Mechanics Pavilion
Location: block Polk/Hayes/Larkin/Grove (now Civic Auditorium).
The Mechanics Pavilion was the exhibition hall of the Mechanics Institue. The first Mechanics Pavilion was built on Union Square in 1864 (first image below). A larger Mechanics Pavilion was built next to City Hall in 1882. It was the first major indoor arena in San Francisco, seating nearly 11,000. Mechanics Pavilion became a temporary hospital and morgue when the 4/18/1906 earthquake seriously damaged Central Emergency Hospital in the basement of City Hall, but it was hastily evacuated the following morning as the Ham and Eggs fire approached. City Hall and the Pavilion burned at about 1 PM on the 19th. The Mechanics Institute sold the Pavilion block to the city in 1912 for $700,000. The city built San Francisco Civic Auditorium (now Bill Graham Civic Auditorium) on the site for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
Images:
Stereoviews:
See also:
- thedaleyplanet.net
- FoundSF.org
- Mechanics Institue
- Sanborn 1885 [V. 2 sheet 46L]
- Sanborn 1905 [V. 1 sheet 96]
- sfmuseum.net
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