Yesterday a proposed skybridge that would connect Twitter's Market Street office with the building in back, 875 Stevenson, a.k.a. One Tenth, was approved unanimously at the Historic Preservation Commission. Twitter's landlord, Shorenstein Properties, is really the one proposing the bridge, as the San Francisco Examiner notes, and the connector would likely add further value to the property, which the developer is currently trying to unload for a 600 percent profit. When the plans first came to light, critics of the tech industry's impact in San Francisco were handed a perfect metaphor for tech exceptionalism, in the image of Twitter employees literally held above the heads of lesser Mid-Market pedestrians by a gleaming lattice of glass, metal, and privilege.
Whether or not that's true is a question better left to the engineers, but as far as the historians are concerned, the new bridge is merely a replacement for the seismically unfit one that was taken down in 2012. It's also more petite than the old one, with just one level in place of the seven that used to be there.
Next up, the Planning Commission, which will assess the skybridge at a hearing in early August.
· Twitter's 'Skybridge' Gets Initial Approval [SF Examiner]
· Twitter's Landlord Lining Up Huge Payday [SF Business Times]
· Twitter Building a "Skybridge" So Employees Don't Have to Go Downstairs [Valleywag]
· Twitter's Proposed Skybridge Isn't Any More Isolationist Than the One That Used to Be There [Curbed SF]
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