St. Francis Hotel

Originally opened in 1904, then repaired and reopened a year after the Great Quake of 1906, the St. Francis Hotel is a 1,200-room luxury hotel located in Union Square. It has hosted actors, artists, writers, generals, presidents, and monarchs. It is also home to the famous “Clock Bar,” named for the Magneta Grandfather Clock, a time piece purportedly built in Vienna in 1856 and transported by steamer ship around Cape Horn to San Francisco. The Magneta now operates as the hotel’s “master clock.”

Since 1938, the St. Francis has offered “coin washing” as a guest service. The custom started when the hotel’s manager insisted that all coins be cleaned to keep female guests’ white gloves from getting dirty. Daily, coins are collected by the front desk staff and washed in an automatic shaker located in the hotel’s basement, to be used for change when guests pay cash.

The St. Francis hosted Westercon in 1973. During the convention, Carl Fletcher and Rich Talbot triggered a temblor which almost “sank” the hotel into History B. URIEL was, with great effort, able to save the St. Francis – and perhaps all of San Francisco – using memetic warfare techniques developed by Archie in collaboration with Andy Krane.

Later in ‘73, Marshall hosted a dinner for SCANATE, Uri Geller, Andrija Puharich, and the rest of Geller’s entourage at Victor’s, the restaurant on the top floor of the St. Francis’ recently-completed Tower Building.