Civic Center, San Francisco Civic Center, San Francisco The Civic Center in San Francisco, California, is an area of a few blocks north of the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions. It has two large plazas (Civic Center Plaza and United Nations Plaza) and a number of buildings in classical architectural style. The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (formerly the Exposition Auditorium), the United Nations Charter was signed in the War Memorial Veterans Building's Herbst Theatre in 1945, leading to the creation of the United Nations. It is also where the 1951
San Francisco in the 1970s civil rights movement is a nationally recognized institution in the Bay Area. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) celebrates Latino culture with a "Carnaval," every year, which is said to be the largest multi-cultural event in San Francisco. A gay San Francisco postal worker who was to be dismissed from service by the Civil Service Commission on the grounds of "moral incompetency" fought for his rights in the court, in November 1970, and was reinstated in the job. This marked the beginning of gay reforms. Many important skyscrapers in San Francisco were built in the 1970s. The Hilton