:: wikimiki.org ::

Bank Of Italy

Bank of Italy

Bank of Italy may refer to either :
- Banca d'Italia is a bank located in Italy.
- Bank of Italy (USA) was a bank established in San Francisco, California and the fore-runner of Bank of America.

Banca d'Italia

Banca d'Italia is the central bank of Italy; located in Roma, via Nazionale. Current governor is Antonio Fazio, from 1993.

History

The institution, also called Bankitalia, was founded in 1893, from the fusion of the four major banks in Italy. Until 1928 it was directed by a General Manager, while since then it is directed by a Governor. The Governor is elected from the internal commission of managers, with a decree from the President of the Republic. Its mandate has no preestablished duration and it is, as a matter of fact, to life. General Managers from 1893 to 1928:
- Giacomo Grillo (1893 - 1894)
- Giuseppe Marchiori (1894 - 1900)
- Bonaldo Stringher (1900 - 1928) Governors from 1928:
- Bonaldo Stringher (1928 - 1930)
- Vincenzo Azzolini (1931 - 1944)
- Luigi Einaudi (1945 - 1948)
- Donato Menichella (1948 - 1960)
- Guido Carli (1960 - 1975)
- Paolo Baffi (1975 - 1979)
- Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1979 - 1993)
- Antonio Fazio (1993 - )

External links

- [http://www.bancaditalia.it/rootcollection;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=en Official web page]
- [http://www.bancaditalia.it/la_banca/storia/history.pdf History of the Banca d'Italia] Category:Banks of Italy Italia

Bank of Italy (USA)

The Bank of Italy was founded in San Francisco, California in 1904 by Amadeo Giannini. The bank was established to serve working class citizens of the area, especially Italians living in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. The bank survived the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, and was one of the first to offer loans to businesses to help rebuild the city. In 1929, Giannini arranged a merger between his bank and Bank of America, Los Angeles. As Chairman of the new Bank of America, Giannini expanded the bank throughout his tenure, which ended with his death in 1949. Also see: Bank of America

External links

[http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1747&ResourceType=Building National Historic Landmarks: Bank of Italy Building, San Francisco] Category:Banks of the United States

