This portrait was created as part of the Legendary Mayors of San Francisco series that was displayed at Chenery House, San Francisco. It is currently displayed in the Law Offices of Mayor Alioto’s daughter, Angela Alioto, opposite the Transamerica Pyramid that Mayor Alioto was so instrumental in supporting. Thank you Angela for your help with sharing your memories, photos and other documents relating to your father, that were used in this portrait.
Article in the San Francisco Chronicle
Sat., Jan. 2, 1971
The MayorTakes a Long View
By Mayor Joseph L. Alioto
There are always some who complain that any thing built in San Francisco since World War II (or World War I, or the earthquake and fire, or the Mission Dolores) has been disastrous. And there are always others who applaud uncritically every tasteless plunder of the city in the name of business since any of those eras.
But, happily, there has to be a middle way – and there is in San Francisco. Here, I think, there is development with a difference – development that attempts to balance all of the complex claims of aesthetics and the better urban life with the claims of commerce. No one is selling out to freebooters in San Francisco.
SPECIAL
Our city is still magically only one place in the world – and no one is going to let that special character, that special personality, be destroyed. We will always have not just our fog and hills and Fisherman’s Wharf and Golden Gate Park, but we will have, too, that spirit and daring that make us perhaps a little different – a spirit and daring that welcome individuality and diversity.