North Beach Branch Library

The North Beach branch that opened in 1959 was a 5,097-square-foot building of irregular plan at 2000 Mason Street, next to a Recreation and Park facility, serving North Beach, Telegraph Hill and part of the Financial District. Its replacement is the clearest case in the library system of a building argued over and then removed. The Library Commission was already considering alterations and additions to it in the mid-1950s, when the director of the International Institute of San Francisco wrote asking for longer opening hours at the branch. By 2010 the question had become legal rather than architectural: after a presentation to the Mayor's Office of Disability, the library reported that the branch's programming was not in compliance with federal law, state law or the city's own mandate on access, and that it had been advised it must discontinue public programming there. The old building was demolished under a $325,000 permit in 2012, and a second permit that year covers what went onto that part of the site — a retaining berm, new fencing, extended irrigation, a site light and a drinking fountain. The new branch carries a commissioned sound installation by Bill Fontana, whose revised design the Arts Commission's visual arts committee reviewed after the artist had to pare it back to stay within the project budget.