The Ferry Building Park could be a great open space with canals, lagoons, and fountains that would revive the marine flavor by actually bringing the Bay back into the area.

Difficult as all this may be, establish the Ferry Building Park area as a vibrant, alive, colorful place, used by day and at night, and it will send a tingle up the spine of Market Street.

Halprin described an early concept for what he called Ferry Building Park in the 1962 Market Street report, proposing to bring San Francisco Bay and the original harbor closer to Market, as "the [Embarcadero] Freeway and the Ferry building have created an impenetrable barrier, at street level, to one of San Francisco's most priceless assets – its marine setting" and offering ways to minimize the visual and aural impact of the double-decked freeway.

[7] During the debate over changing the name, San Francisco Chronicle urban spaces critic John King called it "a stark concrete landscape" and added "there's no earthly reason you would want to be there.

"[6] In an earlier article published just after Halprin's death in 2009, King noted that Embarcadero Plaza was "oversize and stiff, unable to adjust to the changing urban scene on all sides.

In 2017, County Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution to rename the site Embarcadero Plaza, citing Herman's role in displacing poor and minority residents from the Western Addition, Fillmore, Chinatown, and South of Market neighborhoods while presiding over the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.

[13] In 1987, during The Joshua Tree Tour, U2 held a free concert in Justin Herman Plaza to "Save the Yuppies" following the Black Monday financial crisis in October.