San Francisco, California

: The City and County of San Francisco (2004 estimated population 744,230) is the fourth-largest city in the state of California, in the United States. A consolidated city-county, mainland San Francisco is located on the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. Insular San Francisco includes several islands in the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Strait, notably Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the Farallon Islands 27 miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean and also most of the privately owned Red Rock Island near the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. (See Islands of San Francisco Bay) The city is a focal point of the San Francisco Bay Area, and forms part of the greater San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area (CSA), whose population is over 7 million. U.S. census data show that San Francisco has the highest population density of any major U.S. city aside from New York City. The first Europeans to settle in San Francisco were the Spanish, in 1776. With the advent of the California gold rush in 1848 the city entered a period of rapid growth. Devastated by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the city was quickly rebuilt. The phoenix on the city's flag represents San Francisco's "rebirth" from the ashes of the fire that resulted from the quake. Long enjoying a bohemian reputation the city became a counterculture magnet in the second half of the 20th century. It was a center of the dot-com boom and explosive growth of the internet at the end of the century. San Francisco has unique characteristics when compared to other major cities in the U.S., including its steep rolling hills, an eclectic mix of architecture including both Victorian style houses and modern skyscrapers, and unmatched physical beauty, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay. San Francisco's famous hallmarks include its cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge, which are recognized worldwide.
History
Golden Gate Bridge European visitors to the Bay Area were preceded 10,000 to 20,000 years earlier by Native Americans. When Europeans arrived, they found the area inhabited by the Yelamu tribe, belonging to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok Indian word meaning "western people") living in the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay. San Francisco's characteristic foggy weather and geography led early European explorers, including Juan Cabrillo and Sir Francis Drake (who would instead land a few miles north in Point Reyes), to pass by the Golden Gate and miss the San Francisco Bay. Eventually, a Spanish party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà, discovered the bay in 1770, claiming it in the name of Spain. In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza arrived and established the sites for the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asis (named for Saint Francis of Assisi and now popularly known as "Mission Dolores"). In 1792 British explorer George Vancouver set up a small settlement near the village of Yerba Buena (later downtown San Francisco) which became a small base for English, Russian, and other European fur traders, explorers, and settlers. Due to its distance from Mexico City and the decline of Spanish power, the area was isolated, remaining sparsely populated and undeveloped. It became part of an independent Mexico in 1821. Following the passing of the Secularization Act of 1833, effectively ending the Mission period, Mission San Francisco de Asis was abandoned. The local indigenous tribes of Ohlone and Miwok had became virtually extinct by this time due to disease and warfare with the European settlers. In addition to Spanish and European settlers, Russian colonists also visited the Bay area. From 1770, lasting through 1841, Russia colonized an area that ranged from Alaska south to Fort Ross in Sonoma County, California. The naming of San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood is attributed to the remains of Russian fur-traders and sailors found there. Serious development by non-Spanish speakers began in 1822, when William Richardson, an English whaler redeveloped a section of Yerba Buena in what is now Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. Yerba Buena remained a small town until the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846. The British Empire briefly entertained the idea of purchasing the bay from Mexico in 1841, claiming it would "Secure to Great Britain all the advantages of the finest port in the Pacific for her commercial speculations in time of peace, and in war for more easily securing her maritime ascendency". However little came of this, and San Francisco become a prize of United States continental imperialism rather than that of British thalassocratic power. A naval force under Commodore John D. Sloat claimed it in the name of the United States and renamed it "San Francisco" on January 30, 1847. Situated at the tip of a windswept peninsula without water or firewood, San Francisco lacked most of the basic facilities for a nineteenth century settlement. These natural disadvantages forced the town's residents to bring water, fuel and food to the site. The first of many environmental transformations was the city's reliance on filled marshlands for real estate. Much of the present downtown is built over the former Yerba Buena Cove, granted to the city by military governor Stephen Watts Kearny in 1847. Stephen Watts Kearny The California gold rush starting in 1848 led to a large boom in population, including considerable immigration. Between January 1848 and December 1849, the population of San Francisco increased from 1,000 to 25,000. This included many workers from China who came to work in the gold mines and later on the Transcontinental Railroad. The Chinatown district of the city became and is still one of the largest in the country; the city as a whole is roughly one-fifth Chinese, one of the largest concentrations outside of China. Many businesses founded to service the growing population exist today, notably Levi Strauss & Co. clothing, Ghirardelli chocolate, and Wells Fargo bank. Many famous railroad, banking, and mining tycoons or "robber barons" such as Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland Stanford settled in the city in its Nob Hill neighborhood. The sites of their mansions are now famous and expensive San Francisco hotels (Mark Hopkins Hotel and the Huntington Hotel). Huntington Hotel, 1856.]] As in many mining towns, the social climate in early San Francisco was chaotic. This was exacerbated by squabbling in the United States Senate, where the Compromise of 1850 was igniting a fierce fight over slavery. Committees of Vigilance were formed in 1851, and again in 1856, in response to crime and government corruption, but also had a strong element of anti-immigrant violence, and arguably created more lawlessness than they eliminated. This popular militia movement lynched 12 people, kidnapped hundreds of Irishmen and government militia members, and forced several elected officials to resign. The Committee of Vigilance relinquished power both times after it decided the city had been "cleaned up." This mob activity later focused on Chinese immigrants, creating many race riots. These riots culminated in the creation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 that aimed to reduce Chinese immigration to the United States by limiting immigration to males and reducing numbers of immigrants allowed in the city. The law was not repealed until 1943. Chinese Exclusion Act San Francisco County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. The parts of the county not in the city limits were split off to form San Mateo County in 1856. San Francisco became America's largest city west of the Mississippi River, until it lost that title to Los Angeles. It was also briefly the state capital in 1851, until San José received the title. (Sacramento is the current capital.) In autumn of 1855, a ship bearing refugees from an ongoing cholera epidemic in the far east (authorities disagree as to whether this was the S.S. Sam or the S.S. Carolina) docked in San Francisco. As the city's rapid gold-rush area population growth had significantly outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation, a serious cholera epidemic quickly broke out. The responsibility for caring for the indigent sick had previously rested on the state, but faced with the San Francisco cholera epidemic, the state legislature devolved this responsibility to the counties, setting the precedent for California's system of county hospitals for the poor still in effect today. The Sisters of Mercy were contracted to run San Francisco's first county hospital at the height of the cholera epidemic, and in 1857, the order opened its own charity hospital, Mercy Hospital of San Francisco, which is still in operation today at its original location on Stanyan Street. By the 1890s, San Francisco was suffering from Boss politics and corruption, and was ripe for political reform. Adolph Sutro ran for mayor in 1894 under the auspices of the Populist Party and won handily without campaigning. Unfortunately, except for the Sutro Baths, Mayor Sutro substantially failed in his efforts to improve the city. The next mayor, James D. Phelan elected in 1896, was more successful, pushing through a new city charter that allowed for the ability to raise funds through bond issues. He was able to get bonds passed to construct a new sewer system, seventeen new schools, two parks, a hospital, and a main library. After leaving office in 1901, Phelan became interested in remaking San Francisco into a grand and modern Paris of the West. When the San Francisco Art Association asked him to draft a plan for the beautification of the city, he hired famed architect Daniel Burnham. Burnham and Phelan's plan was ambitious, envisioning a 50-year effort to transform the city with wide diagonal boulevards creating open spaces and squares as they crossed the orthogonal grid of existing streets. Some parts of the plan were eventually implemented, including an Opera house to the north of City Hall, a subway under Market Street, and a waterfront boulevard (The Embarcadero) circling the city. In 1900, a ship from China brought with it rats infected with bubonic plague. Mistakenly believing that interred corpses contributed to the transmission of plague, and possibly also motivated by the opportunity for profitable land speculation, city leaders banned all burials within the city. Cemeteries moved to the undeveloped area just south of the