Photo by Rebecca Wilkowski.

Photo by Rebecca Wilkowski.

August 2008

American Industrial Center Home to Eclectic Mix of Small Businesses

By Emily Ruth Henderson

Stretching along Third Street between 20th to 23rd streets, the massive American Industrial Center (AIC) is home to an eclectic mix of commercial tenants, including film, art, culinary and textile schools, designers, nonprofit organizations, and caterers.  The 93-year old facility was built – at a cost of $2 million – by American Can Company, at the time the nation’s largest can manufacturer.  In addition to the AIC building, American Can’s San Francisco presence can be seen at the company’s former tooling factory, built on Alabama Street in 1925, and now the artist cooperative Project Artuad; and a 22-story office building at 111 Sutter Street, built in 1927, and made famous in the film The Maltese Falcon as the fictional office of Humphrey Bogart’s character, Sam Spade. When the Third Street building was dedicated by Mayor-elect George Christopher on November 28th, 1915, it was the West’s largest cannery.

Almost 2,000 Bay Area residents worked at the Third Street facility, which, according to Anne Loskutoff, provided good jobs, often to members of the same family.  “American Can was very family-oriented; they encouraged families to work together...of course, there were lots of romantic relationships!” said Loskutoff, whose cousin worked in American Can’s personnel department and later transferred to their Oakland office.  

Loskutoff, a lifelong Potrero Hill resident, began working for American Can Company as a clerk typist in 1947.  She lived at 22nd and De Haro streets with her family, and remembered her daily commute to work.  “I wore a suit, gloves and high-heels every day…the bridge on 20th Street was wooden back then, so we went klippety-klop over it every morning!” Loskutoff eventually quit her job at her father’s insistence after her mother was diagnosed with cancer.  She was lured back into employment in the 1950s when American Can asked her to help draw up severance pay for everyone, suggesting that the plant was about to close. The facility managed to stay open; even producing a record output of 58 million cans and 32 million milk containers in 30 days in 1957. Falling profits finally forced the plant to shutter its doors in 1969.  The building lay vacant for six years until it was purchased by Angelo Markoulis, its current owner, in 1975.

Markoulis slowly re-configured the 850,000+ square foot building.  In the late-1970s it housed roughly 40 industrial tenants; by 1985 space had been made for 285 businesses. “Now the building’s more flexi-use,” said building manager Greg Markoulis, “It’s been hard work to get here, but satisfying work.”

The rising number of artists leasing space in the building during the 1990s made for an exciting time. “I worked above the chocolate manufacturer, managing a graphics, t-shirt printing shop,” recalled Lane Kennedy, an ex-model and entertainment industry guru, “It was a riot!”  However, while the diversity of businesses sparked creativity, the building was none-to-clean. “It was spooky then, really grim. The building has come a long way, I love it.”

The Graphic Arts Workshop, a printmaking cooperative, moved to AIC in 1992 as part of the growing cadre of artists who were drawn to the building by its cheap rents.  In exchange for a monthly fee, currently $76, the cooperative’s roughly 40 members receive unlimited access to a fully-equipped printmaking studio. The average stay for a member is two years and many close relationships form during that time. “I thrive on the comradery; it’s a community,” said Alice Gibbons, a professional printmaker, greeting card company owner and 39-year Workshop member.

 The late-1990s dot-com boom brought a wealth of financial highs and lows to AIC occupants.  As the building’s rents steadily rose, many artists and nonprofits moved out, replaced by high-tech start-ups.  “You’d hear women in high-heels and people talking on their cell phones walking up and down the halls,” “It was like the Gold Rush for six months,” said Gibbons.  Just before the Workshop’s lease was about to expire, the dot-com bubble burst, moderating commercial rents, and enabling them to renew the cooperative’s lease at a reasonable price.  Artists and nonprofit organizations that had moved out of the building during the boom began to trickle back in. “It was a scary time, the wrong people were getting rich. It’s still a scary time, only now everyone’s getting rich,” chuckled Gibbons.

AIC now houses hundreds of businesses, including Third Street Pilates, a pilates studio with stunning views of the Bay from almost floor-to-ceiling windows; the Disabled Employees Rehabilitation Incorporated, a nonprofit dedicated to finding disabled people employment; and More Than a Model, a company that helps turn aspiring child models into “model citizens.”

Kennedy, More Than a Model’s founder, spent 13 years leading the life of a jet setting model; hanging out with photographer Herb Ritts and spending Thanksgiving with Sharon Stone.  But the lifestyle took a toll on her mind and body, forcing her to take two years off from the modeling circuit to recover from anorexia. She travelled to Thailand, ultimately landing at a Buddhist temple, where she slept on a wooden pillow and ate porridge from an ant-ridden coconut bowl.

Kennedy began volunteering with The Goodwill Foundation, helping to educate women and children who’d been sold into brothels.  When she returned to the states she decided to help young people enter the entertainment industry responsibly.  “My workshops step away from the high-pressure ideas of what magazines, big budget, air brushed ad campaigns, and Hollywood tell us, and focus on our true self,” she said.  More Than a Model offers children and teenagers several different workshops, including “The Green Life” and how to “Be Compassionate.”

A building that started as a food production facility almost a century ago has reflected the transformations that have occurred in the surrounding community.  From a thriving cannery, to an abandoned building, to an artist’s haven, to a flexi-use office block, AIC is now home to almost 400 different businesses. “We’re really proud of what this has become,” said Greg Markoulis.

 

 

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