Postcard from San Francisco

Real estate in San Francisco is expensive…and limited. The city lies at the narrow end of a 50 mile long peninsula surround by the Pacific Ocean to the west and San Francisco Bay to the east. Therefore building a large horizontal suburban-style shopping mall is not feasible. So shopping centers here must be vertical. 

What you see here is part of the nine-story, 1.25 million square feet Westfield San Francisco Centre located on Market Street, right across from the Powell Street cable car turnaround…a perfect location. You might say Powell and Market is the very heart of San Francisco…easily reachable by public transportation (you don’t even have to leave the BART Station to enter the center). The anchor tenants here are Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale’s.

I took this photo with my iPhone, looking straight up from the 2nd floor. I have always advised you to look down as well as straight ahead when looking for photos. Now, you can add looking up to that list.

As a young boy, my grandmother used to take me shopping on this very spot. At the time, it was occupied by the Emporium. That store stood here since the 1860’s…it even survived the 1906 earthquake (but not the fire). It grew and expanded into a very large and elegant department store. Sometime, and I don’t know when, a dome was added (not the one you see here) and became a San Francisco landmark. I remember staring up at it when I was a little boy in the 1950’s.

Sadly, the emporium officially closed in 1996. To make a complex history short, the store was gutted and renovated and became part of the Westfield Centre, with only the front of the old Emporium and the dome saved. (Click here and you can see an amazing photo of how the dome was saved). I was glad to know that part of San Francisco’s legacy (and mine) was saved.

The Centre is one of the most beautiful and elegant shopping centers in the world. There are over 200 stores and services located about the 9 story complex. Several of the escalators in the store are curved, the first ever installed in the world. Its well worth a visit just so you can look up see this view.