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This John King -- there are many! -- is the author of "Portal: San Francisco's Ferry Building and the Reinvention of American Cities," published by W.W. Norton in November of 2023. The paperback edition is set to appear on Feb. 25, 2025, complete with an afterword bringing the saga as up to date as the printers allowed.
I'm also the San Francisco Chronicle's former urban design critic, retiring in October of 2024 after 23 years on the job. This one-of-a-kind gig allowed me to survey the city's physical transformation in this unsettled century, and to convey how the built terrain reflects larger histories and cultures. That's the spark for "Portal," and why it ranges beyond architecture into the realm of vintage postcards, "Somebody Feed Phil" and the (literal) rise and fall of elevated freeways.
"Portal" received favorable reviews from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and other publications while spending more than a dozen weeks on the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association's nonfiction bestseller list.
In terms of career nods, there are several I'm particularly proud of: I'm an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the first recipient of the Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award from the Urban Communication Foundation, an honor since shared with Pulitzer Prize-winners Inga Saffron, Blair Kamin and Paul Goldberger. I've been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism myself, twice, and was a Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington D.C.
Equally flattering, though much closer to home: in December I'll receive the San Francisco Press Club's Lifetime Achievement Award. Truly an unexpected honor for an ink-stained wretch who entered the profession at the right time and had breaks aplenty along the way.