PROWLER INC. ON THE TEAM FOR “STATE OF THE ART” FIREHOUSE

The new station’s location will speed most response times. It will be built to modern standards (including LEED silver), and will better house the fire fighters and their equipment.

In return for the site of the current station and a small piece of alleyway, SFMOMA will design, finance, and build the new fire house. Net value of the Museum’s gift to the City: over $10 million. The current site would then be available for inclusion in the Museum’s expansion.

It’s a great marriage of public safety and art, what the Mayor calls a “double gift to the people of San Francisco”.

While the Fire Commission has given a conceptual approval, no decision on whether to demolish existing buildings or to build either the Museum expansion or new fire station can be made until the environmental review process is concluded.

David Prowler is helping out the Fire Department and SFMOMA with strategic planning and government and community relations. Meeting with neighbors, public officials, advocacy groups, and leaders in both the SFMOMA and new firehouse neighborhoods, he is ensuring support for the projects.

Prowler Inc. has in the past ten years served municipal clients including the San Francisco Department of Building Inspections, Mayor’s Office of Community Development, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and the San Francisco Department of Public Health. In addition, David Prowler has the rare experience of having negotiated a previous public-private partnership for a City facility: the Glen Park library.

For more information on the fire station, check out this piece from the Chronicle.

And for more on Prowler, Inc.'s work for SFMOMA, click here.

HAIKU RESULTS

We have a winner...

The last issue of Prowler News linked to a recent David Prowler photo essay for the Urbanist Magazine, 6 Haikus about SF’s Renegade Buildings. And a contest was launched for readers to submit architectural haikus of their own, winner to receive a copy of Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities.

We have a winner – and an excuse to run this great photograph from Barcelona, submitted with the winning entry:

The winning haiku:

Outdo your neighbor
Barcelona Discord Block
Lizard skin hands down

by Jeff Marcowitz, President of Project Management Advisors (David Prowler worked with PMA on One Rincon Hill.)

Thanks to runners-up Marc Delany and Maya Pollack.

1:  These buildings used to be across the street from what local landmark?

1. Transamerica Pyramid
2. Transbay Terminal
3. Ferry Building
4. The End Up

1. 20 pages
2. 120 pages
3. 50 pages
4. 800 pages

1. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus—Jimmy Boyd (1953)
2. I Want to Hold Your Hand—The Beatles (1964)
3. Lady Marmalade—LaBelle (1975)
4. Getting Jiggy Wit It—Will Smith (1998)

1. 5
2. 11
3. 18
4. 70

SUGGESTED READING—JOHN KING

Past issues of Prowler News have referred readers to Jane Jacobs, The Talking Heads’ David Bryne, and a piece from the Atlantic Magazine about the effects of demographic changes on cities.

This time, a recommendation closer to home: the columns of John King. Nobody agrees with all of them, but John always provokes thoughts and helps us to see San Francisco in a new way. Like this from a recent column:

An "authentic" city doesn't behave like we want; it prods us and baffles us and eludes our control. We may want it to stand still, like House of Shields. But it never does - and that's part of the allure.

John’s columns are fair, nuanced, refreshing, and often poetic. He doesn’t just cover design, but also covers the politics that shape how the city around us looks. We're lucky to have him.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS — Prowler News: