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 Stock and Bond Exchange founded in 1882 on September 18, in a basement in San Francisco. The exchange was founded as the San Francisco Stock Exchange. On September 18, twenty-five brokers met in the basement of Wohl & Rollitz, which was at 403 California Street in the old Fireman's Fund Insurance Building. Of that number, 19 signed the charter and deposited $50 to purchase memberships. The first president was John Perry Jr. It had nineteen charter members, who called it "the Local Security Board." The first year of business, transactions totaled $9,490,621. After the World War I stock market shutdown that started in July