California Hall

625 Polk St. | map |

Opened: 1912 as the home of Deutsches Haus-Gesellschaft, a Germanic organization incorporated in 1908, also known as the German House Association. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for the research. He notes that the DHG monogram is still above the original entrance doors, now with more modern doors out closer to the sidewalk.

The building is on the northwest corner of Polk and Turk St. One director of the organization was Adolf Becker, owner of the Odeon Cafe on Market St. at Eddy. 

 

A pennant commemorating the March 24, 1912 opening. Thanks to John Freeman for sharing the image. 

It was renamed California Hall during World War I. Thanks to Art Siegel for finding a mention of the name change in the September 12, 1918 issue of the Marysville Daily Appeal via the California Digital Newspaper Collection. The copy: 

"Change 'German House' to 'California House.' San Francisco, Cal. Sept 10. The German House Association has been given permission by Superior Judge Edmund Mogen to change the name of its building at Polk and Turk streets here to 'California Hall.'"

Architect: Frederick H. Meyer. With John Galen Howard and John W. Reid, Jr. he designed what is now called the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (1915). Meyer also did a 1931 deco remodel of the Excelsior / Granada Theatre in the Mission district. 

 

Capacity: 2,000 in the main auditorium. There were also four social halls, a restaurant, a bar room, a banquet hall, a four-lane bowling alley and five lodge rooms.  

Stage: 26' deep, 66' wall to wall with about a 35' proscenium. They had fly capability with a fly gallery strangely positioned upstage right.

 

A drawing of the building appearing in "Das Deutsche Haus," a 20 page c.1911 booklet in the Harvard Library collection. There are also plans for four different levels. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for locating it. The text of the booklet is in both German and English. 

 

The cover illustration for a 44 page December 1912 booklet, "Gedenkblätter zur Eröffnungs Feier des Deutschen Hauses" that was issued by the organization. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for locating it in the Harvard Library collection. 

 

 

A 1st floor plan. In the center it's the main auditorium. The "Entertainment Hall No.1" is to the left, the bar room to the right. Image: 1912 commemorative booklet

 

The main auditorium. That's a set onstage, not the back wall. Image: 1912 booklet

 

The rear of the auditorium. Image: 1912 booklet

 

A view from the balcony. Image: 1912 booklet

 

The Entertainment Hall No. 1. We're on the main floor with those doors on the right going into the main auditorium. Image: 1912 booklet

 

 

The 2nd floor plan. Note the wrap-around balcony of the main auditorium. We also get restrooms, two buffet rooms and three social halls, one with a small stage. Image: 1912 booklet

 

 

A plan of the 3rd and 4th floors. In the center we see skylights over the main auditorium and the grid above the stage. There are five lodge halls on the left and along the bottom. Image: 1912 booklet

 

The banquet hall in the basement. Image: 1912 booklet

 

The basement plan. The large room is the banquet hall with the kitchen at the rear. At the bottom it's a bowling alley. Above on the left is the restaurant. Image: 1912 booklet

 

A 1921 view by an unknown photographer taken from Larkin and Turk. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating this in the Open SF History Project collection. Also see a similar 1921 shot from street level. Their caption on this one: 

"Elevated view northwest to line of Haynes automobiles extending two blocks on Turk St.; California Hall in background; At right, Hotel Belmont 730 Eddy; St. Mark's Lutheran Church on hill. Adams School, 750 Eddy Street (built 1910), later part of City College of San Francisco, peak-roofed building at right."  

Another 1921 photo. Thanks to John Freeman for sharing this one from his collection. 

 

 

In 1956 the building was home to the Turnabout Theatre operation of the Yale Puppeteers. 

 

A Polk St. entrance view is from the Turnabout Collection at the Los Angeles Public Library.

The format was to use reversible trolleycar seats with half the performance featuring a marionette stage at one end of the space. At intermission the seats would get flipped and there would be a revue with live actors on a stage at the other end. From 1941 until early 1956 they had been at the Turnabout Theatre on La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles.  

 

The space used by the Turnabout Troupe as their Green Room where refreshments were served during intermission. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo. In their caption they note that that this area had once been a bar. 

 

A puppet display. It's a Los Angeles Public Library photo. 

After leaving California Hall they moved to the 430 Mason St. basement space in the Stage Door Theatre building. They closed  there on January 13, 1957 and went on to an engagement in Balboa Park in San Diego. 

More photos related to the Turnabout troupe's time in San Francisco can be seen via a search for "Turnabout San Francisco" on the Los Angeles Public Library website. Also see "Life on a String," the Library's site based on their collection of Yale Puppeteers and Turnabout Theatre memorabilia.

From the 1960s into the early 1980s California Hall was used as a venue for concerts and other events. See a list on the Concert History of California site. 

 

A 1975 photo by Max Aguilera-Hellwig of Arnold Schwarzenegger that's in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Thanks to Max for sharing it. His story: 

"I don’t have the date, but it was fall 1975. I was 19, and working in the darkroom at Rolling Stone, I read in the newspaper that a bodybuilding exhibition was coming to town. I didn’t know anything about bodybuilding, but my idol was the photographer Diane Arbus and she had a photograph of a muscleman in her book and I wanted a picture of a muscleman too. I showed up at the event and told the organizers I was on assignment for RS and they gave me a backstage pass. 

"The event was a Mr. San Francisco Contest, and afterwards, an exhibition with some more renown body builders. There was a film crew there shooting the documentary, that would become 'Pumping Iron.' I had no idea who Arnold was, I paid no attention to the film crew, at one point, driven by the architecture, the lighting that was California Hall, when Arnold went onstage and began to pose, I went behind the rear curtain, the overlap, where the left and right splits and stuck out my 24mm Nikon lens mid state. 

"The 'Pumping Iron' cameraman was stage right, and was waving his arms wildly, waving me away. I kept shooting. Shortly, he joined me, and shot the same angle from above."

Visit Max's website:aguilerahellweg.com

 Art Siegel notes: 

"Pretty sure the SF Superior Court used it for extra courtrooms in the 80s or 90s. Also, the basement Rathskeller was the site of an infamous police party that happened in 1985 and was a catalyst for police reform. "Department Rocked By Scandal" was in the April 15 L.A. Times."

In the 1990s the California Culinary Academy used the building.

Status: It's now used by the Academy of Art University - School of Fashion. 

Thanks to Kevin Walsh for his research on this one!

A 2010 photo appearing on the Noe Hill page about California Hall. 

More information: A gallery of poster art from the venue's period as a concert hall can be seen on the site Chicken On a Unicycle from Ross Hannan and Corry Arnold. Thanks to Kevin Walsh for locating it. 

The Rock and Roll Photography by Chester Simpson site has a gallery of photos from a 1980 concert at California Hall by Siouxsie and the Banshees. 

An hour and 10 minutes of U2 May 15, 1981 concert footage is on YouTube. Thanks to Brian Martin for locating it. Several shots of an October 1981 Wasted Youth concert are on the Open SF History Project site.

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