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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika That we have been living in San Francisco for over 20 years is also evident in how the skyline of San Francisco has changed over the years. Our apartment offers a great view of the city, and the skyscrapers have steadily increased over the years, so much so that the popular Transamerica Pyramid is almost swallowed up by the new glass towers. The new so-called Salesforce Tower, which opened in May, dominates everything now. Ironically, the company Salesforce didn't even exist 20 years ago when we moved to San Francisco. And now the latest skyscraper is named after the company that has rented most of the offices in the building, and you guessed it, "Salesforce." The skyscraper, at 1070 feet, is not only the tallest building in San Francisco but also the second tallest west of the Mississippi. It now surpasses the Transamerica Pyramid by 216 feet, which had been the tallest building in San Francisco since 1972.
Salesforce Tower really follows us around at every turn in the city, and you almost get startled when its somewhat bulky-looking tip suddenly juts out as if from nowhere. In the evenings, the tip lights up in all sorts of colors thanks to the light show consisting of 11,000 LED lights created by video artist Jim Campbell. It looks almost eerie when the tip emerges from the fog and seems to float on it. The street address of the Salesforce Tower is 415 Mission St., right in the heart of Downtown San Francisco and directly next to the new Transbay Transit Center, our regional bus hub.
The situation is not entirely without danger, as the building sits on ground of soft soil and sand, and the skyscraper is just a stone's throw away from the shore of the San Francisco Bay. In the event of an earthquake, however, soft ground can become a problem. Soft soil can sink during an earthquake and easily cause buildings to collapse. For this reason, tall skyscrapers were not particularly popular among the population of San Francisco for a long time, but the shortage of housing and office buildings has triggered a real construction boom.
There are now 160 buildings in San Francisco that are higher than 210 feet meters, and more are already in planning. All of them are located in downtown, in close proximity to each other, which is also risky in the event of an earthquake. Of course, everything is supposedly built to be earthquake-proof with the latest technology, but ultimately, the whole thing has not been tested in real life, only on paper or in computer simulations. Earthquakes are always unpredictable. And the fact that the Millennium skyscraper, another building which is not far from the Salesforce Tower, has been sinking for years and already has a measurable imbalance, doesn't exactly calm our nerves either.
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