The bulkhead building is timber clad with stucco. A pier-entry pavilion with a gabled parapet is flanked by flat-roofed wings, each two stories high.

The detailing is classical. Monumental arches are lined with voussoirs topped by a keystone and flanked by tapering piers. A course of dentils runs along the base of the gabled parapet, which has a curved front and rises to a flagpole. The stucco surface is lightly scored to resemble ashlar masonry. On the flanking bays, rusticated pilasters divide the facade into bays, which are also coated in scored stucco.

Pier 28 contributes to the Port of San Francisco Embarcadero Historic District which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Streetcar 1052 is one of seventeen PCC's operating on the F-line. This streamlined 1935 design by the Presidents' Conference Committee of United States Electric Railway Leaders resulted in the most successful streetcar ever built. 4,500 PCC's once ran in thirty-three cities, including San Francisco.

Each San Francisco streetcar is painted in the livery of one of these thirty-three cities. Streetcar 1052, built in 1948, operated in Philadelphia from 1948 to 1989. The San Francisco Municipal Railway acquired it in 1992 and painted it to commemorate of the Los Angeles Railway Co which operated PCC's from 1937 to 1963.