The building has weathered the Great Depression's tail end, a world war, multiple earthquakes, the dot-com boom and bust, and whatever we're calling the current era of downtown San Francisco. Through it all, it's remained a functioning hotel — adapting, rebranding, but never demolished and never replaced by a glass-and-steel monument to nothing in particular.

This is what real urban resilience looks like. Not a $1.7 billion transit center that cracked before it opened. Not a convention center expansion that went billions over budget. Just a private enterprise, built with private money, serving guests and generating tax revenue for the better part of a hundred years without anyone at City Hall needing to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The SoMa corridor around 5th Street has changed almost beyond recognition since that postcard was mailed. The neighborhood has cycled through rough patches — and is in one now, frankly — but buildings like this are quiet proof that San Francisco's built environment can endure when the market is allowed to do what it does best: create something people actually want to use.

We spend a lot of time in this city arguing about what to build, where to build it, and how many layers of review should stand between a blueprint and a foundation. Maybe we should spend a little more time appreciating the fact that when someone just went ahead and built something good in 1907 — when the Lankershim first opened its doors — it's still here. Still working. No task force required.

Sometimes the best thing government can do for a city's architecture is simply get out of the way.