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Overview

Architect Benjamin Geer McDougall (1865-1937) designed this Gothic Revival office building for a flat-iron shaped piece of land bounded by Broadway and Telegraph Avenue, known as Latham Square. Begun in 1913, it was completed the following year, one of the earliest Gothic Revival skyscrapers--in the vein of New York's Woolworth Building (1910-1912)--completed west of the Mississippi River. In the wake of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, tall commercial buildings in CA had steel frames resting on reinforced concrete footings, and the Federal Realty Building was no exception. It also had a terra cotta skin also very popular for commercial buildings on the West Coast during the 1910s.