Hello, Old Friend

To call San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid “iconic” seems woefully inadequate. When it opened in 1972, the tower, named for the insurance and financial services giant that built it, was (and still is) one of the most recognizable buildings in the world (and for many in the Bay area, one of the most beloved). At 48 stories and 853 ft, it was also one of the world’s tallest (No. 8 at the time), and is a tourist attraction in its own right. The Pyramid is in the news because, according to Yahoo! Finance, investors purchasing it officially closed on the deal this week, at a sale price of US$650 million (just a little more than the 1972 construction cost of $US32 million). As the country’s largest commercial real estate transaction since the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, observers see the purchase as a huge endorsement for San Francisco, even as recent headlines have played up an exodus from the city. The buyers plan to invest in the property “and return it to its glory days,” the source said. This is welcome news to ELEVATOR WORLD, which has reported on the landmark ever since way back in the day.

When we visited the iconic tower as it was under construction (EW, August 1972), we were given an update on the elevators’ safety systems, which included firefighters’ control and “equipment designed to withstand both horizontal and vertical seismic forces” — a pretty good idea in earthquake-prone San Francisco. Earlier that year, we noted that Otis, the vertical-transportation (VT) supplier, made the Transamerica Pyramid the first skyscraper west of Chicago to have sky lobbies (EW, June 1972). The tower’s VT system was also notable for its “inside-outside” elevators (EW, February 1971): up to the 29th floor, elevator cars run through the core of the building and, above that, run within “narrow vertical pop-outs or wings on two sides of the tower.” Such innovations, and its one-of-a-kind architecture, made the Pyramid a truly newsworthy achievement nearly 50 years ago. Hopefully, before long we’ll have new reports on a modernized and technologically updated VT system to share with you.

Reference

[1] Wikipedia, “Transamerica Pyramid“