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Ferry Building & the Embarcadero — The checkable facts
Quick answer
The Ferry Building San Francisco opened on July 13, 1898 at the foot of Market Street, and before the bridges it handled around 50 million passengers a year. Its 245-foot clock tower carries four dials 22 feet across. Ferry traffic collapsed after the Bay Bridge opened in 1936, and a 2003 restoration reopened the 660-foot nave as a food marketplace.
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Opened 13 July 1898, replacing an 1875 wooden building on the same site | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
| The clock tower is 245 feet tall with four dials each 22 feet across | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
| Until the bridges opened it was the second busiest transit terminal in the world, after London's Charing Cross | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
| The Giralda attribution is long-asserted but unsubstantiated | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
| Passenger ferry use fell sharply after the bridges opened and Transbay Terminal trains began in 1939 | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
| Restoration of the complex was undertaken from 2002 | Wikipedia — San Francisco Ferry Building |
Frequently asked
When did the Ferry Building open, and who designed it?
It opened on July 13, 1898, to a design by the architect A. Page Brown, drawn up in 1892. The steel-framed terminal runs 660 feet along the waterfront, and the tower carries four clock dials 22 feet across. It replaced a wooden ferry house that had stood on the same spot.
Why did the ferries stop running?
Bridges took the traffic. The Bay Bridge carried its first cars in November 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge followed in May 1937, so commuters who had crossed by boat drove instead. Service shrank to almost nothing by the 1950s. A small commuter fleet returned in the 1970s and still docks behind the building.
What is inside the Ferry Building today?
The ground-floor nave holds roughly fifty independent food businesses: cheesemongers, bakers, coffee roasters, an oyster bar, butchers and produce sellers, most of them small California operations rather than chains. The plaza outside hosts the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market several mornings a week, run by the non-profit CUESA, where growers sell direct to the public.
What happened to the freeway that used to block the building?
The double-deck Embarcadero Freeway, State Route 480, ran across the facade from 1959. The Loma Prieta earthquake of October 1989 damaged it beyond economic repair, the city won the argument to tear it down rather than rebuild, and demolition finished in 1991. A surface boulevard and waterfront promenade took its place.
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