555 California Street, Office skyscraper in Financial District, San Francisco
555 California Street is a 52-story office tower rising 779 feet (237 meters) in San Francisco's Financial District. Its dark brown or bronze facade is divided into a dense grid of narrow vertical ribs separating recessed rectangular windows, with lighter reflective bands catching warm light along the left side. The mass is widest on the left and steps back slightly on the right, forming a long vertical slab.
The tower was completed in 1969 and held the title of tallest building west of the Mississippi until 1972. The Transamerica Pyramid then surpassed it in height, ending its brief reign.
The north-side plaza honours Bank of America founder A.P. Giannini and holds Masayuki Nagare's 200-ton black Swedish granite sculpture "Transcendence", nicknamed the "Banker's Heart". The block's granite cladding, including the plaza stairs from California Street, appears in The Towering Inferno (1974).
The building occupies a full block between California and Pine streets, with its main entrance and the A.P. Giannini plaza on the north side. The granite stairways rising from California Street lead up to that plaza. The former 52nd-floor Carnelian Room restaurant closed at midnight on New Year's Eve 2009, so the high-speed elevator once used by diners no longer serves a public venue.
The building's nickname "Triple Five" or "Triple Nickel" comes from its address. Since opening in 1969, staff have reported cold spots, landline receivers lifting on their own and paperwork flying off shelves, a haunting tale told about the tower for decades.
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