United Nations Plaza Fountain - A Troubled Life

 

source: "Question Man - What is a San Francisco Eyesore?" San Francisco Chronicle January 14, 1980

The fountain at the United Nations plaza is cement. Tons of cement are not pretty. (Jannette Anderson, 1980).

Construction of the fountain had not yet begun when United Nations Plaza was dedicated in June 1975, the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Charter Conference in San Francisco.  The fountain itself was dedicated on April 25, 1977, but it was a dry event -- water was not scheduled to flow until July.  Newspaper articles through 1978 noted the continued malfunctioning of the valves that controlled the water spray.

The only time the United Nations Plaza fountain appears to have been fully functional was in early 1979.  It provided a very different experience than we get today.

image source: San Francisco Examiner February 6, 1979

A 1979 photo shows a gush of water like we never see today. A San Francisco Examiner article accompanying accompanying the photo provides an explanation of the fountain's operation from Don Carter, who along with Angela Danadjieva was principal-charge of the project for the Halprin firm.    

He explained that the fountain alternated between periods of calm, periods of jacuzzi-like waves and a climax he called the "jets cycle" when it erupted like a 25 foot high geyser.  When the weather was too windy, these water intensive events would be shut down by automatic computer control. One of the geyser events was coordinated with curtain times at the adjoining Orpheum Theater. During some of the "low tide" periods the water level dropped 30 inches from the peak water level and allowed people to walk inside the dried out structure. Carter expressed a hope that children would wade in the fountain on warm days.

While some observers were delighted by the variety and periodicity of the fountain's activity, others were puzzled by it.  According to one denizen of the plaza: "When the spray isn't working, people think its broken. The sprays only operate three times a day."  Given the common windy conditions in the plaza, it likely operated less than that.  The equipment that created these effects fell into disrepair in the early 1980s, eliminating the "earth-tides" symbolism that formed a significant part of Halprin's vision.

The San Francisco Chronicle's famed architecture writer Allan Temko was no fan of the fountain. He called it a "pomposity of ... madly assembled granite." He also lamented that "for the $2 million this fountain cost we could have bought four or five Henry Moores, to name a sculptor who might have dome justice to the grand entry to the Civic Center."

It was not long before the fountain became a casualty of the neighborhood's street life.  In mid-1979, Kevin Starr, San Francisco City Librarian from 1973 to 1976 and later a San Francisco Examiner columnist, wrote an erudite put-down of the fountain entitled a "$1.5 Million Pig Pen" He wrote scathingly of the crowd surrounding it.

The noise (every other word referred to an act of incest) came from a dozen or so men holding confabulation on the corner near the fountain. They were drinking from bottles and cans wrapped in brown paper bags, and they were shouting to each other in cacophonous discourse.

Garbage and filth surround the fountain. I stepped gingerly around wads of gum, cigarette butts, vomit, a half-eaten fly-infested turkey drumstick, flattened beer cans and empty bottles. I noted three empty bottles of Thunderbird, two empty bottles of Franzia Brothers white port and one bottle of Night Train Express pear wine.

Great granite blocks rise in a certain sculptured disorderliness that is actually a pyramidal order. From various points water rushes down the granite to a pool below, putting the fountain into dramatic motion. The flow of water came up against a barrier of refuse, however, where it was supposed to flow most dramatically out of sight--a dam of beer cans, wet paper and broken glass, and a horrible primeval compost ooze composed of God-knows-what.

The UN fountain is not even a year old, but already heavy graffiti mars many of its noble facades. The stones facing Leavenworth Street are the most heavily defaced with scores of insipid or obscene scratchings.

Starr held no objection to the fountain itself, but to the fountain within its societal environment. He lamented that the "very symbolic center of our city, the UN Plaza at Civic Center, is a miasma of filth and defacement." When Janette Anderson, at the top of this entry, identified the fountain as a "public eyesore" and misidentified it as being constructed from ugly cement, her opinion was probably formed as someone who did not want to hang around to appreciate it.

The ensuing years brought small adjustment to the plaza -- the removal of benches, engraving in the sidewalks commemorating the 40th anniversary of the United Nation's founding.  But the fountain remained an issue.  When it wasn't fenced off it attracted homeless bathers and drug users.  Chronicle writer Ilene Lelchuk reported that "The spraying fountain in San Francisco's United Nations Plaza is used as a toilet, bathtub and crack den more often than a soothing place to relax and read a book." Because they"giving up on fishing hypodermic needles and human feces out of the fountain," the Department of Public Works surrounded it with a temporary barrier.

United Nations Plaza Fountain with temporary chained barrier and "No Trespassing" sign (source: Hirsch, 2005)

In 2005 the fountain received a short respite when the plaza was spruced up for the the celebration of World Environment Days recognizing the 60th anniversary of the UN Charter in San Francisco. "Attractive" bollards and chains were erected to discourage bathing. Then Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered an increased police presence to prevent drug use and other antisocial behavior. He also intended United Nations Plaza more "active" by using it as a performance space and bringing in food trucks.