city limit, now the town of Colma, California. A fifteen-block section of Chinatown was quarantined while city leaders squabbled over the proper course to take, but the outbreak was finally eradicated by 1905. However, the problem of existing cemeteries and the shortage of land in the city remained. In 1912 (with fights extending until 1942), all remaining cemeteries in the city were evicted to Colma, where the dead now outnumber the living by more than a thousand to one. The above-ground Columbarium of San Francisco was allowed to remain, as well as the historic cemetery at the Mission Dolores Church and The San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio of San Francisco. On April 18 1906, a devastating earthquake resulted from the rupture of over 270 miles of the San Andreas Fault, from San Juan Bautista to Eureka, centered immediately offshore of San Francisco. The quake is estimated by the USGS to have had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. Water mains ruptured throughout San Francisco, and the fires that followed burned out of control for days, destroying approximately 80% of the city, including almost all of the downtown core. Many residents were trapped between the water on three sides and the approaching fire, and a mass evacuation (similar to that of the later Battle of Dunkirk) across the Bay saved thousands. Refugee camps were also set up in Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, and other undeveloped sections of the city. The official death toll at the time was 478, although it was officially revised in 2005 to 3,000+. The initial low death toll was concocted by civic, state, and federal officials who felt that reporting the actual numbers would hurt rebuilding and redevelopment efforts, as well as city and national morale. Ocean Beach In 1915, the city hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, officially to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. After the exposition ended, all of its grand buildings were demolished except for the Palace of Fine Arts which survives today in an abbreviated form. The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. The War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco has been the site of some significant post World War II history. In 1945, the conference that formed the United Nations was held there, with the UN Charter being signed on June 26. Additionally the Treaty of San Francisco which formally ended war with Japan and established peaceful relations, was drafted and signed here six years later in 1951. After World War II, many American military personnel who fell in love with the city during leaving to or returning from the Pacific, settled in the city prompting the creation of the Sunset District and Visitacion Valley. During this period, Caltrans commenced an aggressive freeway construction program in the Bay Area. However, Caltrans soon encountered strong resistance in San Francisco, for the city's high population density meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city, an event known as the Freeway Revolt. Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway and portions of the so-called Central Freeway. Over the course of several referenda, San Francisco's residents elected not to rebuild either structure. The neighborhoods once covered by these freeways have been rebuilt, and the restoration of the Embarcadero, San Francisco's historic bay waterfront, as a public space has been especially successful. In the 1950s San Francisco hired Harvard graduate Justin Herman to head the redevelopment agency for the city and county. Justin Herman began an aggressive campaign to renew blighted areas of the city. Enacting eminent domain whenever necessary, he set upon a plan to tear down huge areas of the city and replace them with modern construction. Critics accused Herman of racism for what was perceived as attempts to create segregation and displacement of African-Americans. Many African-Americans were forced to move from their homes near the Fillmore jazz district to newly constructed projects such as the near the naval base Hunter's Point or even to cities such as Oakland. He began leveling entire areas in San Francisco's Western Addition and Japantown neighborhoods. His planning led to the creation of Embarcadero Center, the Embarcadero Freeway, Japantown, the Geary Street superblocks, and Yerba Buena Gardens. San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation literature. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie and other alternative culture. In 1966 the Church Of Satan opened their headquarters, and in 1967 thousands of young people poured into the Haight-Ashbury district during what became known as the Summer of Love. At this time, the "San Francisco sound" emerged as an influential force in rock music, with such acts as the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead achieving international prominence, blurring the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developing the lyrical content of rock. During the 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American--and international-- punk, thrash metal, and rave scenes. On the rave scene, the city was the first to host the Love Parade outside its birthplace of Berlin, Germany in 2004. It was also a hot spot during the 1980's for comedians like Ellen DeGeneres and Robin Williams who got major career boosts thanks to the presence of the city's popular comedy clubs. San Francisco's frontier spirit and wild and ribald character caused it to become known as a gay mecca beginning in the nineteenth century. This reputation was enforced greatly during World War II, when thousands of gay male soldiers spent time in the City, while en route to and from the Pacific theater. The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbians and gays who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing epicenter. These new residents were the prime movers of Gay Liberation and often lived communally, buying decrepit Victorians in the Haight and fixing them up. When drugs and violence began to become a serious problem in the Haight, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill", to the Castro replacing Irish-Americans who had moved to the more affluent and culturally homogenous suburbs. The Castro became known as a Gay Mecca, and its gay population swelled as significant numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of the gay population caused tensions with some of the established ethnic groups in the western part of the city. On November 27, 1978 Dan White, a former member of the Board of Supervisors and former police officer, assassinated the city's mayor George Moscone and San Francisco's first openly gay elected official, Supervisor Harvey Milk (see "Twinkie Defense"). The murders and the subsequent trial were marked both by candlelight vigils and riots within the gay community. In the 1980s, the AIDS virus wreaked havoc on the gay male community there. Today, the gay population of the city is estimated to be approximately 15%, and gays remain an important force in the city's life. San Francisco has a higher percentage of gays and lesbians than any other major US city. During the administration of Mayor Dianne Feinstein (1978-1988), San Francisco saw a development boom referred to as "Manhattanization." Many large skyscrapers were built — primarily in the Financial District — but the boom also included high-rise condominiums in some residential neighborhoods. An opposition movement gained traction among those who felt the skyscrapers ruined views and destroyed San Francisco's unique character. Similar to the freeway revolt in the city decades earlier, a "skyscraper revolt" forced the city to embed height restrictions in the planning code. For many years, the limits slowed construction of new skyscrapers, but recent (2000-2005) housing pressures have led to master plan changes which will allow new construction of high-rise structures along The Embarcadero and in the South of Market district. South of Market During the 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of multiple factors including the closing of state institutions for the mentally ill, and social changes which increased the availability of addictive drugs. Combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and generous welfare policies the problem soon became endemic. Mayor Art Agnos (1988-92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this policy led to his losing the election to Frank Jordan in 1991. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. His successor, Willie Brown, was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term. Present mayor Gavin Newsom's policy on the homeless is the controversial "Care Not Cash" program, which calls for ending the city's generous welfare policies towards the homeless and instead placing them in affordable housing and requiring them to attend city funded drug rehabilitation and job training programs. On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale struck on the San Andreas Fault near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 70 miles south of San Francisco, a few minutes before game 3 of the 1989 World Series. The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeway's including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway. The damage to these freeways was so extensive that they were eventually demolished. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market. Known in most of the United States as the "World Series Quake," but in California and by seismologists as the Loma Prieta earthquake, it caused significant destruction and loss of life throughout the greater Bay Area. During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, and changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. The rising rents forced many people and businesses to leave, and this caused considerable tension in the city's politics. The resulting backlash resulted in a progressive majority winning control of the Board of Supervisors in the 2000 election. By 2001, the boom was over, and many people left San Francisco. South of Market, where many dot-com companies were located, had been bustling and crowded with few vacancies, but by 2002 was a virtual wasteland of empty offices and for-rent signs. Much of the boom was blamed for the city's "fastest shrinking population", reducing the city's population by 30,000 in just a few years. While the boom has helped put an ease on the city's apartment rents, the city remains expensive nonetheless. In February 2004, San Francisco became the first city in the United States to grant marriage to gay couples when Mayor Gavin Newsom, elected the previous year, ordered the City Clerks office to issue same-sex marriage licenses. The California Supreme Court later invalidated these licenses, holding that Newsom had acted without proper authority. In 2005 San Francisco hosted the United Nations annual World Environment Day conference, the first in the United States, and banned outdoor smoking in all city-owned parks, plazas and public sports venues. Also as of December 2005, the crime rate has gone up, with more than 90 killngs throughout the year. San Francisco is also facing serious budget deficits, and, for such a small city, the homeless problem is still one of the worst in America.
