Ghirardelli Square - A Factory Saved
Photo: Missvain, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.
Domingo Ghirardelli came from Italy by way of Peru to join the Gold Rush and was soon selling chocolate and supplies in San Francisco. In 1893 his company bought this hillside and built a brick factory complex, crowned by a clock tower and a big rooftop sign that still glows over the bay.
By the early 1960s the company was preparing to move out, and developers were eyeing the site for apartments. William Matson Roth and his mother bought the complex to save it, and when it reopened in 1964 as shops, restaurants and terraces, it became one of the first major projects in the country to turn an old factory into a public gathering place. Its success helped inspire the reuse of waterfront warehouses across the nation.
Climb to the upper terrace for a view over Aquatic Park, Alcatraz and the Hyde Street Pier, the end of this mini tour.
More on Wikipedia: Ghirardelli Square · Domingo Ghirardelli
Stops on this tour
- Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
- Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
- Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
- North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
- Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
- Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
- The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
- Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
- Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
- Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
- The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
- The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
- Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
- South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom