350 Mcallister Street

1. 1850

   Yerba Buena Cemetery, the city's first official public cemetery, covered a triangle bounded by the present Market, McAllister and Larkin Streets, including this block; the graves were moved to Lone Mountain by the mid-1860s and the ground became a public park.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
2. 1888

   The five-storey brick Supreme Court Building, built between 1888 and 1899, was the most prominent structure on the block before the earthquake, when small one- and two-storey frame buildings covered about ninety per cent of it.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
3. 1917

   Bliss & Faville won the design of the California State Building in a competition sponsored by the State Architect, held between August 1916 and February 1917 and open only to architects in California.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
4. 1920

   Construction of the California State Building began on the southern half of the block.

   National Register of Historic Places nomination, National Park Service
5. 1922

   The six-storey California State Building was completed on the southern half of the block, a steel-frame building clad in Sierra White granite and terra cotta, to the design of Bliss & Faville. It is a contributory building in the Civic Center National Register district and was rated “5” in the 1976 city inventory.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
6. 1931

   Wing additions to the California State Building were completed, on the southern half of the block.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
7. 1933

   The Civil Works Administration's first San Francisco project, in December 1933, was to paint and remodel the interior of the ten-year-old State Building here: 36 men and $31,665. The Public Works Administration had set up its western district office in the same building that August, and the Works Progress Administration later took the remodelling up again, with interior painting, exterior ironwork, repairs to the north and east walls and new shelving. Some of that work is still visible inside.

   San Francisco New Deal Historic Context Statement, adopted 2023
8. 1951

   The Supreme Court room on the fourth floor of the California State Building — its most elaborate space, with a decorative skylight dome, coffered ceiling and ebony furnishings — was extensively remodelled, and a large mural by Arthur Mathews above the judges' bench was removed.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
9. 1957

   The seven-storey Annex was completed, a concrete-frame building clad in mosaic ceramic tile and ceramic veneer panels; work on it had begun in 1956.

   San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
10. 1957

    The small commercial brick buildings on the north half of the block — stores, hotels, small businesses and automobile concerns rebuilt after 1906 — were demolished for the State Building Annex.

    San Francisco Department of City Planning, State of California, San Francisco Civic Center Complex: Draft Environmental Impact Report, 1994.
11. 1959

    Built.

12. Jun 1986

    Permit 8606652 $$$ $1,200

    Install ansol rioz fire system in cafeteria on ground floor.

13. Feb 2013

    Issued Permit 201302120064 $$$ $35,000

    Remove existing underground fuel oil supply and return lines and replace with western fiberglass co-flex line and convert to existing fuel lines inside building at basement level.

10 nominal $1 street-space or sidewalk permits are omitted from the timeline. 1 cancelled permit is not shown. The Planning Department's own reports disagree about the California State Building: the 1994 environmental impact report for the State's Civic Center complex gives 1922 in its summary and 1923 in its cultural resources chapter, while the 1991 Main Library and 1994 Courts Building reports both give 1926. The National Register nomination for the Civic Center district puts Bliss and Faville's winning of the State Building competition in 1915; the New Deal historic context statement dates the competition to between August 1916 and February 1917. The National Register nomination for the Civic Center district dates the remodelling of the Supreme Court room to 1956; the Planning Department's environmental review for the State's Civic Center complex dates it to 1951.