Geography and climate
banned outdoor smoking Landsat 7]] San Francisco lies near the San Andreas Fault and Hayward Fault, two major sources of earthquake activity in California. The most serious earthquake, in 1906, is mentioned above. Earlier significant quakes rocked the city in 1851, 1858, 1865, and 1868. The Daly City Earthquake of 1957 caused some damage. The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which also did significant damage to parts of the city, is also famous for having interrupted a World Series baseball game between the Bay Area's two Major League Baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. The threat of another major earthquake like the 1906 one plays a major role in the city's infrastructure development. New buildings must be built to very high structural standards, while many dollars must be spent to retrofit the city's older buildings and bridges. Entire neighborhoods of the city such as the Marina and Hunters Point were created and sit on man made landfill (made up of mud, sand, and rubble from past earthquakes) and other reclamation projects over the San Francisco Bay when flatland became scarce. Such land is extremely unstable during earthquakes; the resultant liquefaction during earthquakes causes extensive damage to property built upon it, as was evidenced in the Marina district during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The most impressive example of an "infill neighborhood" is Treasure Island. It was constructed from material dredged from the bay as well as material resulting from tunnelling through Yerba Buena Island in the construction of the Bay Bridge. It was a site for the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair, and it was originally envisioned that Treasure Island would serve as the site for San Francisco's municipal airport, but it became a Navy base at the start of World War II. In 1997 Treasure Island was returned to the city and it provides a unique vantage point to view the San Francisco skyline. San Francisco is famous for its hills. A "Hill" in San Francisco, is an elevation that is over 100 ft (30 Meters). There are a total of 42 hills within city limits. Some of these hills are neighborhoods such as Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, Russian Hill, and Telegraph Hill, while some of these hills are public parks and open space such as Twin Peaks, Mt. Sutro, Mount Davidson, and Buena Vista Park. Near the geographic center of the city and away from the downtown area are a series of less populated hills. Dominating this area is Mount Sutro, which is the site of Sutro Tower, a large red and white radio transmission tower, that is a well known landmark to city residents. Nearby are the equally well known Twin Peaks, which are a pair of hills resting at one of the city's highest points. About 1.2km (1 mile) south of Mount Sutro is San Francisco's highest mountain, Mount Davidson, which is over 282 meters (over 925 feet) high. On top of Mount Davidson is a 31.4 meter (103 foot) tall cross built in 1934. Twin Peaks Not to be missed are the beautiful homes and area of the city known as Pacific Heights as well as victorians in the Haight-Ashbury and the "painted ladies" of Alamo Square and the Castro. San Francisco is also famous for its Cable cars (narrow gauge, 1067 mm (3'6")), which were designed to carry residents up those steep hills. It is still possible to take a cable car ride up and down Nob and Russian Hills. Along with New Orleans' streetcars, San Francisco's cable cars are one of only two mobile United States National Monuments. Coit Tower, a notable landmark dedicated to San Francisco's firefighters, is located at the top of Telegraph Hill.
Climate
Surrounded on three sides by water, San Francisco's climate is strongly influenced by the cool currents of the Pacific Ocean. The weather is remarkably mild all year round, with a so-called Mediterranean climate characterized by cool, foggy summers and relatively warm winters; average daily high temperatures in the summer typically range from the upper 60's to mid 70's (15-22 degrees Celsius), while in the winter it virtually never reaches freezing. Rain in the summer is quite rare, but winters are very rainy. Snow is very rare. The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the city is particularly cold year round. The combination of cold ocean water and the high heat of the California mainland creates the city's characteristic foggy weather that covers the western half of the city in fog all day during the summer and early fall, as well as the rest of the San Francisco metropolitan area as far as 35-50 miles inland in overcast and fog. Thus, the summer temperatures are significantly lower in San Francisco than in other parts of inland California. The fog is less pronounced during the months of September & October and during the late spring, which is generally the warmest, most summer-like months of the year. In January, morning lows average 46 °F (8 °C) and afternoon highs average 58 °F (14 °C). In August, lows average 56 °F (13 °C) and highs average 72 °F (22 °C). San Francisco receives an average of 22.28 inches (56.6 cm) of precipitation annually with July and August being almost completely free of precipitation. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city and county has a total area of 600.7 km² (231.9 mi²). 120.9 km² (46.7 mi²) of it is land and 479.7 km² (185.2 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 79.86% water. The city proper is often reputed to be roughly a seven mile square, and in fact is only slightly smaller. The geographical center of the city is on the east side of Grandview Avenue between Alvarado and Twenty-third Streets. mi²
Neighborhoods in San Francisco
mi² San Francisco has a Japantown and Chinatown; both are among the largest and oldest in the US. It also boasts a budding Vietnamese community in the Tenderloin neighborhood, Filipinos in Crocker-Amazon and South of Market, an Italian community in North Beach, a French Quarter, and Irish and Russian communities in the Richmond District. The predominantly Hispanic Mission District is the oldest neighborhood in the city, being the site of Mission Dolores, established in 1776. Russian Hill is a residential neighborhood most famous for Lombard Street "the crookedest street in the world". Haight-Ashbury gained prominence during the "Summer of Love" 1960s for its counter-culture and concentration of hippies. The Castro neighborhood has the world's highest concentration of homosexuals. In addition to the predominantly gay Castro, there are significant concentrations of gays in NoeValley, Diamond Heights, Bernal Heights, Potrero Hill, Haight-Ashbury, Hayes Valley, and SOMA. (See The Castro for more gay demographics.) The Castro") at Alamo Square]] Current demographic and land use expansion is concentrated in the east and south. The South of Market neighborhood was an epicenter of the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. A new neighborhood, Mission Bay, is being redeveloped from an industrial area at the far eastern end of South of Market. The cornerstones of this development are the SBC Park baseball stadium and an extension of the University of California, San Francisco medical school.
Parks
The best-known, as well as biggest, park is Golden Gate Park which is 174 acres larger than New York's Central Park. Another notable park is The Presidio at the south edge of the Golden Gate. The Presidio is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz, and many other large local parks. Buena Vista Park located in the Haight-Ashbury, is the city's oldest, established in 1867, nearby Alamo Square is famous for its views of the city and the famous Victorian houses known as the Painted Ladies. A large fresh-water lake, Lake Merced, is located in the south west corner of the city near San Francisco State University and Fort Funston. San Francisco also contains many public beaches such as Baker Beach and Ocean Beach.
Demographics
Ocean Beach, Richmond District, and in Chinatown.]] As of the census of 2000, there are 776,733 people, 329,700 households, and 145,068 families residing in the city. The population density is 6,423.2/km² (16,634.4/mi²), making it the second densest city of 500,000 or more, as well as the fifth densest county, in the country [http://gislounge.com/features/aa041101c.shtml]. . There are 346,527 housing units at an average density of 2,865.6/km² (7,421.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 49.66% White, 7.79% African American, 0.45% Native American, 30.84% Asian, 0.49% Pacific Islander, 6.48% from other races, and 4.28% from two or more races. 14.10% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. The ethnic makeup is 19.6% Chinese, 8.8% Irish, 7.7% German, and 6.1% English. San Francisco has the largest Chinese population in America and the largest Asian population outside of Hawaii. The City has the highest percentage of gay families (as well as a large numbers of single gay people) of any American county or large city. Gay men outnumber lesbians, who are more concentrated in the suburban East Bay. There are 329,700 households out of which 16.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.6% are married couples living together, 8.9% have a female head of household with no husband present, and 56.0% are non-families. 38.6% of all households are made up of individuals and 9.8% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.30 and the average family size is 3.22. In the city the population is spread out with 14.5% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 40.5% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 13.7% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 36 years. For every 100 females there are 103.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 103.1 males. The median income for a household in the city is $55,221, and the median income for a family is $63,545 one of the highest in the United States at 15th place overall and 3rd in a single large city. Males have a median income of $46,260 versus $40,049 for females. The per capita income for the city is $34,556 which is ranked as the 19th highest in the country. 11.3% of the population and 7.8% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 13.5% of those under the age of 18 and 10.5% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Government and politics
