M. Justin Herman

[3][1] Under his administration, large areas of the city were redeveloped; thousands of residents, many of them poor and non-white, were forced to leave their homes and businesses.

[8] From 1951 to 1959, Herman worked as a San Francisco Bay Area regional administrator for the United States Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA).

He had the support of the Bay Area Council, the Blyth-Zellerbach Committee and of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association.

[8] Sun-Reporter journalist, Thomas C. Fleming described Herman in 1965 as the "arch-villain in the black depopulation of the city",[2]: 19  while Reverend Hannibal Williams of the Western Addition Community Organization (WACO) said, "We didn't know who the devil was.

[5]: 133 [15] In July 2017, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution which would temporarily rename Justin Herman Plaza to Embarcadero Plaza until a new permanent name could be attached, citing Herman's role in displacing poor and minority residents from the Western Addition, Fillmore, Chinatown, and South of Market neighborhoods.

Peskin stated the site's owner, Boston Properties, told him they would cover the cost (estimated at US$5,400 (equivalent to $6,712 in 2023)) of replacing the plaque bearing Herman's name.