Armory
Unfinished History
The armory at Mission and 14th Street Photo: Chris Carlsson
The National Guard Armory was constructed in 1909 above an underground creek, to ensure besieged National Guardsmen would have drinking water. Its existence is testimony to the concerns of society's leaders in the early part of this century to maintain armored facilities to keep social peace at a time of widespread class war. The Guard vacated the building in 1976. After a long series of contested proposals for its contemporary use, including conversion to a movie studio, housing, or dot-com office space, the building was finally sold in 2007 to a pornography company, Kink.com, who uses it as a film studio.