Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities

by John King

Overview

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A two-time Pulitzer finalist explores the story of American urban design through San Francisco’s iconic Ferry Building.

Conceived in the Gilded Age, the Ferry Building opened in 1898 as San Francisco’s portal to the world—the terminus of the transcontinental railway and a showcase of civic ambition. In silent films and World’s Fair postcards, nothing said “San Francisco” more than its soaring clocktower.

But as acclaimed architectural critic John King recounts in Portal, the rise of the automobile and double-deck freeways severed the city from its beloved structure and its waterfront—a connection that required generations to restore.

King’s narrative spans the rise and fall and rebirth of the Ferry Building. Rich with feats of engineering and civic imagination, his story introduces colorful figures who fought to preserve the Ferry Building’s character (and the city’s soul)—from architect Arthur Page Brown and legendary columnist Herb Caen to poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Senator Dianne Feinstein.

In King’s hands, the saga of the Ferry Building is a microcosm of a larger evolution along the waterfronts of cities everywhere. Portal traces the damage inflicted on historic neighborhoods and working dockyards by cars, highways, and top-down planning and “urban renewal.” But when an earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway, city residents seized the chance to reclaim their connection to the bay. Transporting readers across 125 years of history, this tour de force explores the tensions impacting urban infrastructure and public spaces, among them tourism, deindustrialization, development, and globalization. Portal culminates with a rich portrait of San Francisco’s vibrant esplanade today, visited by millions, even as sea level rise and earthquakes threaten a landmark that remains as vital as ever.

A book for city lovers and visitors, architecture fans and pedestrians, Portal is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of San Francisco and the future of American cities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324020325
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/07/2023
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	54,325
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

John King is urban design critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and a two-time Pulitzer finalist. The author of two guidebooks to San Francisco architecture and an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, he lives in Berkeley, California.

Editorial Reviews

10/23/2023

Urban design critic King (Cityscapes 2) traces in this vibrant account the rise, decline, and rebirth of San Francisco’s Ferry Building, using its 125-year history as a case study of the shifting approach to waterfront design in American cities. Built in 1898 at the point where San Francisco met the harbor, the building and its soaring clock tower could be seen for miles. With depots for both ferries and trains, it was also “the principal point of entry” into the city. The Ferry Building survived the 1906 earthquake and post-WWII demolition threats from urban planners bent on replacing it with corporate high-rises. By the 1950s, it faced decline due to loss of ridership to automobiles, bridges that supplanted its iconic status, and the double-decker freeways that severed it from the waterfront. When the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway, residents leapt at the chance to remove the highway and restore their waterfront access. The Ferry Building and surrounding plaza were rebranded as a “lifestyle zone,” with a farmer’s market and artisanal food shops. King’s lively narrative brings to life pivotal local figures, including mayor Dianne Feinstein, who advocated tearing down the Embarcadero Freeway, and influential columnist Herb Caen, whose six decades’ worth of columns embodied a growing American pessimism over city planning. The result is an illuminating architectural and social history. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"Portal has the good fortune of having been written by a dedicated architecture critic. . . . Serious and rigorous, the book furnishes a gimlet-eyed glimpse of San Francisco’s continuing struggles — and what lies beneath them."

Ian Volner

"This is a book of great charm. Mr. King…is a stylish writer with an eye for the delightful detail. He lovingly recounts the restoration of the Ferry Building and celebrates its new role in the city.… By expanding the circle of those enchanted by the Ferry Building, Mr. King has made it more likely that residents will summon that will and write a new chapter in the Ferry Building’s history."

Wall Street Journal - John Buntin

"John King is an architectural Indiana Jones, revealing the careening drama and the struggle for consensus as to what a city should be. An account that is both authoritative and fun to read."

Anthony Flint

"This book is much more than a history of San Francisco’s ferry terminal; it’s a window to the soul of a great city. John King gives us a lively and revealing account of a remarkable building that has endured against all odds and assumed new meaning. There are lessons here for every city."

Inga Saffron

"John King has produced a tour de force of architectural and social commentary, grounded in the rise and indomitable relevance of San Francisco’s iconic Ferry Building. From 1898 to 2023, an incredible story unfolds here of earthquakes, recessions, disasters, and relentless conflict. Through each crisis, the Ferry Building finds a way to adapt and prosper. In masterful prose, King ties the building’s saga to the larger story of San Francisco and even Boston and New York and other waterfront cities as they go through dramatic cycles of decay and rebirth. And in so doing, provides us with an overdue and bracing dose of optimism."

Jerry Brown

2023-08-24
The compelling 125-year history and continuing resonance of an architectural landmark.

Urban design critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, King is uniquely well placed to tell the story of San Francisco’s Ferry Building, one of the most recognizable buildings in America. “Every city has a landmark like this,” writes the author, “a building through which one can read the past.” His explanation of the engineering marvel of its construction on an artificial seawall and appraisals of its aesthetic merits and symbolic importance as a "monumental gateway" to the city are easily accessible to general readers. King makes a strong case that the Ferry Building is "a profound work of civic infrastructure connecting the city to the region and the nation, proof of urban ascendance." Architect Arthur Page Brown's masterpiece, which opened in 1898, withstood San Francisco's disastrous 1906 earthquake and then survived its usurpation as a transportation hub by the rise of the automobile and construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges in the late 1930s. The building then spent 50 years in limbo, worsened by the 1959 construction of the elevated Embarcadero Freeway, which blocked its classical façade and closed off downtown's connection to the waterfront. The Ferry Building held firm during the 1989 earthquake, while the Freeway was compromised. This led to the roadway's 1991 demolition, spurring what Mayor Art Agnos called "renewal for a spectacular waterfront that has been blighted for 32 years by a concrete monster." King describes the building's rebirth as a marketplace and what Bon Appetit dubbed "a kind of cathedral for the city’s food-worshipping population.” The book’s climax and most salient point is King’s compelling exploration of the existential predicament facing the Ferry Building, adjacent piers, and waterfront—and those of all port cities—as climate change leads to inexorable sea-level rise.

Fascinating insights into San Francisco history and the transformation of other waterfront cities.

Kirkus Reviews

This is a book of great charm. Mr. King…is a stylish writer with an eye for the delightful detail.”

Wall Street Journal