Febuary 10, 1995
Dear Everyone:
Spring has sprung. After a month
of steady rain, followed by relatively warm days, the greenies and the
growies around here have determined that winter has ended, virtually
before it began. Everything is
budding and blossoming ferociously.
Except for the garden outside my San Francisco office building. The garden is gone, temporarily.
It will be returned (we’re told)
after the Renovation Project is completed.
The Renovation Project is
intended to do a facelift on the front of our building, 575 “Mirabel
Street” and the side of the next building, 555 “Mirabel Street”.
Both of these buildings belong to
Company Real Estate Management Company, CREMCO (pronounced krem-ko, and
you're right, it does sound like something made by
Nabisco).
CREMCO has suddenly decided that
the front of 575 and the side of 555 need to be renovated and the garden
between them totally redone.
The lobby at 575 will be redone and the entrance moved to phase 555,
with a bridge between the two, arching over the garden. What was wrong with the old
lobby? Absolutely nothing. Were
the marble walls threatening to collapse?
Of course not. Was the
two-story high ceiling going to come crashing down on our heads?
Not likely.
Was there something wrong with
entering the building at the front? Not
for 20 years there wasn't. (I was
one of the first people to occupy this building when it first opened in
1975.)
So why does the lobby need to be redone?
“Freddy’s” coming.
CREMCO recently completed the sale of the Company’s World Headquarters
building on "Beelzebub Street" and that means that CEO “Frederick U Johnson”
and his cohorts have to move out. Where
will they move to? Guess.
You got it. To the top floors of
575, thus evicting those people who have been enjoying one of the most
spectacular views of the
City. Want
to take any bets on whether or not “Freddy” gets a corner office
overlooking the Bay?
Meanwhile, down here on earth, the Lobby Renovation Project has, well,
taken over the lobby. The marble
walls are encased in plywood, turning the entryway into a tiny tunnel
(covered with more wood and plastic sheets) which leads to another tiny
tunnel where the elevators are hiding in dark little cul-de-sacs.
It's not unlike entering a maze,
albeit a very short one, made more interesting by the fact that at least
two of the elevators in each bank will be out of commission from now
until October. But you never know
which two.
More of the renovation.
I feel sorry for the security guards who are sandwiched into this little
space. On the other hand, they
do have a kind of "window" cut into the plywood, so they can see out
to the heavy construction equipment, just inches on the other side of
the glass and the big, muddy hole that used to be the garden.
I have no doubt that, in time, they will finish and the garden and lobby
will be better than ever. I also
believe that the
680-24 Interchange Improvement Project will be
completed in my lifetime, that the
Beatles will eventually get back
together again, and that no one in their right mind would make a movie
based on The Brady Bunch.
We live in hope.
Love, as always,
Pete
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