555 California Street

The second tallest building in San Francisco and the focal point of the city’s Financial District, the former Bank of America Building was opened in 1969 and was, at that time, the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

Now known as 555 California Street, the Bank of America building was designed to show off the financial company’s great wealth. Renowned architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons were hired to design the skyscraper, Bank of America’s world headquarters, which stands 779 feet tall and boasts 52 stories.

The design for the building called for literally thousands of bay windows, which were not only attractive but also served to increase the rental values of the offices located within. At the base of the skyscraper on the north side, a large plaza was planned, which now bears the name of Bank of America’s founder, A.P. Gianinni, and is frequented by locals on their lunch break. The skyscraper, the banking hall, the plaza, the stairways, and the sidewalks were all clad with very expensive Carnelian granite and an exclusive restaurant named The Carnelian Room was planned for the top floor. (The restaurant still remains.)

When it was completed, it held the title of Tallest Building West of the Mississippi until another financial corporation, Trans America, completed their famous “pyramid” building in 1972. It does, however, remain one of the largest buildings on the West Coast.

The Bank of America Building became immediately popular with the film industry. In 1971, it was featured in the movie Dirty Harry in the beginning sequences; the killer shoots his victim from the building’s roof. A few years later, the building served as the infamous Glass Tower in the disaster movie hit, The Towering Inferno.

In the mid-1980's, Bank of America sold its building to local real estate magnate Walter Shorenstein for $660 million, at the time the largest sum of money paid for any building in the United States. In 2005, the property was purchased by Hudson Waterfront Associates of New York for $1.05 billion, and its name was changed to 555 California Street.