… I was surprised to find some really interesting buildings. That, in itself, isn’t odd–San Francisco is full of interesting and odd buildings–but this particular cluster of buildings looked to be some kind of small cluster of Streamline Moderne buildings. Did I find a previously unknown example of this particular style of architecture that was popular in the 1930s?
Here are the pictures I took. What would you think when you walked down the street past these? Would they attract your eye the way they did mine?
Naturally, when I got home, I did a little SearchResearch, and was really surprised by what I found!
What’s more, in walking around near these buildings I found a few other things worthy of note. (And I thought, what a great Challenge! So far as I know, these aren’t exactly on anyone’s tourist route of San Francisco, although perhaps they should be.)
So, for today, I have 3 research Challenges for you:
1. When were these buildings constructed? Are they, in fact, from the era of Streamline Moderne?
2. What’s the controversy around these buildings?
3. As I kept walking in this neighborhood, near this building cluster I accidentally discovered a mural by a very famous muralist. (Seeing it was one of those shocking moments: That’s HERE?? You’re kidding!) What is the name of the nearby mural? Who painted it? And how far is it from these buildings?
4. Extra credit: If you figure out the mural, you’ll find this one easy… Very near the mural is a sculpture that is a reduction (in scale) of a VERY large sculpture that once appeared on Treasure Island. What’s the name of that sculpture (and hence, of the smaller version) near the mural?
I’ll save you the study of extracting the lat/long, it’s: 37.728161, -122.451303
This Challenge is a study in linking data from the cues you can get from the images, to the clues for the next Research Challenge in the chain of questions.
I hope you enjoy researching this as much as I did walking around and discovering beautiful things in the city.
Let us know your answers in the comments below–and when you write up your solution, be sure to tell us HOW you got from step-to-step.
Search on!
(And welcome back to SearchResearch:2016! The project I mentioned working on is still in progress. Stay tuned.)
