George Christopher

George Christopher
34th Mayor of San Francisco
In office January 8, 1956 – January 8, 1964
Preceded by	Elmer Robinson
Succeeded by	John Shelley
Personal details
Born	George Christophes December 8, 1907 Arcadia, Greece
Died	September 14, 2000(2000-09-14) (aged 92) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Tula Sarantitis
Profession	Accountant, businessman
Religion	Greek Orthodox

George Christopher (December 8, 1907 – September 14, 2000) was a Greek-American politician, and the 34th Mayor of San Francisco, serving in that office from January 1956 until January 1964. He was, as of 2014, the last Republican to be elected mayor of San Francisco; all San Francisco mayors since he left office have been Democrats.

Biography

Early years

Born George Christophes in Arcadia, Greece, the son of James Christophes and Mary Koines Christophes, Christopher and his family emigrated to the United States in 1910 and settled in San Francisco's South of Market Street neighborhood, then known as "Greektown", when Christopher was two years old. Christopher left day school at the age of fourteen when his father James died, and he became sole support of his family. He sold papers, then talked his way into a job at the San Francisco Examiner as a copy boy. In 1935, he married Tula Sarantitis, daughter of a baker for whom George did bookkeeping.

After studying accounting at Golden Gate College, from which he earned a BA in Accounting in 1930, he worked for numerous small firms keeping their accounts and eventually bought out a small dairy on Fillmore Street, which became the Christopher Dairy. He was prosecuted in the 1940s for breaking the newly passed milk price-fixing laws.

Career

Christopher began his political career in 1945 when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; on re-election, he became board president. Christopher ran for Mayor in 1951 and lost to incumbent mayor Elmer Robinson, but was eventually elected mayor in November 1955, taking office the following January. He was re-elected in 1959 for a second term.

Christopher was instrumental in bringing the New York Giants baseball team to San Francisco in 1958 (where they became the San Francisco Giants) and in securing the funding to build Candlestick Park, on the abandoned lands of Sunset Scavenger on Candlestick Point; the ballpark opened for the Giants 1960 season. His administration has been credited with the building of the Brooks Hall, twelve new schools, seventeen firehouses, six public swimming pools, the five-story Fifth and Mission and the underground Civic Center garages.^[1]

Christopher was known for his strong stand on civil rights; his childhood experience of anti-Greek sentiment informed his stand. He gained worldwide headlines offering his home to Willie Mays after it was reported that a Forest Hill realtor had refused to sell to Mays. Christopher also lobbied and succeeded in opening mental health and alcohol treatment centers under city funding. When Christopher was Mayor, the streets of San Francisco were not filled with homeless and mentally ill people. Under his leadership along with such notable supervisors as Harold Dobbs, the city government was operated efficiently and was accountable to the public. The Municipal Railway, the city's transit system, was very reliable.

Christopher presided over the redevelopment of major portions of city and private lands, labeled slums, some not without controversy; Embarcadero Center and Golden Gateway, displacing the old wholesale produce market from the filled land southeast of Telegraph Hill to the Alemany location where it remains, Japantown and the Fillmore urban renewal that displaced the African-American and the remnants of the Jewish Community for concrete highrises, the new Hall of Justice and the opening of the Embarcadero Freeway, which blocked the Embarcadero and Ferry Building from the city, spawning the first Freeway Revolt. Another controversial issue was the loss of the historic Fox Theatre movie palace on Market Street at Polk Street. In early 1963, the owners of the Fox closed the theatre, and offered it for sale to the city of San Francisco for $1,050,000. Mayor Christopher turned this down, and demolition of the Fox proceeded; by August, the theatre was gone. Theatre historians worldwide agree that the San Francisco Fox was one of the most magnificent movie palaces ever constructed. Movie palace fans still mourn the theatre's loss over 45 years later, longer than the building actually existed.

In Christopher's second term, the House Subcommittee on Un-American Activities held hearings in the City Hall supervisor's chambers. A large group of students and active citizens were fire-hosed down the marble steps inside City Hall rotunda by the San Francisco Police Department when they protested their exclusion from admission to committee hearings. Christopher later told the Federal Government they were no longer welcome in city buildings, but he sided with the committee and spoke for the propaganda newsreel-style film made by the committee about the event titled, Operation Abolition,^[2][3][4][5] that blamed Communists for the so-called City Hall riot of May 13, 1960. Christopher was criticized for endorsing the film, but was saying, "at least 90% of the students were not organized by the Communists."^[6]

Perhaps Christopher's most famous moment came when he hosted Nikita Khrushchev on a tour of the states in 1959. They became friends and Christopher visited Khrushchev in the Soviet Union in March 1960.

Christopher ran for lieutenant governor when Richard Nixon ran for governor, and U.S. Senate. He lost the 1966 Republican primary for Governor of California to Ronald Reagan.

References

Further reading

• Dorsey, George (1962). Christopher of San Francisco. New York: MacMillan Company. LCCN 6213596. 
• Gladys Hansen (September 14, 2000). "George Christopher (1907–2000)". Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Retrieved 2010-05-07. 

v t e Mayors of San Francisco John W. Geary Charles James Brenham Stephen Randall Harris Charles James Brenham C. K. Garrison Stephen Palfrey Webb James Van Ness George J. Whelan Ephraim Willard Burr Henry F. Teschemacher Henry Perrin Coon Frank McCoppin Thomas Henry Selby William Alvord James Otis George Hewston Andrew Jackson Bryant Isaac Smith Kalloch Maurice Carey Blake Washington Bartlett Edward B. Pond George Henry Sanderson Levi Richard Ellert Adolph Sutro James D. Phelan Eugene Schmitz Charles Boxton Edward Robeson Taylor P. H. McCarthy James Rolph Angelo Joseph Rossi Roger Lapham Elmer Robinson George Christopher John Shelley Joseph Alioto George Moscone Dianne Feinstein Art Agnos Frank Jordan Willie Brown Gavin Newsom Ed Lee