The cornerstone of any building is essential to its success.
It needs to be sturdy, able to carry a large load and symbolic of the growth to come.
That holds especially true for the laying of the cornerstone for the very first medical building at UC San Francisco’s historic Parnassus Heights campus, an occasion set in motion by a politician’s generous donation, the appetite for a University of California medical school and unpopular sand dunes on the edge of late 1800s San Francisco.
But if public opinion had swayed its location, UCSF may not exist as it does today.