San Francisco Landmarks

San Francisco Landmark #150: Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall 23 December 2011
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San Francisco Landmark #150
Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall
224-226 Guerrero Street Between 14th and 15th Streets
Built 1906

Built in 1906 by Local 104 of the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, this was the first building in California especially constructed to house a trade union.

The union offices were on the second floor. The ground floor was rented to a saloon keeper whose bar was happily patronized by the tinsmiths and the members of the Building Trades Temple next door.

By 1980, Local 104 had outgrown the hall. The union sold the building and moved to the old Pitney-Bowes building on Market Street.

The hall still stands in all its old glory except for its missing emblem - a zinc eagle on a ball that perched atop the building as a symbol of sheet metal artistry and trade union power. After the building was sold, some members came one night, as the story goes, and removed the eagle from the roof and took it to its new downtown hall where it was displayed in a fine case.

Source: History of the North Mission SF Neighborhood

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