San Francisco Ferry Building
San Francisco Ferry Building, Ferry terminal and marketplace at Embarcadero, United States
The Ferry Building features a 235-foot clock tower and stretches along San Francisco's waterfront with multiple ferry piers and an extensive marketplace inside.
The Beaux-Arts style building opened in 1898 and served as the main transit hub for San Francisco, handling over 50 million annual commuters before the Bay Bridge construction.
The ground floor marketplace houses 50 local vendors offering regional specialties, while the outdoor Ferry Plaza Farmers Market operates multiple times each week.
The terminal connects passengers to destinations across San Francisco Bay including Vallejo, Sausalito, Tiburon, and Oakland through regular ferry services.
The building's clock mechanism, manufactured by E. Howard in 1898, maintains its original components despite being converted to electric power in 2000.
Location: San Francisco
Inception: 1898
Architects: A. Page Brown
Official opening: 1898
Architectural style: Beaux-Arts
Website: https://ferrybuildingmarketplace.com
GPS coordinates: 37.79556,-122.39222
Latest update: May 26, 2025 21:03
San Francisco brings together historical monuments and natural sites that reflect the city's unique history and geography. The Golden Gate Bridge, a 2,737-meter-long suspension bridge completed in 1937, is one of the region's most recognizable structures. Alcatraz Island, a former high-security federal prison operating from 1934 to 1963, is located in the bay and is visited by ferry. The Painted Ladies, seven Victorian houses built between 1892 and 1896, exemplify San Francisco’s characteristic residential architecture with their colorful facades facing Alamo Square Park. The city also includes Fisherman's Wharf, a historic port district developed from late 19th-century Italian fishing piers, and the Fillmore, a performance hall from the 1910s that contributed to the development of the West Coast music scene. Twin Peaks provide viewpoints at 928 feet (283 meters), while Lands End features rocky cliffs and hiking trails at the western tip of the peninsula. The Cable Cars, a mechanical transportation system operating since 1873, run on three lines through San Francisco's sloped streets.
Clock towers combine technical precision with architectural styles from different periods and cultures. These highly visible structures stand in city centers, university campuses and historic squares, where they structure public life. The collection includes varied examples: the 315 foot (96 meter) neo-Gothic bell tower at Westminster Palace in London, the 1,970 foot (601 meter) Royal Clock Tower in Mecca, the Spasskaya Tower on Red Square in Moscow, the 279 foot (85 meter) neo-Gothic Rajabai Tower in Mumbai, the medieval astronomical clock at Old Town Hall in Prague, the 13th century Zytglogge in Bern, the Giralda in Seville (originally an Almohad minaret), the 548 foot (167 meter) Philadelphia City Hall tower, the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the 308 foot (94 meter) Sather Tower at the University of California Berkeley, the Zimmer Tower in Lier, the Custom House Tower in Boston, the Mughal era Ghanta Ghar in Lahore, the Union Station clock tower in Waterbury, the Renaissance clock tower on St. Mark's Square in Venice, the Jam Gadang in Bukittinggi and the Jaffa Clock Tower in Tel Aviv. Many of these towers serve as urban landmarks and connect historic architecture with practical function. They frequently offer elevated viewpoints and display remarkable mechanical achievements in timekeeping.
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