North Beach demolition reveals century-old Carnation Mush ghost sign

The teardown of the fire-damaged Verdi Building in North Beach peeled back more than brick and plaster. As crews worked at 659 Union Street, at Union and Columbus across from Washington Square, they exposed a century-old ghost sign reading “Eat Carnation Mush,” a painted advertisement that had been hidden for decades.

The discovery landed in a neighborhood where history is never far below the surface, but where safety concerns have repeatedly collided with preservation hopes. The Verdi Building, also known locally as the Coit Liquors building, was gutted by fires in 2013 and 2018 and later judged by city officials to pose a safety threat. By early June, the San Francisco Board of Appeals had cleared partial demolition, after collapse concerns forced sidewalk closures and the relocation of a bus stop.

The sign’s reappearance has become a visual reminder of how San Francisco sometimes reveals its past only when buildings come down. Another Carnation Mush sign still remains visible on Market Street, underscoring how common this kind of handpainted advertising once was across the city. The San Francisco Ghost Sign Mapping Project, started in 2011 by artist Kasey Smith, says the Bay Area’s ghost-sign heyday stretched from the 1906 earthquake to the mid-1950s, and that it has mapped more than 450 ghost signs in San Francisco and the East Bay.

The site’s future remains uncertain, even as its history grows more legible. Red Bridge Partners bought the property in 2017 for more than $2 million. A 2019 redevelopment plan called for 23 rental units and a rooftop restaurant, and a later pre-application described a possible eight-story project with 89 apartments, a rooftop restaurant, 5,700 square feet of ground-floor retail and 15 affordable units. Those redevelopment ideas were not independently verified by SFYIMBY, and the latest demolition work was not tied to any approved new building.

The project has also drawn neighborhood opposition. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers and the North Beach Tenants Committee pushed back against parts of the redevelopment, while resident Theresa Flandrich filed the appeal that briefly delayed demolition. Supervisor Danny Sauter supported moving ahead, saying the city had to act once experts identified an imminent hazard to public safety.

For some North Beach residents, the exposed Carnation Mush ad is a curiosity. For others, it is a rare piece of civic archaeology, one that will vanish again if the wall comes down and no one decides it matters enough to preserve. Rose D’Amato plans to debut a ghost-sign film at the San Francisco Art Book Fair on July 23 at 1275 Minnesota St., a reminder that these painted relics still shape how the city remembers itself.