As the official name implies, the City and County San Francisco is a metropolitan municipality, being simultaneously a charter city and charter county with a consolidated government. It is the only metropolitan municipality in California and the only California county with a mayor, who is also the county executive. San Francisco is the only California city with a board of supervisors, which is also the city council. San Francisco's unique status also makes it a municipal corporation and an administrative division of the state. It is in the latter capacity that San Francisco exercises jurisdiction over property that would otherwise be located outside of its corporation limit. San Francisco International Airport, for example, would be located within San Mateo County but for the fact it is owned and operated by the City and County of San Francisco. Because counties are administrative divisions of the state, it is legally impossible for two counties to occupy or exercise jurisdiction over the same piece of land. Thus, the airport, which is about 15 miles south of mainland San Francisco, is legally part of San Francisco because the municipality owns it. San Francisco exercises jurisdiction over the Hetch Hetchy Valley and watershed, in Yosemite National Park, pursuant to a perpetual leasehold granted by Act of Congress in 1913, the Raker Act. Under the current charter, the Government of San Francisco is constituted of two co-equal branches - the executive or administrative branch, which is headed by the mayor and includes other city-wide elected and appointed officials, and the civil service; and the legislative branch, which is constituted of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which exercises general oversight over all city and county functions. The mayor is elected every four years, in the odd-numbered year that precedes the U.S. presidential election. The current mayor, Gavin Newsom, was elected in December 2003 in a runoff competition against Matt Gonzalez (see also List of Mayors of San Francisco, California). Gonzalez was president of the Board of Supervisors, representing District 5, and Newsom was a member of the board representing District 2. If the mayor dies or resigns, the President of the Board of Supervisors assumes the office until a special election can be held. The eleven members of the Board of Supervisors (as of January 2005) are listed in the table at right by district number[http://www.sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=4385]. The current president of the Board is Aaron Peskin, who represents District 3. How the Board of Supervisors shall be elected has been a bone of contention in recent San Francisco history. Throughout the United States, almost all cities and counties with populations in excess of 20,000 divide the jurisdiction into electoral districts (in cities, often called "wards") to ensure proportionate representation of the whole community and to evenly distribute the community interaction workload evenly among the members of the governing body (city council, county board of supervisors, etc.) But California has always been disinclined to follow examples set by the rest of the country; and San Francisco, notwithstanding a population of 0.7 million, has been no exception. Prior to 1977 and again from 1980 through 2000, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors was elected at-large. All candidates appeared together on the ballot. The person who received the most votes was elected President of the Board of Supervisors, and the next ten were elected to seats on the board. The first district-based elections in 1977 resulted in a radical change to the composition of the Board, including the election of Harvey Milk, only the third openly gay or lesbian individual (and the first who was male) elected to public office in the United States. Following the assassinations of Supervisor Milk and Mayor George Moscone a year later, by Supervisor Dan White who had just resigned, district elections were deemed divisive and San Francisco returned to at-large elections until the current system was implemented in 2000. Under the current system, Supervisors are elected by district to four-year terms. The terms are staggered so that only half the board is elected every two years, thereby providing continuity. Supervisors representing odd-numbered districts (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11) are elected every fourth year counted from 2000 (so, 2000, 2004, 2008, etc.). Supervisors representing even-numbered districts (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) were elected to transitional two-year terms in 2000, thereafter to be elected every fourth year (2002, 2006, 2010, etc.). The President of the Board of Supervisors, under the new system, is elected by the members of the Board from among their number. This is done by secret ballot, typically at the first meeting of the new session commencing after the general election. The Mayor and members of the Board of Supervisors are subject to term limits under the San Francisco Charter. None may serve more than two consecutive terms. As part of the change to district elections, however, this provision applies to supervisors only as of the first full term of election following its implementation in 2000. Thus, Tom Ammiano, who was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1994 and 1998 under the old system, then again in 2000 under the new system, was able to run yet again in 2004 (and won). A single vote transfer system of elections was approved by the electorate and implemented in time for the 2004 general election. This system replaced the old, expensive system of run-off elections. Under this new ranked-choice system, whenever there are more than two candidates for an office, voters rank their choices in order of preference. If a candidate does not achieve a majority of votes cast when the first choice votes are counted, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and the second choice votes on those ballots are tabulated and "transferred" to the remaining candidates. The process continues, as necessary, until one candidate achieves a majority of votes cast and is then declared the winner. Eyed warily by some and optimistically by others - in both cases owing to the belief that single-transfer voting might favour so-called "progressive" and "minority party" candidates over so-called "conservative" and "mainstream party" candidates - the 2004 general election results showed that belief to be unfounded, as all incumbent Supervisors were returned to office. Vacancies on the Board of Supervisors are filled by mayoral appointment, subject to special election (except as the Charter permits an appointee to remain in office until the general election for the seat is held). A person appointed or elected to fill a vacancy of less than two years is not deemed to have served a full term for purposes of term limits, whereas a person who fills a vacancy with more than two years remaining in the term is deemed to serve a full term and will be able to run for a consecutive term only once. The Mayor's 2005-2006 proposed budget forecasts general fund expenditures of $2.44 billion. As the largest city on the west coast before World War I, San Francisco became and remains the legal hub for the western United States. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the Federal District Court for Northern California are headquartered in San Francisco. The Supreme Court of California is also headquartered in San Francisco, making The City the de facto judicial capital of the state. California is the only U.S. jurisdiction whose highest court and judicial seat is not in the official state or territorial capital. The California Supreme Court also maintains branch offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento. In addition, the city is the seat of the First Appellate District of the State Courts of Appeals and the San Francisco County Superior Court.
City flag
The flag depicts a rising Phoenix, symbolic of the City's recovery from the 1906 fire. Underneath the phoenix it has a motto written in Spanish: "Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra," which translates into: "Gold in Peace, Iron in War."
City seal
The seal, which was adopted in the 1850s, depicts two working men, on one side a miner and on the other a sailor with a sextant. Above is a rising phoenix and behind is the bay with sailing ships. The Phoenix symbolizes the city's emergence from the ashes of several devastating fires in the early 1850's.
Economy
Because of the California gold rush, San Francisco became and remains the banking and financial center of the U.S. West Coast. It is the home of the twelfth district of the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as major production facilities for the U.S. Mint. The Pacific Exchange is located in the financial district. Many major American and international banks and venture capital firms have all set up their regional headquarters in the city. Fortune 500 rankings indicated in parenthesis. Companies headquartered in San Francisco are: Companies headquartered near San Francisco include:
Education
The city is served by San Francisco Unified School District. Despite its limited geographical space, San Francisco is home to a multitude of Universities and Colleges. Public universities include:
- University of California, San Francisco, primarily a Medical School, located north of Forest Hill
- San Francisco State University located in the southwest corner of the city near Lake Merced
- University of California, Hastings College of the Law located downtown at its Civic Center
- City College of San Francisco, one of the largest community colleges in the country is located in the Ingleside, with several extension campuses. Private universities:
- The Jesuit-run University of San Francisco, one of the first universities established west of the Mississippi, located in the center of the city
- Golden Gate University, a business and law school located downtown
- Banc of America Securities. Bank of America (BofA) , based in Charlotte, North Carolina, is the third largest commercial bank in the United States of America, measured in assets. It was founded in 1874 in Charlotte as Commercial Financial Bank.

