Michael R. Corbett writes in Splendid Survivors:

"One of the very best and certainly most distinctive example of urban architecture in downtown San Francisco....The facade curves and the design is carried a short way down a dark, narrow alley....There is a certain mystery about the way the facade turns down that alley as if it were going somewhere, or as if it were a much older building in a newer city which has obscured the structure's full glory."

Pissis had a knack for designing corner buildings. The Hibernia Bank. The White House Department Store. The Flood Building. The Health Sciences Library.