MTC ART GALLERY

The MTC Community Art Program presents:

The Transbay Terminal:
San Francisco’s Much-Maligned Commuter Terminal

Photos by Noah Berger and Tom Paiva
Text by Therese Poletti

When San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal first opened to the public in January of 1939 as a new train terminal to replace the Ferry Building, it had an inauspicious debut. Although heralded as a “building of architectural beauty and practical utility,” the gala opening of the streamlined structure faced in clean white granite was clouded by sentimental stories in the local press reporting on “moist-eyed” farewells to the 75-year-tradition of commuting to work by ferry from the East Bay. Its first week in operation was marred by traffic snarls caused by glitches in new street car lines heading to the terminal, delayed concession openings and a city ill-prepared for such a major change.

The functional three-story terminal represented the future, at a time of hopeful optimism. After almost a decade spent in the Great Depression, the opening festivities occurred a month before the widely anticipated Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island.

Indeed, it was also the end of an era. The romantic connection commuters had with the San Francisco Bay ended abruptly after the completion of the commuter terminal in December, 1938, the last phase of the massive $77 million San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge project. Train service replaced the ferries en masse, with the first trainload of officials and passengers crossing on January 14, 1939, and service beginning on January 15. Instead of a leisurely boat ride into the city, commuters were whisked by trains traveling along the lower level of the new aluminum-colored Bay Bridge, built to carry trains and trucks. Two-way automobile traffic traveled on six lanes of the upper deck.

The electric trains operated by the Southern Pacific’s Interurban Electric Railway Company and the Key System shaved an average of 15 minutes off passengers’ commutes, but gone were the strolls with coffee and donuts on the ferry decks, card games, and chats with friends. Instead, morning travelers were packed, sometimes like sardines, into trains that traveled along the more claustrophobic level of the bridge, where window seats gave a vertigo-inducing glimpse of the bay far below, but a stunning panorama for those who didn’t look down. The trains rounded a big loop coming into the terminal over a viaduct that paralleled the vehicular off ramps of the bridge.

Coming into the city by train, a passenger’s first encounter with the San Francisco terminal was the roofed train shed on the upper floor. The purely functional space enclosed six separate tracks, where passengers would embark and disembark onto loading platforms lit during the day by skylights and by nine massive windows of the terminal. Framed in aluminum, the two-story tall windows were the only architectural extravagance on the exterior of the building, a nod to the aluminum-tinged Bay Bridge, completed just two years before the terminal.

The three architects who designed the terminal, Timothy L. Pflueger, Arthur Brown, Jr. and John J. Donovan, were also the consulting architects for the Bay Bridge. Their relationship with the engineers, including California’s chief engineer Charles H. Purcell — who ruled the project with a tight iron fist — was often stormy. The three were well-known for major structures in San Francisco and Oakland and were not shy in voicing their opinions. Pflueger was known for the Telephone Building, 450 Sutter and sumptuous theaters such as the Paramount Theatre in Oakland; Arthur Brown, Jr. for San Francisco’s Neo-Baroque City Hall and Coit Tower; and John Donovan for Oakland’s Civic Auditorium (now Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center) and many schools in the East Bay. The architects tried to infuse art work such as sculpted bas reliefs into the bridge’s anchorages or its approaches, but were mostly unsuccessful. One victory was improving and elongating the suspension towers. One of the biggest feuds which made it into the press was a dispute over the color of the bridge. The engineers wanted to paint it black, while the architects preferred gray. A compromise was eventually made: aluminum. After the brouhaha was settled, Purcell, Pflueger and other officials were photographed in smiling unison on the gleaming, newly painted bridge.

By the time of the terminal project, however, the architects had apparently given up their quest for art or architectural details, with the exception of aluminum staircase railings, window frames and well-crafted benches. Still, the completed terminal was elegant in its functional simplicity, especially its façade and entry foyer.

The terminal was officially named the San Francisco East Bay Bridge Terminal but was often referred to as simply as the San Francisco Terminal. Later dubbed the Transbay Terminal, it was among the most modern works of all three architects. It combines curves and a sense of movement found in the Streamlined Moderne style of the 1930s with the functional, spare aesthetic of the Bauhaus School of Germany. The 870-foot long building of reinforced concrete epitomized the mantra “form follows function”: Its primary raison d’etre was to facilitate the movement of 60,000 commuters in and out of the building every day. According to The Architect and Engineer in January 1939, “convenience to passengers was the governing motive in the design.” Every detail facilitated passenger distribution. There were 15 entrances and exits to the building, 11 ramps and 14 stairways that accessed the train platforms. Ramps were built with no more than a 10 percent grade and coated with a nonslip abrasive material. To reduce the walking distance, the height between floors was only 10 feet.

Concessions, which weren’t open during the first weeks because of delays in approving the leases, eventually offered passengers a shoe shine stand, newsstand, flower shop, lunch counter and soda fountain, and a bar last known as Cuddles. There was also a small jail holding cell, and a basement parking garage for 600 cars. The terminal’s low-ceilings, vaunted for promoting quick movement through the terminal, were also an oft-criticized feature, giving the waiting room and other public areas a hemmed-in feeling. The terminal had a brief brush with fame, though, with two appearances in the movies: The comfortable wooden benches in the vast waiting room were featured in a scene with actor Will Smith in the 2006 movie “Pursuit of Happyness.” The main “grand” staircase leading to the trains was used by a swarm of bride hopefuls in a chase scene in the 1999 movie “The Bachelor.”

In 1958, after only 19 years of service, the Key System ended its train service across the Bay Bridge. After World War II, and the end of gas rationing, travel by car became popular again and the lower deck of the Bay Bridge was converted to automobile traffic. After the Key System was dismantled and train tracks were removed, the Transbay Terminal was converted into a bus-only station. Eventually, the terminal became a popular place for the homeless to sleep on its benches and in 1992, S.F. Mayor Frank Jordan proposed closing the terminal. Despite being deemed historically and architecturally significant, the terminal became run down, dirty and smelly after years of neglect, and was demolished in 2011. In its place, a glass and steel structure is set to open in 2017 as the home of a new bus/rail transit hub with a 5.4-acre public roof garden, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. A plan now calls for rubble from the destroyed terminal to be used by local artist Tim Hawkinson in a sculpture at the site. It is at least a slight homage to a dignified building that suffered an inglorious end and never had much of a chance.

Therese Poletti is a San Francisco-based journalist and author of the book, “Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger,” published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2008, featuring photography by Tom Paiva. Please visit timothypflueger.com for more information.