Two weeks ago the ground was first broken for the 655-unit LUMINA to be built at 201 Folsom Street, a joint development between Tishman Speyer and China Vanke.
This weekend, a plugged-in tipster captures the archeologists who have since descended upon the fenced-in parcel, once the site of a ship-dismantling yard run by Charles Hare in the 1850’s before the San Francisco shoreline was in-filled and expanded.
As some might recall, excavation for Tishman’s 650-unit Infinity development across the street was temporarily halted when the bones of the three-masted whaling bark Candace were unearthed back in 2005. There’s no official word on whether the team at 201 Folsom Street has unearthed anything of significance, but we’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.
Ironically, while China Vanke is the majority equity partner in LUMINA having committed $175 million to its development, Hares’ old shipyard only employed Chinese workers, “men on the margins of society at that time, workers who were excluded from most employment.”
Perhaps, the greater irony is that the mayor of San Francisco is descendant of Chinese immigrants.
Back in the 1920’s, excavation was being done for the new Federal Reserve Bank and the remains of the Brig Ephemia (which once served as a temporary jail for the City of San Francisco during the late 1840’s) was discovered. My grandfather, E.R. Moffitt (a poet, furniture maker and bohemian who built the first house on Twin Peaks) ran down there and was able to recover several long pieces of teak, which he then made into a spectacular table that is still admired to this day. I find it quite wonderful that pieces of the old San Francisco continue to re-surface: ghosts of the times and peoples who created the soul of this city.
I love these stories as well… hopefully they’ll find something neat down there.