The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-25
By Ernest N. Smith.
Mail Special to the Advertiser.)


The new Market street, and there
fore the new San Francisco. Visitors
excIaim about il in wonderment and
the newspapers speak Of it with par
donable pride The old Market street
was so different. 4 few large modern
buildings could be seen on the old
street but never until now did Il re-
semble the lower part of Broadway,
that is the part from Second and Mar
ket up as far as Seventh; and best OF
all the street is coming into its own
again, and before another year has
passed San Franciseans can of an
evening wend their way around the old
path-up Market to Powell, to Geary,
down to Kearny, and along Kearny,
without having to step out into the
street to escape building fences; and
along that old route they will be able
to look into brilliantly lighted show
windows, something that could not be
done since before the fire.
The lower part of Market street is
still made up of small buildings, for
the most part wooden, containing
stores carrying readyto-grab-on-the-
run goods for the hurrying eommuter.
At Second and Market however the
Sheldon building, the first of the Mar
ket street skyserapers, looms up On
the block above is a similar building,
the Metropolis Trust and Savings Bank
building, both looking so much alike
that the bibulous eommuter catching
the last boat would consider himself
block further east if he hove in sight
of the Metropolis building first. A
little further up the street is the re-
modelled Croker building, and across
the street at the junction of Post,
Montgomery and Market is the hand
some First National Bank building, a
great white and gray stone structure as
imposing as any in the city.
Just across the street looms the great
structure and network Of steel which
in two years will be the new Palace
Hotel. 1t is an enormous building. and
all day long crowds OF people stand
and watch the workers running about
on the steel girders. The hotel covers
the entire square, and all the steel
work on the Market street side is in
some of the white stone. Across the
alley, going up Market, is the MoDad-
mock building. one of the first build
ings finished after the fire. 1t IS one
of the largest office blocks and ranks
well up with the modern structures.
That entire block viii contain fine
buildings as soon as the Examiner COM
pletes it's building on the corner. At
present there is a large hole there flied
with scrap iron, old engines, and
presses which went through the fire,
It is the most unsightly place along
the entire length of the street. Across
the street is the new Chronicle build
ing, larger and finer than ever, but the
old clock, the one which gave thou
sands the time in years gone by, was
not replaced It would hardly be
worth while to put it up now. Once
it could be seen in any direction, but
any number Of buildings in the vici-
nifty now overtop it, even the new
wing Of the Chronicle building itself.
The old familiar Call building iuts into
the blue from the same old corner, and
one could hardly believe now that it
had been Quilted by fire. Across from
the Call is the Mutual Savings Bank
smaller than the Cali build
ing, but a skyseraper nevertheless. The
rest of the street on the side of the
Mutual Savings Bank building to the
next corner was composed of veritabIe
shaeks, fimsy and poorly constructed
A fire a few weeks ago swept most of
these buildings away, and while some
have been rebuilt it is understood that
a company at which Hellman the bank