Corporate History

The Bank of America that exists today was the result of the purchase (which was structured as a merger) of the San Francisco-based Bank of America by Charlotte-based Nationsbank in 1998. As a part of the merger, Nationsbank acquired and assumed the Bank of America name.

NationsBank

Commercial National Bank (CNB), the earliest forerunner of NationsBank, opened for business in Charlotte in 1874. In 1957, Commercial National merged with its longtime rival in Charlotte, American Trust Co., forming American Commercial Bank. American Commercial changed its name to North Carolina National Bank (NCNB) in 1960 after its acquisition of Greensboro-based Security National Bank. In the early 1970s, it reorganized as the leading subsidiary of NCNB Corporation. NCNB expanded beyond North Carolina for the first time in 1982, when it bought Lake City, Florida-based First National Bank of Lake City. Hugh McColl became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NCNB the following year. In 1988, NCNB's assets grew to $60 billion ($60,000,000,000) after it bought the failed First RepublicBank of Dallas, Texas from the FDIC. NCNB became NationsBank in 1991 after acquiring Atlanta-based C&S/Sovran Corp. NationsBank's assets grew to $118 billion following the merger. In 1993, NationsBank acquired Baltimore based Maryland National Bank and Washington, DC based American Security Bank. In 1996, NationsBank acquired Saint Louis-based Boatmen's Bancshares for $9.6 billion. The resultant bank became the largest in the American South, with assets of $225 billion and 2,600 branches, stretching from North Carolina to New Mexico. The following year, NationsBank acquired Florida's largest bank, Jacksonville-based Barnett Bank, for $15.5 billion, increasing the company's total assets to $284 billion. In 1998 NationsBank acquired Bank of America, and assumed the Bank of America name.

BankAmerica and the BankAmerica Card

Amadeo Giannini was the founder of the modern day Bank of America NT&SA. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake his Bank of Italy became a leader of the San Francisco banking community by providing loans to those struck by the disaster. The California-based BankAmerica was established in 1929 as an outcome of the merger between Amadeo Giannini's Bank of Italy (USA) and Bank of America, Los Angeles. By merging with BankAmerica of Los Angeles, Giannini, based in San Francisco, gained access to the Los Angeles financial market and rights to the name BankAmerica.³. While the names of many nationally chartered banks end with the initials 'N.A.' (National Association), Giannini picked a unique ending, National Trust and Savings Association, or NT&SA, because he wanted the name to highlight the different functions of the bank. BoA was the only NT&SA in the country. The bank was soon the largest in California. Giannini also sought to build a national bank, expanding into most of the western states as well as into the insurance industry, under the aegis of his holding company, Transamerica. Bank of America NS&SA also had banking relationships in internatonal financial markets. With the passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, banks were prohibited from owning non-banking subsidiaries such as insurance companies, and BankAmerica and Transamerica were separated, with the latter company continuing in the insurance business. However, federal banking regulators prohibited Bank of America's interstate banking activity, and Bank of America's domestic banks outside of California were forced into a separate company that eventually became First Interstate Bancorp, which was acquired by Wells Fargo Corp. in 1996. It was not until the 1980s with a change in federal banking legislation and regulaton that BankAmerica was again able to expand its domestic consumer banking activity outside of California. California was the nation's fastest growing state during the post-World War II boom, with the highest use of checking accounts (partially driven by many soldiers being paid via bank accounts during WWII), resulting in BankAmerica being swamped by checks. By 1949, the branches had to close at 2:00pm in order to process the bookkeeping by 5:00 p.m. To cope with the transaction volume, the bank invested heavily in information technology and is generally credited, together with GE and SRI, with inventing modern centralized bank operations, along with a number of financial transaction processing technologies such as automatic check processing, account numbers Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR). Based upon these technologies, credit cards were able to be linked directly to individual bank accounts. Because of the efficiency of these technologies, the bank had significantly lower administrative costs than other banks and was able to expand until it was the world's largest bank in the early 1970s. In 1959, it invented the bank credit card, the BankAmericard, which changed its name to VISA in 1975. A consortium of other California banks came up with Master Charge (now MasterCard) in order to compete with BankAmericard.

Expansion Outside of California

Following passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1967, BankAmerica Corp. was established for the purpose of owning BankAmerica and its subsidiaries. BankAmerica expanded outside California in 1983 with its acquisition of Seafirst Corp. of Seattle, Washington and its wholly owned banking subsidiary, Seattle-First National Bank. Seafirst was at risk of seizure by the federal government after becoming insolvent due to a series of bad loans to the oil industry. BankAmerica continued to operate its new subsidiary as Seafirst rather than Bank of America until its merger with NationsBank. BankAmerica was dealt huge losses in 1986 and 1987 due to the placement of a series of bad loans in the Third World, particularly in Latin America. The company fired its CEO, Sam Armacost, although Armacost blamed the problems on his predecessor, A.W. (Tom) Clausen, who was then appointed to replace Armacost. The losses resulted in a huge decline of BankAmerica stock, making it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. First Interstate Bancorp of Los Angeles (which had originated from banks once owned by BofA), launched such a bid in the fall of 1986, although BankAmerica rebuffed it, mostly by selling its FinanceAmerica subsidiary to Chrysler and by selling the brokerage firm Charles Schwab and Co. back to Mr. Schwab. On the day of the 1987 stock market crash, BankAmerica was trading at $8 per share, although by 1992 it had rebounded mightily to become one of the biggest gainers of that half-decade. The selling of the corporate headquarters building in downtown San Francisco to raise capital was a symbolic blow to the bank. BankAmerica's next big acquisition came in 1992. BankAmerica acquired its California rival, Security Pacific Corp. and its subsidiary Security Pacific National Bank in California and other banks in Arizona, Idaho, Oregon and Washington (which Security Pacific had acquired in a series of acquisitions in the late 1980s). This was, at the time, the biggest bank acquisition in history. Federal regulators nevertheless forced the sale of Security Pacific's Washington subsidiary, Rainier Bank, because the combination of Seafirst and Rainier would have given BankAmerica too large a share of the market in that state. Later that year, BankAmerica expanded into Nevada by acquiring Valley Bank of Nevada. In 1994, BankAmerica acquired the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago, which had become federally-owned as part of the same oil industry debacle that had brought down Seafirst. At the time, no bank had the resources to bail out Continental; the federal government forced to operate the bank for nearly a decade. Illinois at that time outlawed branch banking, so Bank of America Illinois was a single-unit bank until the 21st century. Bank of America moved its national lending department to Chicago in an effort to establish a financial beachhead in the region. Even after these later mergers, the Midwest remains a part of the country without other Bank of America branches. These mergers helped BankAmerica Corp. once again become the largest U.S. bank holding company in terms of deposits, but the company fell to second place in 1997 behind fast-growing NationsBank Corp. and to third in 1998, also behind North Carolina's First Union Corp. In 1998, Bank Of America was purchased by NationsBank Corp.

