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Phelan Building, Market Street
Due to the diagonal angle of Market Street there are number of flatiron buildings in San Francisco. The most elegant of these is probably the baroque Phelan Building, built by banker James Phelan, former San Francisco mayor and U.S. Senator from California. Phelan took office in 1897 on a platform to "clean up City Hall" and was for the most part successful. But a general labor strike in 1901 and his slowness to act on behalf of either side led to his defeat in 1902. While he may have not been a decisive mayor he was regarded as an honest man and after the 1906 Great Earthquake President Theodore Roosevelt named Phelan custodian of the $9,000,000 relief funds.
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