francisco, California, US
Coordinates 37°47′36″N 122°23′29″W / 37.79333°N 122.39139°W / 37.79333; -122.39139Coordinates: 37°47′36″N 122°23′29″W / 37.79333°N 122.39139°W / 37.79333; -122.39139
Area 0.1 acres (0.040 ha)
Built 1889
Architectural style Second Empire
NRHP reference # 79000528
Added to NRHP May 10, 1979

The Audiffred Building is a three-story historic commercial building in San Francisco, California, United States, formerly the location of waterfront bars and of the headquarters of a seamen's union, and now housing Boulevard restaurant. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.[1][2]

Location

The Audiffred Building is on the corner of Mission Street and the Embarcadero, facing the waterfront;[3] it is one of the few surviving waterfront buildings on the land side of the Embarcadero. Since the removal of the elevated Embarcadero Freeway after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the building again looks out on the waterfront.[4]

Building

The building is of brick, with projecting brick quoins on the corners of the second floor. Its architecture emulates the Second Empire style of late 19th-century French commercial buildings.[4] There are three floors, the third being within a wood-framed tiled mansard roof decorated with a diamond pattern. The first floor has fluted cast iron columns with capitals incorporating a floral letter "A". Above the first floor on the eastern half of the facade is a frieze consisting of nautical designs, including seahorses, in bas relief.[2]

History

Hippolite d'Audiffret (anglicized as "Audiffred"), a Frenchman who had been living in Mexico and reportedly walked to San Francisco from Veracruz after Emperor Maximilian and the French became unpopular there, built a profitable business selling charcoal in Chinatown. The Audiffred Building was constructed for him in 1889,[4] presumably to house this business.[2] At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a tavern called The Bulkhead was located on the first floor, serving "Bull's Head" stew, and the building also housed the offices of the Coast Seamen's Union, later the Sailor's Union of the Pacific, a forerunner of the International Seamen's Union.[4][2]

The building was nearly destroyed by the San Francisco Fire Department as were all of the surrounding buildings in an attempt to stop the fires following the 1906 earthquake, but the bartender of the Bulkhead, the drinking establishment then occupying the building, bribed the firemen with the offer of two quarts of whiskey apiece and a fire cart full of bottles of wine.[4]

During the 1934 San Francisco waterfront strike, sailors Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise were shot dead by police outside the Audiffred Building, as commemorated by a monument across the street.[4]

As of 2009 the Audiffred Building houses Boulevard restaurant.[4][5]

References

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "National Register of Historic Places inventory—nomination form: The Audiffred Building", retrieved October 12, 2018. With 15 photos.
  3. ↑ Carl Nolte, "A trip down Mission, the most San Franciscan of streets", San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Carl Nolte, "Every waterfront block has a story worth telling", San Francisco Chronicle, January 4, 2009.
  5. ↑ Robert Selna, "Go green go tall", City Insider blog, San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 2009.


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