Overview

The J.J. O'Brien and Company Store, dealing in dry goods, operated from at least 1888 when the Murphy Building opened to 1898.

Building History

Heavy winter rainfalls in San Francisco tested the capacity of the city's sewer system in the 1890s. The basement of the J.J. O'Brien and Company Store was flooded during a particularly heavy rain in 1895. A reporter for the San Francisco Call wrote of the problem with inadequate sewerage: “The urgent necessity of the appointment of a practical engineer to have control of the sewerage system of the city is becoming more and more apparent every year. Through the faulty construction of sewers business men in the lower portions of the city suffer loss every winter by sewage pouring into their cellars. An instance occurred yesterday morning whereby J.J. O’Brien & Co., corner of Jones and Market street, have suffered a severe loss by damage to their stock of dry goods in their basement store rooms amounting to thousands of dollars. The Jones and McAllister street sewage flows into the Market street sewer at this corner, and the main sewer runs along Market and turns down Seventh street. The heavy downpour yesterday morning proved that the sewers were totally inadequate to meet the requirements, and the result was that the water backed ip and poured into basements of the buildings in the neighborhood. Those of the Murphy building and Hibernia Bank sere flooded to a considerable extent. The bank will only be placed to temporary inconvenience, but it is different with J.J. O’Brien & Co., who not only suffer considerable inconveniences but severe loss. If the rainfall had started two hours earlier than it did, Mr. O’Brien says that his stock of $100,000 in the basement would not have been worth 100,000 cents. Similar trouble has occurred almost every year at this point. The damage caused by the heavy storms of two winters ago stirred up the Street Department, and last year expensive alterations and repairs were made in the sewers, so as to be ready for the next winter. No trouble occurred last winter, and it was thought the reconstructed sewer would be adequate to carry off the rainfall of any storm, but yesterday morning’s downpour has shown that there is still something radically wrong and requiring prompt attention.” (See “Basements of the Murphy Building and Hibernia Bank Flooded,” San Francisco Call, 10/24/1894, p. 4.)

PCAD id: 24333