Free Republic

The building is now tilting 25 inches to the northwest, towards the heavily-traveled corner of Mission and Fremont streets. In an exclusive interview, we spoke to one former condo owner who says he’s glad he got out. “What they said was, this was not a big problem,” said Faulk. Later, Faulk’s husband Frank Jernigan rolled a marble on the floor of their $4 million, 50th-floor condo that confirmed for them that the problem was all too real. “The marble turns around and picks up speed as it heads in the direction that the building was leaning. We were surprised, and...

A seemingly ordinary day at the Transbay Transit Center construction site became a mammoth day of discovery Monday when a mild-mannered crane operator reached deep into the earth and pulled out a tooth. This was no ordinary tooth. The 10-inch-long brown, black and beige chomper, broken in two and missing a chunk, once belonged to a woolly mammoth, an elephantine creature that roamed the grassy valley that's now San Francisco Bay 10 million to 15 million years ago in the Pleistocene epoch. Other woolly mammoth fossils have been found in the Bay Area, including in San Francisco about 2 miles...

When most people ponder the past at the Transbay Terminal construction site, they imagine the hustle and bustle of gray-suited commuters swarming in and out of the Art Deco-style train depot in the mid-20th century. But archaeologists working at the site during demolition of the dingy old terminal last winter and construction of its grand replacement have unearthed artifacts that help reveal what it must have been like to live in the Irish working-class neighborhood that existed in that part of the South of Market in the mid- to late 1800s. They've dug up bottles that once held soda, booze...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't get the warmest reception Friday morning when he approached a homeless encampment under a bus overpass for the soon-to-be-demolished Transbay Terminal. "Go away, man!" hollered 60-year-old Kolinio Waqairawai as he sat against a concrete pillar, a koala blanket draped over his legs, a pack of Parliament cigarettes on his lap and a 16-ounce Bud Light tall boy near at hand. "You're wasting the state's money." Within five minutes, Waqairawai was holding Newsom's hand and flashing a smile showing his missing lower tooth as the mayor knelt next to him. After rhapsodizing about Marin County...

To bus riders who trek daily through the dingy, dusty and drafty Transbay Terminal, the place is something to be hurried through or, at best, endured. But it wasn't always that way, and today, a week before demolition of the old terminal begins, the public will get a last chance to peek at the past. They'll see a sampling of the places that have been covered by plywood, hidden behind painted-over windows or walled off over the decades as the terminal declined from a bustling commuter hub to a mostly neglected bus station. The terminal, built as part of the...

If all goes according to plan, by 2014 a glittering, towering Transbay Transit Center will be erected in the heart of San Francisco. Designers say the tower will not only be a transportation hub, but send a message as a symbolic gateway to the city. As opposed to what the ramshackle 68-year-old terminal building says now - welcome to San Francisco and watch where you step. A well-known homeless refuge, the current Transbay Terminal is the first sight bus passengers see of the city. But newcomers are more likely to worry about what is under their feet. "The homeless pee...