The waterfront building at the foot of Mission Street was built by Hipolyte d'Audiffred in a Parisian style to remind him of his home in France.

It is one of the few downtown commercial buildings to survive the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, and according to legend, it was saved by the resident saloon keeper of The Bulkhead. As the great fire approached the waterfront, the dynamite crew was about to create a firebreak by blowing up the building. The saloon keeper offered the crew a hose cart full of wine and two quarts of whiskey each to spare the building. The building was spared by both the crew and the fire.

The building's luck held true for the next significant quake, Loma Prieta in 1989. For nearly half a century, poor Audiffred had hunkered down in the dark squalor of the Embarcadero Freeway, unlovely and unloved. The quake damaged the freeway to the extent that it was eventually demolished after the years of political posturing mandatory for all matters of San Francisco public policy.

Since 1993, the Audiffred Building has been the worthy host to Boulevard, voted the Bay Area's favorite restaurant for the past six years by the Zagat survey.

The streetcar in the top photograph was built in 1923 and is the "Streetcar Named Desire" salvaged by the Market Street Railway from the New Orleans fleet.