Forget the Golden Gate Bridge, here are Bay Area locals' treasured landmarks

“By courtesy of this free-wheeling and apparently absolute municipal oligarchy, a tombstone for the ordinance … will soon rise on the roof of the building at 801 Third St.,” The Chronicle protested. “An animated pop art marker in the form of a dog’s head, ten feet high and revolving at the solemn rate of five revolutions per minute.”

That Doggie Diner head went on to become a beloved symbol, worthy of celebration, mourning and finally preservation. One more unexpected treasure, for a beautiful and picturesque city that falls in love with its offbeat signs and landmarks in every form.

Outsiders have blinders on for the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid and Alcatraz. But native San Franciscans claim their own landmarks, which arguably have done even more to give the city its unique texture.

The tourists can have the crookedest street in the world. We prefer to cherish Sutro Tower and that monstrous Hunters Point crane and shed another tear over the demise of ugly-yet-beloved Candlestick Park. Yes, we’d take the opulent Fox Theatre back if we could. But we’d also like another day to gaze upon the garish Hamm’s Brewery chalice, filling and emptying endlessly just off the Central Freeway.

Unique signs and landmarks have been part of San Francisco from its earliest years, when the city seemed to be sold to the highest bidder. Pioneering businesses from the City of Paris department store to the Bank of Italy created unique logos, which they printed in newspapers and early flyers.

The boldest early move can be found in The Chronicle archives in 1901, when an ambitious advertising professional painted the words “Cook’s Water” in giant white letters on Twin Peaks, making the miracle cure for “bladder troubles, rheumatism, etc.” easily visible from the Ferry Building on a clear day.

照片显示,到1904年,大部分市场街plastered with advertising. Every side of a building that didn’t have windows — and a few that did — carried ads for businesses such as the Owl Drug Co. and “E. Mansbach — Importer of Fancy Goods.” Wieland’s Beer appeared to be the Anheuser-Busch of the era. The largest sign on the street, six stories tall, declared to San Francisco in bold letters, “Oh My! But Wieland’s Beer Is Good.”

上面的大部分毁于1906 earthquake and fire. Then a strange thing happened: The nostalgia remained. The Cook’s Water sign, no doubt considered an eyesore when it went up, was remembered fondly by readers as late as 1953.

And that’s the current state of San Francisco, where any unsightly addition to the landscape is likely to become beloved in a generation or less. South San Francisco has, through its nearly 100-year history, been an industrial city less than half that time. But no one would think to touch the huge white lettering on the side of San Bruno Mountain, erected in 1929, declaring, “SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO THE INDUSTRIAL CITY,” for anyone who drives north on the Peninsula with their eyes open.

Sutro Tower may be the best example of this phenomenon. Conceived in the 1960s and built in the mid-1970s, it was arguably protested more loudly and furiously than any project in that century.

“For better or worse, till cablevision or satellite do us part, most Bay Area viewers will receive television pictures from the ugly new Iron Monster of Mt. Sutro beginning at 6:30 a.m. on the Fourth of July,” The Chronicle’s Dwight Newton wrote in a July 1, 1973, video column.

“A clumsy metal colossus,” “a brooding ungainly crane” and “Godzilla in a waist-cincher” are other descriptions that appeared in the newspaper.

但慢慢地,几乎不可能,考虑到original response, the tower was embraced. It’s the logo for several San Francisco businesses, from online radio station Bff.fm to the high-performance bike company Soma Fabrications. Walk around San Francisco’s less-touristy neighborhoods, and you will see far more Sutro Tower tattoos than permanent ink of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This from Elly Jonez, a San Francisco resident with Sutro tattooed across her back: “That thing wouldneverget built (in the present day) — can you imagine?” Jonez told The Chronicle in 2012. “I kind of see it as a symbol of San Francisco’s madness in some weird way. Yet another bad idea we’ve all grown to love.”

No one loved the “17 Reasons Why” billboard when it was erected in the 1930s at 17th and Mission streets in San Francisco, as an advertisement for the long-since-forgotten Redlicks home furnishings store. (“Better values … better service … just some of the 17 REASONS WHY.”)

