Embarcadero Plaza sits at the northeastern terminus of Market Street, where San Francisco's main thoroughfare meets the waterfront. Designed by Lawrence Halprin and Associates with architects Mario Ciampi and John Bolles, the 3.6-acre plaza was completed in 1972 as part of Halprin's larger vision for Market Street as a "pedestrian-oriented series of linked civic spaces." As early as 1962, Halprin had proposed bringing the bay closer to Market, writing that "the 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." The plaza was built to accommodate large crowds, its scale deliberately oversized for a city that loves public gatherings. The Vaillancourt Fountain, with its concrete tubes and rushing water, became the plaza's centerpiece and its most polarizing feature.

The plaza was renamed Justin Herman Plaza in 1974, honoring the executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency who had died suddenly in 1971. Herman was a divisive figure. Under his leadership, the agency displaced thousands of poor and minority residents from the Western Addition, Fillmore, Chinatown, and South of Market neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal -- a process that destroyed communities that have never fully recovered. In 2017, Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution to strip Herman's name from the plaza, citing this history. The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor. The Recreation and Parks Commission followed with a 4-2 vote in November, after a first attempt had deadlocked 3-3. The plaza has been called Embarcadero Plaza since, its original working name during design and construction restored.

In the early 1990s, skateboarders made the plaza famous under a different name entirely: EMB. The granite ledges and open expanses made it one of the world's premier street skateboarding sites, attracting riders from across the country. The plaza has hosted Joe Montana's retirement ceremony in 1995, with an estimated 25,000 people packed into the space. Barry Bonds was honored there in 2007 for becoming baseball's all-time home run leader. Super Bowl City occupied it for Super Bowl 50 in 2016. The Occupy San Francisco encampment claimed the plaza for months in 2011. Monthly Critical Mass bicycle rides have departed from here since September 1992. Since 2006, every Valentine's Day brings the Great San Francisco Pillow Fight, an unsponsored flash mob that fills the air with feathers.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Monument was installed near the fountain in 2008, dedicated to Americans who volunteered to fight fascism in Spain during the 1930s. Bocce courts appeared in the southern lawn in 2010. Padel courts were added in 2023. In 2016, the plaza became a contributor to the Market Street Cultural Landscape District, listed on the California Register of Historical Resources. Office workers eat lunch on the tiered seating. Families bring small children. Free concerts fill summer afternoons. In winter, an ice skating rink appears. The plaza remains what Halprin intended -- a place where the city gathers -- even as what the city gathers for has changed in ways no one in 1972 could have predicted. The freeway that the fountain was built to drown out has been gone for over thirty years, but the water still crashes over the concrete, louder than the traffic that replaced it.