Serpentine and pebbledash on Broadway

The intersection of Broadway and 20th Street features strong buildings on all four corners. We all know the I. Magnin building (built 1930) and the Capwell (Sears/Uptown Station) building (built 1929) facing it. Across Broadway, we have the metal-clad urban spaceship of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research building (built 1982) and finally the dark cube of the Golden West Tower Building (built 1968).

One of the nice things about taking the bus is that while you wait, you can look around like architects and urban planners do, as if the cityscape were a stage set. And so, waiting for the 33, I finally took notice of the building wall that I’ve walked past hundreds of times.

It’s chips of dark serpentine, embedded in cement and polished. People in the building trade must know exactly what this is called, but I can’t crack their code. Here’s a closeup.

So all this time, the Golden West Tower Building has been giving the serpentine-clad I. Magnin building a nod, a salute, a shoutout, a heart-tap. I thought that was cool.

That day the 33 took me to Piedmont, where I recognized the same material in Bufano’s “Bear and Cubs” sculpture in Crocker Park, featured here previously.

The other element in that Broadway streetscape is the sidewalk. You’ve all seen it.

This is what’s called a pebbledash finish. Concrete is laid down, then pebbles are pressed into it. When I look at it I think, “What a lovely Franciscan color scheme,” because the reddish and greenish mixture of metamorphosed argillite and chert is so typical of our coastal Northern California rocks. I also think fondly of the red-and-green gravel of Rodeo Beach.