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Building History

This second Hearst tower replaced the Mission Revival style skyscraper destroyed in the Great Earthquake and Fire of 04/18/1906. It took five years to replace the building on site. Phoebe Apperson Hearst selected the New York firm of Kirby, Petit and Green, Architects, to design the structure which would serve both as an office building and as a printing plant for the Hearst Family's San Francisco Examinernewspaper.

Kirby, Petit and Green had designed at least two buildings in the New York area that were combined offices and printing plants, the Doubleday, Page and Company Building in Manhattan (1903) and American Bank Note Company's Printing Plant at Hunts Point in the Bronx (1906). The latter was primarily a printing plant, with only a few offices on site. The American Bank Note Printing Company, a successful engraver of various banknotes, stamps and corporate stock certificates established in 1858, also erected new administrative offices in Manhattan, designed as well by Kirby, Petit and Green, contemporaneously with the Hearst Building #2.

In addition, James C. Green (born 12/021866 in Rolla, MO) has been credited with the design of the Hearst Buidling in Chicago, IL, at 326 West Madison Street, also finished in 1911.

The San Francisco Examiner remained in this location until the 1965, when it merged its offices into those of the San Francisco Chronicle, with which it negotiated at joint-operating agreement.

The Hearst Building #2 would be the last major work by Kirby, Petit and Green, as James C. Green left the partnership in 1909, leaving only Henry P. Kirby and John C. Petit.

Building Notes

In 1927, the California Home Building Loan Company operated on the second floor of the Hearst Building. (See San Francisco, California, City Directory, 1927, p. 2350.)

PCAD id: 24959