Audiffred Building (San Francisco, California)

 historic landmark, historical building

1-21 Mission Street at The Embarcadero
San Francisco, CA 94105


Built 1889

National Register #79000528


In the Audiffred building the roof houses a garret, an additional floor that provides habitable space. The garret is punctuated with tall windows. The second floor of the building is brick with tall round-topped windows and sparse ornamentation. The first floor has cast iron pilasters. Cast iron was used for construction throughout the 1800s and early 1900s in the United States. While cast iron had been used for thousands of years, it was not seriously considered for commercial use until Thomas Pritchard designed the world’s first cast-iron bridge over England’s River Severn in 1781. The use of cast iron really took off after it was featured in the design of London’s Crystal Palace (1851).

The building has a colorful history in San Francisco. The original tenant was the Bulkhead Bar and Coffee Saloon. It is rumored that when the 1906 fire raged in the area, fire crews were sent to dynamite the Audiffred building in order to slow the pace of the fire. The bartender promised two quarts of whiskey to each man and a horse cart full of wine if they would not destroy the building. The building was saved, and along with the Ferry Building, was one of the few waterfront survivors of the quake and fire.

Another early tenant was the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific, the oldest seagoing union in the world.