Bank Of America

The purchase of BankAmerica Corp. by NationsBank Corp. was the largest bank acquisition in history at that time. While the deal was technically a purchase of Bank of America by Nationsbank, the deal was structured as a merger. Despite the mammoth size of the two companies, federal regulators insisted only upon the divestiture of 13 branches in New Mexico, in towns that would be left with only a single bank following the combination. This is because branch divestures are only required if the combined company will have a larger than 25 percent FDIC deposit market share in a particular state or 10 percent deposit market share overall. Following the $64.8 billion ($64,800,000,000) acquisition of BankAmerica by NationsBank, Bank of America had combined assets of $570 billion, and 4,800 branches in 22 states. In 2001, Bank of America CEO and chairman Hugh McColl stepped down and named Ken Lewis as his successor. Lewis's greater focus on financial discipline and efficiency contrasted greatly with the expansionary mergers and acquisition strategy of his predecessor. In 2004, Bank of America Corp. acquired Boston, Massachusetts-based FleetBoston for $47 billion to solidify Bank of America's position as the bank with the largest FDIC rated deposit market share in the United States with $513 billion in deposits well ahead of the number 2 bank holding company, newly-merged JPMorgan Chase-Bank One with $353 billion in deposits and number 3 Wells Fargo & Co. with $228 billion. (Deposits as of June 30, 2003.) The combined Bank of America and Fleet have 5,700 branches serving 35 million customers in 29 states. After the merger with FleetBoston Financial, roughly 1 out of every 10 dollars on deposit in a commercial bank and savings and loan were deposits of Bank of America.

Bank of America Today

Although Bank of America Corp. is much larger than its closest rivals in terms of deposit share, other financial services companies are larger on the basis of assets, profits and market capitalisation. Bank of America is currently constructing a massive new headquarters for its New York City operations. The skyscaper will be located on 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas, and will feature state-of-the-art "green" - environmentally friendly - technology throughout its 1.2 million square feet (200,000 m²) of office space. On June 30, 2005 the bank announced it would purchase credit card giant MBNA for $35 billion in cash and stock. Completion of the deal in the fourth quarter of 2005 will propel BofA past JPMorgan Chase to become the largest issuer of credit cards in the U.S. MBNA will be renamed Bank of America Card Services and be will headquartered in Delaware after the merger is complete in the second half of 2005. In 2005 Bank of America started a marketing campaign representing itself as founded in 1784 and being the second-oldest bank in the United States. This reflects the founding date of the Bank of Massachusetts, which in the early 20th century acquired and took the name of the First National Bank of Boston, which was acquired by Fleet Financial Group (which originated in the Industrial National Bank of Rhode Island) to form FleetBoston Financial, which only came under the Bank of America umbrella in 2004. Bank Of America itself, having begun as Commercial National Bank of Charlotte in 1874, is not nearly as old as the banks it has purchased. Bank of America Corporation (the holding company) in 2005 has over $1.2 Trillion in assets.

Controversy

Enron Scandal

Bank Of America was one of several banks linked to the fruadulent activities committed by Enron. In 2004, they settled a class action lawsuit brought on by Enron investors, for $69m. The suit specifically claimed that Bank of America had "actively engaged and participated in the fraudulent scheme" and "furthered Enron's fraudulent course of conduct and business in several ways". Under the settlement, the bank denies that it violated any law and explaines that it settled the matter solely to eliminate the uncertainties, expense and distraction of further protracted litigation.

Raiding Social Security

In 2004, a California jury decided that Bank of America had illegally raided the Social Security benefits of a million customers. The jury awarded damages that could exceed $1 billion. Bank Of America had been accused of paying customer fees by siphoning funds from those customers' Social Security accounts, in direct violation of California law. The suit claims the BOA knew about the law, and concealed the facts of this law from their customers.

Excessive Overdraft Fees

In 1999, a class action lawsuit was filed against Bank Of America for engaging in the practice of "Biggest Check First" check clearing. Put simply, the bank clears checks in order from biggest to smallest, with less regard to when they come in. Customers allege that this is purposefully done to cause more checks to bounce, triggering more overdraft fees for the bank to collect. Here's an example: A customer has $1,000 in his checking account. Check numbers 101 through 104 come in for processing for $60, $10, $30 and $950, in that order. If the checks are processed by the check number or in ascending order (smallest to largest), the first three checks will clear and the fourth will bounce, meaning the customer will be charged one fee for insufficient funds. NationsBank (now Bank Of America) charged $29 for each bounced check. If the checks are processed largest to smallest, however, the $950 check will clear first, and the checks for $60, $30 and $10 will bounce, resulting in $87 in fees. The bank employs the same practice for ATM and debit card transactions. Another example: A customer has $100 in her account. On Saturday she withdraws $80 from an ATM. On Sunday she buy a coffee using her debit card for $3.00 and fills up her gas tank for $15. As of Sunday night, she still has $2 remaining in her account. On Monday, her recurring monthly cable bill is auto-debited from her account, for $150. The bank clears this transaction even though the customer is now in the negative. This is standard grounds for an overdraft fee, so the customer expects to find one on her next statement. However, when the customer checks her statement, she finds FOUR overdraft charges. One for the cable bill, plus one for each of the debits over the weekend. The customer is naturally confused, as she had not overdrawn her account for any of the weekend transactions. Yet, the bank counts those charges as overdrafts by claiming that they do not post until the next business day, even though the transactions were all computerized and date-stamped over the weekend. Since the bank then employs "biggest check first", the smaller weekend transactions clear after the cable bill that came in later. The customer get four overdraft charges total, instead of one. BOA paid a $9M settlement to end the lawsuit in 1999, but they continue to process transactions from highest to lowest amounts. New York, California, and Nevada are currently fighting the practice. Many customers claim that Bank Of America will not admit to this practice unless asked specifically about it. When customers ask why several overdraft fees suddenly appear on their statements, they are told by service representatives that the bank simply processes the charges in the order received. This is not quite true: on any given day, charges are cleared in order from biggest to smallest amounts, regardless of when the original transaction took place. Bank Of America customers also claim that the bank's ATM and Online Banking systems are purposefully designed to make the customer believe their balance is higher than it actually is. Again, customers claim that this increases the likelyhood of incurring overdraft fees. Customers claim that when using their Bank Of America debit card for purchases or ATM withdrawals, the amount of the charge is immediately deducted, then replaced several days later, then removed once again. If charges were made during the period when the money was temporarily back in the account, those charges go through - and incur an overdraft fee. BOA's response is that their Online Banking and ATM systems should not be used to track account balances, and that customers should write their transactions down in a register.

