San Francisco #2-City of Paris

To all I've ever admonished to go to the Neiman Marcus while visiting San Francisco here's a picture I took this morning of the incredible stained glass ceiling above the rotunda.

Before the site was occupied by Neimans it was the dowager department store in San Francisco called "City of Paris". Here's a bit of background:

It was 1850 when the Verdier brothers, immigrants from France, opened a store aboard the ship La Ville de Paris to serve the Argonauts passing through San Francisco's harbor. In 1896 the business, which stayed in the family for over a century and a quarter, moved into a new building designed by architect Clinton Day, damaged by the 1906 earthquake, its interior was reconstructed by architects John Bakewell and Arthur J. Brown. The old City of Paris building was one of the finest examples of the beaux-arts style of commercial building in California.

Neiman Marcus bought the building in the early '70s. I understand from a long time SF resident that one of the provisions of the sale was that the stained glass be saved.

When Neimans tore down the building they had the glass taken apart piece by piece, shipped somewhere for refurbishment and installed in their new building. It's worth a trip to Union Square just to see this.