Redlicks went out of business in 1975, but the sign remained for more than a quarter century, becoming a spiritual motto of sorts for new generations of thoughtful Mission residents. When it was dismantled in 2002, the sign was saved and carefully preserved by Stephen Parr of the San Francisco Media Archive.

Too bad the Mr. Peanut sign didn’t receive the same consideration. The giant sentry outside the Planters Peanut factory off the Bayshore Freeway on Paul Avenue greeted a generation of travelers coming from the Peninsula — a sign that you were near Grandma’s house, or your Zimburger was just a couple of stops away.

The last sighting of Mr. Peanut was in this Aug. 22, 1976, classified advertisement in The Chronicle: “SIGN Mr. PEANUT for sale. 20ft. tall as see from Bayshore Fwy. Eves. 364-5005.” Please let us know if it’s sitting in your garage.

As beloved as Mr. Peanut was by the children of San Francisco, it was trumped by the glory of the Hamm’s Brewery sign near Seals Stadium. Before “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Star Wars,” this was our greatest special effect. The neon glass was a beacon of light in the center of the city, seemingly filling and emptying with golden light, until it was removed by a crane in 1975 — and like Mr. Peanut seemed to disappear into the ether.

The only eulogy at the time was a short mention in a Herb Caen column (“Add vanishing landmarks: the 25-foot beer glass complete with 5,000 bulbs and steam that adorned the Rainier and then Hamm’s Brewery since 1954 …”). In the 40 years since, no fewer than three tributes have been written by Chronicle writers, plus a profile about a San Francisco man who has painted dozens of portraits of the old landmark.

While the Hamm’s chalice disappeared, at least nostalgic San Franciscans can still visit that Jet Plane play structure on 19th Avenue. The decommissioned F-8 Crusader was made into a kid-friendly climbing toy, then spent more than 15 years on display at the Sunset District’s Larsen Park playground from 1975 to 1992. (Two other fighter planes preceded it.)

Bent, broken and covered in graffiti by the early 1990s, it was dumped by the Navy on the Pacific Coast Air Museum in Santa Rosa, where military aviation buffs carefully restored it to its former glory.

Lasting a little longer were the Union 76 clock tower and the Hills Bros. Coffee sign — with its man in a nightgown — both visible from the San Francisco approach to the Bay Bridge. They were removed in the 1980s and 1990s.

San Francisco purists might wish that the Vaillancourt Fountain was taken instead. But that piece of public art in Justin Herman Plaza, memorably compared to a deposit by “a giant concrete dog with square intestines” by Chronicle architecture critic Allan Temko, will someday be missed as well. It was the backdrop for the birth of street skateboarding in San Francisco, and then the graffiti wall for U2’s 1987 free concert. (“Rock and Roll Stops the Traffic!” Whatever that means.)

No doubt we’ve missed one of your favorite obscure San Francisco signs and landmarks. The Cow Palace lettering visible from Geneva Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard? The Julius Castle on Telegraph Hill? The Carol Doda sign at the Condor in North Beach? The old Sherman Clay sign on Mission Street?

The great part is, they’re constantly being replaced. No doubt a few Millennials will pine for the days of the blinky Yahoo sign near Seventh Street off the Central Freeway, or fight for its preservation. Meanwhile, public art is in many ways becoming the new Hamm’s Brewery sign.

The “Cupid’s Span” bow and arrow sculpture on the Embarcadero at Folsom Street was initially criticized when built in 2002, but it will one day become beloved. Old murals in the Mission District mix with new ones — perhaps our continued fascination with this street art is one of the 17 Reasons Why.

And then there’s the Doggie Diner head, now considered a classic part of San Francisco history — a beloved connection to thousands of happy childhoods. When the last standing Doggie Diner head toppled in 2000, one preservationist stood over its bashed fiberglass nose and cried. The Department of Public Works bought the head, fans raised funds for its restoration, and it rests on a pole on Sloat Boulevard. Even The Chronicle cheered its return.

From eyesore-that-must-go-now to San Francisco Landmark #254. One more unexpected landmark from the city that can’t stand to throw anything away.

Chronicle librarian Bill Van Niekerken contributed to the research of this chapter.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle pop culture critic. E-mail: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub