The 3-4 story red-brown building used for I's office has the peculiar feature of appearing to allow wonderfully high views of SF - one constantly sees views through the semi-circular windows of scenes FAR below.
btw - This building looks very familiar from some other show - was it McMillan and Wife?
That (actually five story) structure was the "Old" (second) San Francisco Hall Of Justice building. It was designed by San Francisco City Architect Newton J. Tharp in 1910 and erected shortly after the first Hall Of Justice Building was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. As a result of that major disaster Tharp and his department were assigned the overwhelming task of designing the concrete and steel reinforced replacement structures for all of the city's demolished civic buildings including the present city hall. Shortly after all the principle stock footage of the old Hall had been filmed in the early Fall of 1967 which was fully utilized in the first and second seasons of Ironside (then only spartanly employed during the remaining five and a half seasons of the series), the structure was demolished and a large monolithic Holiday Inn building with flying buttresses on either side was built in its place. That structure continues to be a part of the city scape to this day, although it is no longer a Holiday Inn. It occupies precisely every square inch of not only the real estate on which the old Hall was situated, but also Dunbar Alley directly behind the old Hall as well as the old structure's adjoining sister building, the old City And County Jail Building. The property is located on the west side of Kearny Street, shoe horned as it were, immediately between Washington and Merchant streets. In the late 1970's I was humbly blessed to have been able to have made for me through an official of the then San Francisco Bureau Of Architecture, copies of every last one of the original architectural blueprints Mr. Tharp and his department created and produced for the construction of each of those magnificently beautiful old buildings.
Amy Grant * I Will Remember You - Rhythm Remix Vietnam War Casualties Memorium Promo Music Video
Thanks for the info - most interesting - will be in SF in June (from Finland) - and will try to take a look at what's there now.
But still wonder about the phonied up the window views (yup - anyhow looked good).
And also do seem to recall seeing the building in other show(s). McMillan?
The north end fourth story Romanesque window of the main western facing facade of the old Hall which was zoomed in on as seen in stock daytime footage of the building used throughout the series' run was in reality where the Hall's Grand Jury Room was located. In the late 1950's while the structure was still in use by the city, the District Attorney and his staff had recently outgrown their assigned rooms at the opposite (read: mirror) end of the same floor from the Grand Jury Room and were relocated within an office building beyond a city park directly across from the main facade of the old Hall on the west side of Kearny Street. The Romanesque window of the principle vacated D.A. office located at that opposite (or south) end of the fourth floor was zoomed in upon within the only sequence which ever depicted the exterior of the building in the made-for-television motion picture pilot for Ironside, more believably indicating to those in the know that the Chief's office/living quarters occupied the D.A.'s former rooms at the south end of the building. That segment of film was a rare unused vintage color piece of footage made in the very early 1960's of the main front exterior of the old Hall. It was produced for a never released motion picture that was extensively filmed on location withn the building and which was to star well known veteran actor, Edmund O'Brien. The film was entitled, "Never Plead Guilty" (based upon a published book of the same name regarding the career of then famed San Francisco attorney, Jake Erlich). Other than that production the first floor exterior of the Hall was seen in a few seconds of footage of a classic Orsen Welles motion picture featuring the actor/director's then estranged wife, motion picture actress, Rita Hayworth in a pivotal antagonist role with her normally beautiful long red tresses cut in a stylish page boy and dyed bleach blond. The only other time the building was used in film--be it motion pictures or television, was in the late 1940's murder trial feature film, "Impact," starring veteran motion picture actor, Brian Donlevy. That production contained essential location footage which depicted a good segment of the lower portion of the Hall's main facade, its main entrance vestibule, pan footage from that access point following one of the principle characters as she left the building, then crossed the street in pursuit of another character in the film's story line, and just prior to that a segment showing the same two characters entering the building's actual main third floor corridor from the adjacent Kearny Street side two story high Superior Court Room, then crossing through the corridor on over to descend the building's actual main staircase.
Amy Grant * I Will Remember You - Rhythm Remix Vietnam War Casualties Memorium Promo Music Video
Thanks for all the detail! I'll have to re-view the series - it just seemed to me that the views were from much higher up than 5 floors.
In any case a fine structure - and amazed we haven't learned how to rehabilitate rather than destroy. The stuff destroyed in my native NY - and even here in the supposed architect-friendly country of Finland - will bring eternal damnation.
What was the RH film? The Lady from Shanghai?
Yes, it was indeed "The Lady From Shanghai! Sorry I didn't see that last inquiry of yours till now!
Amy Grant * I Will Remember You - Rhythm Remix Vietnam War Casualties Memorium Promo Music Video
The window views played an important part in some of the stories, because when Ironside was troubled about something and couldn't sleep, he would wheel himself over to one of the windows to look out to the city.
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