Up in the clockworks of the historic Clock Tower building in San Francisco

The Clock Tower has been converted into a home, and the owner has to keep the proper time showing. It was a wonderful venue for the 146th “Influencers Dinner” — a gathering of people who prepare a meal together with one simple rule: we remain anonymous and don’t talk about anything we do for work. Then at dinner, we go around the table and try to guess what everyone else does. Perhaps I should be worried that two people had me pegged as a politician. 🙂 This gathering was recently profiled in the NYT.

Another fun historical note: The tower was originally built as the capstone to a huge factory for Schmidt Lithograph Corp., the city’s biggest employer in 1922 and the largest printer on the West Coast. When the Bay Bridge was being built in the 1930’s, the city told Schmidt that his tower would need to be torn down to make way for the I-80. His reply: “Do that and I’m moving to the East Bay.” SF wanted to keep the jobs, so the I-80 jogs around the building (and you can see the headlights coming straight toward the building from the distance, below).