Monday, August 14, 2023

The Official Name is the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building

2007: I didn't care for the appearance of the Federal Building then,
but at least it didn't have today's open-air drug dealing outside.
When the Federal Building opened in 2007, it was hailed as a model of "green" architecture. Through a process still mysterious to this observer, the building would reduce power consumption in the summer by an airflow design that didn't require air conditioning. To encourage exercise most elevators stopped every third floor and forced employees to use stairs. I didn't like the look or the nudge, but going green isn't always pretty.

Wikipedia: [bold added]
In 2010 the GSA commissioned a survey of employees in 22 federal buildings nationwide, to determine employee satisfaction with their workplaces....the lowest ranked building for employee satisfaction was the San Francisco Federal Building, with a rating of just 13 percent; the next-lowest was considered twice as satisfactory, at 26 percent.
Headline, August 11, 2023: Crime is so bad near S.F. Federal building employees are told to work from home, officials said
Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advised hundreds of employees in San Francisco to work remotely for the foreseeable future due to public safety concerns outside the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street...

Dozens of dealers routinely plant themselves on, next to or across the street from the property, operating in shifts as users smoke, snort or shoot up their recent purchases. The property’s concrete benches are an especially popular site for users to get high, socialize or pass out.
The locale is dangerous, the employees are miserable inside, the building is ugly, and the green design doesn't even work. Forget about statues, if San Francisco wants to tear down monuments this would be a good place to start, and I'll bet even Nancy Pelosi wouldn't mind.

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