Phelan Building

The Phelan Building is an eleven-story, cream-colored structure with a distinctive triangular shape that narrows to a sharp point at the intersection of Market Street, O'Farrell Street, and Grant Avenue. Designed by architect William Curlett and completed in nineteen oh eight, the building stands on a site previously occupied by an eighteen eighty-one structure of the same name. That earlier building was severely damaged in the nineteen oh six earthquake and fire and was subsequently dynamited. James D. Phelan, who financed the reconstruction, intended the new edifice to serve as a defiant symbol of the city's recovery.