Diversity

Bank of America was named one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers in 2004 by Working Mothers magazine.

Major Sponsorships

Bank of America owns the naming rights of the Carolina Panthers football stadium in Charlotte. It will also sponsor the October NASCAR race at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina beginning in 2006, and that race will be known as the Bank of America 500. It is also the official bank of Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, and Little League.

Footnotes

- 1 See Above
- 2 See Above
- 3 BankAmerica, Los Angeles, was created in 1923 following a series of Los Angeles financial institution mergers and acquisitions beginning in 1910. The mergers and acquisitions were conducted by Orra E. Monnette and his father Mervin J. Monnette. Following the merger of the Bank of Italy (San Francisco) with Bank of America, Los Angeles, Orra E. Monnette was named co-chair of resulting Bank of America corporation, a seat that he held until his death in Los Angeles in 1936. Orra Monnette also served as the chairman of the Los Angeles (California) Public Library from the mid 1920’s until his death. (Sources: Los Angeles Public Library; Los Angeles Times Obituary February 24, 1936).

References

- Bonadio, Felice A. A.P. Giannini: Banker of America. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1994.
- Hector, Gary. Breaking the Bank: The Decline of BankAmerica. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988.
- James, Marquie and Bessie. Biography of a Bank: The Story of Bank of America N.T.&S.A. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954.
- Johnston, Moira. Roller Coaster: The Bank of America and the Future of American Banking. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990.
- Lampert, Hope. Behind Closed Doors: Wheeling and Dealing in the Banking World. New York: Atheneum, 1986.
- Monnette, Orra Eugene. Personal Papers Collection. Los Angeles Public Library (Main), Los Angeles California.
- Nash, Gerald G. A.P. Giannini and the Bank of America. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.
- Yockey, Ross. McColl: The Man with America's Money. Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 1999.

External links

- [http://www.bankofamerica.com Bank of America] homepage
- For more information about bank market share, see [http://www2.fdic.gov/sod/index.asp the FDIC's web site], which includes historical data
- [http://money.cnn.com/1999/11/10/banking/brm_checking/] - Nov. 10, 1999 - NationsBank settles check-cashing policy lawsuit
- [http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,1253220,00.html] - July 3, 2004 - Bank Of America settles Enron lawsuit for $69m
- [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/02/26/financial1546EST0243.DTL] - February 26, 2004 - Jury awards Bank of America customers up to $1 billion for illegally raiding Social Security benefits of one million customers

Business Ratings

- [http://www.buyblue.org/node/301/view/summary Buyblue.org] rating on Political Contributions; Labor & Human Rights; Environment; Corporate and Social Responsibility; Employment Equality; and Industry Practices
- Category:Bank of America Category:Charlotte, North Carolina Category:Companies based in North Carolina Category:Fortune 500 companies ja:バンク・オブ・アメリカ

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B1249 road/2005-08-23

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page. The result of the debate was speedy keep at nominator's request. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:26, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

B1249 road

~~Utterly non notable B-road. User:SPUI is creating them whilst well aware of the consensus forming to delete such nn cruft articles Proto t c 11:57, 23 August 2005 (UTC)~~ Withdrawn - see below. Proto t c 12:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
- Delete, nn. R adiant adiant 11:58, August 23, 2005 (UTC)
- Comment. This article was listed for deletion on 6 August and the VfD was closed no consensus on 18 August, five days ago: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/B1249. Incidentally the result of that VfD demonstrates that there is no consensus on roads. All User:SPUI has done is move the article from B1249 to B1249 road. You have your facts wrong. I suggest that this premature relisting should be removed, although you may have relisted it in error, believing that the article was a new creation. --Tony Sidaway ^Talk 12:14, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for the info, Tony. I didn't realise that the article had already been through VfD, although interestingly I count 10-5 on the prior VfD in favour of deleting it - this is hardly a 'no consensus' tally; it should have been deleted that time. However, as five days is indeed far too short a period to resubmit an article for VfD, I will withdraw the nomination. I'll renominate it in a few weeks; hopefully then an admin will interpret a consensus to delete in the correct manner. Could an admin close this VfD, please? Proto t c 12:24, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
- Done. Sjakkalle (Check!) 12:26, 23 August 2005 (UTC) :The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.

bwin gambling �mieszne zdj�cia pozycjonowanie sluby

:: RELATED NEWS ::

Schweizisk
Schweiz, eller officiellt Schweiziska Edsförbundet, (latin: Helvetia, Confoederatio Helvetica; tyska: Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft; franska: Confédération Suisse; italienska: Confederazione Svizzera; rätoromanska: Confederaziun Svizra) är en förbundsrepublik i

Bank of Italy

Banca d'Italia

History

External links

Bank of Italy (USA)

External links

San Francisco, California

History

Geography and climate

Climate

Neighborhoods in San Francisco

Parks

Demographics

Government and politics

City flag

City seal

Economy

Education

Corporate History

NationsBank

BankAmerica and the BankAmerica Card

Expansion Outside of California

Bank Of America

Bank of America Today

Controversy

Enron Scandal

Raiding Social Security

Excessive Overdraft Fees

Diversity

Major Sponsorships

Footnotes

References

External links

See also

Data

Business Ratings

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B1249 road/2005-08-23

B1249 road