Rendering of the 25 story development proposed for the site of the Marina Safeway. Photo courtesy of Arquitectonica.
Much ado has been made about the new Marina Safeway designs. The current building is an iconic building, and few know its origins.
The “Marina style” has since been mimicked in Safeways around the country, but ours was the first. It opened in July 1959. The style was designed by architects Wurstser, Bernardi, & Emmons. When it opened, it was such a big deal that it was even part of Nina Krushchev’s tour of San Francisco. Too bad it was so crowded she only stopped in the parking lot! (For readers who don’t recognize that Cold War name, look her up!)
Screenshot of the Chronicle article, courtesy of research tools on SFPL
When the Safeway opened, it was called “a landmark which will not soon be surpassed.” The entrances had gorgeous murals from local artist John Garth, and the store featured things that were considered innovative at the time. For example, the butchers debuted prepackaged meat, weighed and wrapped and stickered in advance. And they even employed a full-time home economist, Nancy Cole, who helped give advice on menus.
Cole was a Cornell graduate and the first of her kind, moving from Nyack, New York for the role.
Screenshot of the Chronicle article, courtesy of research tools on SFPL
Garth’s murals, too, were a treat. They were made up of more than 150,000 pieces of colored glass from Italy and mosaic tile from Japan. His teen daughters Elizabeth and Kathy often helped. The murals depicted “world sources of food” and local artists and tastemakers even got a pre-opening tour to check them out!
Safeway was named such because during the Great Depression, families could potentially land in debt just by purchasing food. Sounds familiar to some of us these days (thanks Trump).
Believe it or not, that Safeway was also opposed by Marina residents. And yet it got approved anyway by the Board of Appeals in January of that year.
It was the end of a lengthy battle over zoning. The land was owned by PG&E and then sold to Safeway. Before becoming a grocery store, it was zoned for heavy industrial use. The case went everywhere from the City Attorney’s office to the Board of Supervisors, and in the end Safeway won.
Over the following decades, many Safeways would be built in the airy, unique style. Now they’re so common people don’t realize how special they looked! And much the same, here’s a hot take:
The new Safeway designs look pretty iconic, too. Imagine if they set off a trend just like the 1959 version! Instead of pioneering things like prepackaged meat, we could be one of the first cities to pioneer something like innovative housing and grocery design, all with a pretty darn cool aesthetic that seems to incorporate nature, give grand views of the Bay, make space for affordable housing, and draw enough controversy to land us back in the press. Which might be a good thing — the last thing we need is to become a sleepy seaside town that’s never in the news for our kooky charm.
The new Safeway looks cool. Let’s see if they actually build it.
