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
University of San Francisco a one-room schoolhouse along Market Street in what later became downtown San Francisco. Under its founding president, Anthony Maraschi, S.J., St. Ignatius Academy received its charter to issue college degrees on April 30, 1859, from the State of California, and signed by governor John B. Weller. In that year, the school changed its name to St. Ignatius College. The original curriculum included Greek, Spanish, Latin, English, French, Italian, algebra, arithmetic, history, geography, elocution, and bookkeeping. Father Maraschi was the college's first president, a professor, the college's treasurer, and the first pastor of St. Ignatius Church. A new building was constructed