By Carl Nolte, writing for the SF Chronicle:
There are 10 flights of wide steel steps leading up 240 feet to the top. There are landings with wooden floors, like big rooms, thick with the dust of the years. People have written their names on the walls. The earliest mark was from July 1907, but it was hard to see the name. JJD wrote his initials inside the tower in 1921, WBD in 2001 and Big Al in 1967.
The machinery that runs the Ferry Building clock enclosed inside the tower in its own wooden house is on level six. You can peer in the dusty windows and see the clockwork gears slowly turning. The clock stopped twice in its history — on April 18, 1906, and Oct. 17, 1989. It took earthquakes to stop time at the Ferry Building, which otherwise seems timeless.
I’m by the ferry building quite frequently — add its clock tower to the list of places I’d love to visit.