UN Plaza Fountain during 2005 World Environment Day celebration with United Nations Flags (image source: Hinshaw, 2015)

In 2003, John King, Allan Temko's successor at the San Francisco Chronicle, pronounced that "as good as Halprin is, this fountain hasn't stood the test of time." The granite structure did not cohere with its surroundings in the plaza and formed an obstacle to pedestrian flow to Leavenworth Street at the north.

1986, architectural historian Gray Brechin wrote a review of a 70th birthday exhibition for Lawrence Halprin given at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Here he discussed the many successful projects on display, however, he also cited a "necessary but tragic omission": Halprin's work on San Francisco's Market Street beautification project in collaboration with Mario Ciampi and John Carl Warnecke in the 1960s and 1970s.

He put his finger on the larger problem with their vision.

Market's [Market Street's] problems supersede design and maintenance. In the fifteen years since the beautification was completed, American society has undergone vast changes that Halprin and Ciampi could not anticipate. Market was designed for a stable, upscale retail base and middle-class consumers, but business was driven out by the long process of construction, and the boulevard has now surrendered to the dereliction, addiction and insanity that have grown yearly more noticeable and controllable. The usual attempted solution has been to put more cops on the beat, but symptoms indicate a problem that designers are helpless to correct and in some cases have worsened.

These designers, and one assumes city leaders, aspired to transform Market Street according to their aspirations, to make it a vital, thriving prosperous destination and a source of civic pride. The interval of time between the formation of this vision (circa 1960) and its realization (mid-1970s) saw many social changes nationally and locally.

Brechin continued:

It is impossible to evaluate Halpin's Hallidie and UN Plazas apart from the poverty they collect and contain. In UN Plaza at the Civic Center, the derelicts sun and prowl through Halprin's usually dry fountain. These plazas remind me of ragged spectators in the Roman ruins, or of Blade Runner.

Halprin defended and fought for the vision of his fountain until his death in 2009.  He didn't question his design. Instead he insisted that the city leaders should prevent the antisocial behavior from happening in the first place. "I'm not angry at the homeless," he said. "I'm angry at the people who let them not act civilly."

United Nations Plaza and its fountain continue to challenge San Francisco's leaders and its government.

Previous entries:

"United Nations Plaza Fountain Introduction" (June 22, 2023)

"United Nations Plaza Fountain: A Troubled Birth" (August 1, 2023)

Bibliography: 

(Many of the articles can be found in the Newspaper Clipping File folder for "United Nations Plaza")

Adams, Gerald, "Another City Fountain Dispute Is Bubbling Up," San Francisco Examiner February 6, 1979.

Better Market Street Project EIR Appendix 6: Cultural Resources Supporting Information (San Francisco Department of Public Works, [2016]).

Brechin, Gray, "Choreographer of Space," San Francisco Focus August 1986.

"Commission Approves $1.2 Million Fountain," San Francisco Examiner April 22, 1975.

Cone, Russ, "Valve Makes A Fountain of A Fiasco at UN Plaza," San Francisco Examiner March 17, 1978.

Day, Linda, "Lawrence Halprin and the Public Realm: Can the United Nations Plaza Unite San Franciscans?," Planetizen July 20, 2017. 

Fagan, Kevin, "U.N. Plaza Finally Getting New Look," San Francisco Chronicle March 19, 2005

Hinshaw, Mark, "Halprin Fountain Finds New Life," Landscape Architecture October 2005 [available through JStor].

Hirsch, Alison Bick, "The Fate of Lawrence Halpin's Public Spaces: Three Case Studies," Masters Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2005.

King, John, "A Vision Revision: U.N. Plaza Plan Lacks Attractions for Visitors," San Francisco Chronicle May 6, 2003.

Lelchuk, Ilene, "U.N. Plaza's Architect to Fight Redesign," San Francisco Chronicle April 18, 2003.

Lelchuk, Ilene, "City Give up on U.N. Plaza Fountain," San Francisco Chronicle March 12, 2003.

Pacheco, Antonio, "Another Halprin-designed plaza could be on the chopping block, this time in San Francisco," The Architects Notebook May 30, 2018

Robinson, Gene, "U.N.'s Party in Its Plaza" San Francisco Chronicle June 27, 1975.

Stack, Peter, "A Brainy Fountain Is Dedicated," San Francisco Chronicle April 26, 1977.

Starr, Kevin, "$1.5 Million Pig Pen," San Francisco Examiner June 12, 1979.

Starr, Kevin, "Our Public Space Crisis," San Francisco Examiner June 13, 1979.

Temko, Allan, "The 'New' Market Street -- An Unfulfilled Promise," San Francisco Chronicle March 21, 1979.

Waugh, Dexter, "U.N. Plaza Stirs Market St. 'Renaissance," San Francisco Examiner September 13, 1978.