Coit Tower – Mural Conservation Begins
The San Francisco Arts Commission has undertaken conservation treatment of the interior murals at Coit Tower, one of the most important troves of WPA-era artwork in the country. This work is starting on the heels of an extensive repair project for the building, led by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. ARG Conservation Services […]
The Best Balcony: San Francisco Elks Lodge #3 Restores a Historic Treasure
A little-known fact: San Francisco Lodge No.3 is the longest continuous running lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE). The BPOE was founded in New York City in 1868, and the San Francisco Lodge No. 3 came into being five years later. Since 1925, the city’s Elks have been meeting at 450 […]
A Yankee Visits Charleston
When I attended the Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) conference last fall in Charleston, South Carolina, I was amazed by the city’s historic architecture. Charleston is renowned for gracious homes and its place at the vanguard of the historic preservation movement, but I was still taken aback by the sheer number of historic buildings, […]
Graffiti and Street Art in San Francisco
On January 18, ARG/CS Principal David Wessel will speak at Zero Graffiti International, a three-day conference to address the causes, effects, and prevention of vandalism in communities. This year’s conference takes place in our very own San Francisco, where city agencies spend somewhere around twenty million dollars a year combating graffiti on buildings, buses, and […]
Building Owners, Watch for Hidden Costs Under the Sidewalk
In 2007, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made a little change to the city’s public works code that has been affecting our clients who own downtown buildings. Many of these buildings were constructed with small spaces extending beneath the sidewalk. These spaces may be handy to have for storage or other uses, but they […]
Seeing Beneath the Skin
In the 1960s, among the products advertised in the backs of comic books—“Live Sea monkeys!” and “Trick Black Soap”—were “X-Ray Specs.” For only one dollar, these glasses supposedly let you look through your hand to see the bones, or perhaps under the clothes of your friends. Whether the glasses worked or not, none of us at […]