Hearst Building - San Francisco, CA - People-Named Places on Waymarking.com

The Place

"Built in 1909, the landmark 13-story Hearst Building features a stunning Art Deco facade with 20 cast bronze medallions depicting bas-relief mythical animals above an imposing entrance portal.

The previous Hearst building was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent fire of 1906 and the decision was made to rebuild. Phoebe Apperson Hearst commissioned the New York architectural firm of Kirby, Petit & Green to design the new structure. Plans were completed in November of 1909 and construction progressed into 1911.

In 1938, famed architect Julia Morgan was retained by Hearst to complete a remodel of the Hearst Building’s exterior entry way, the lobby on the ground floor and the parapet roof structure. Her work included the installation of a field of 20 cast bronze medallions containing bas-relief mythical animals above the front door, the addition of patriotic red white & blue lighting around the medallions, a crest above the front entry, an elaborate and beautiful lobby interior and updated elevator interiors. Her work remains unchanged today and is visible to the passerby. (visit link)

The Person

William Randolph Hearst (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company Hearst Communications and whose flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father. Moving to New York City, he acquired The New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that sold papers by giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, graphics, sex, and innuendo. Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

He was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909 and for Governor of New York in 1906. Politically he espoused the Progressive Movement, speaking on behalf of the working class. He controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all his papers and magazines and thereby exercised enormous political influence. He also called for war in 1898 against Spain—as did many other newspaper editors—but he did it in sensational fashion. After 1918, he called for an isolationist foreign policy to avoid any more entanglement in what he regarded as corrupt European affairs. He was at once a militant nationalist, a fierce anti-communist, and deeply suspicious of the League of Nations and of the British, French, Japanese, and Russians. He was a leading supporter of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932–34, but then broke with FDR and became his most prominent enemy on the right. His peak circulation reached 20 million readers a day in the mid-1930s, but he was a bad money manager and was so deeply in debt that most of his assets had to be liquidated in the late 1930s; he managed to keep his newspapers and magazines." (visit link)

Year it was dedicated: 1911 Location of Coordinates: Building Entrance Related Web address (if available): [Web Link] Type of place/structure you are waymarking: Building

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/14/2017 petendot visited it