Frontier Tower Origins - John McCartney "The Mayor of Sixth Street"

Celebrating the "Mayor of Sixth Street"

Who Is John McCartney?

John McCartney loved to turn the lobby to a dance party.

I remember we were partway through the insane SF Tech Week with several events hosted in the tower every day. Somehow John got the team boogying and laughing despite the stress.

He would lean in sometimes and tell me, “here’s my secret - I’m not a doorman. That’s just what people see.”

When I heard his wonder and gratitude at the amazing place he gets to be and the people he gets to meet, it inspired me to join.

He didn’t view the front desk as a chore or a downgrade from when he was a manager at Charles Schwab or working at Paramount. He explained, this is a place to coordinate all his enterprises from and grow his network - this is the control center.

I realized the truth of that as The CEO of Burning Man (the building used to be the BM HQ) greeting him as an old friend when she stopped by and the CEO of Compass Family Services (another former tenant) spoke at his Celebration of Life.

He never acted bored. He was full of energy - welcoming us with a joke and bringing a smile, enthusiastically learning from people, hearing about their day and their frustrations and successes. Calling his friends to recruit for his schemes (he was also a music show producer.) You would never believe he was over 70.

He would make you feel seen and welcomed - unless you weren’t supposed to be there.

One member told me how someone from the street tried to subtly walk in before the door closed without checking in and John in a flash was blocking the way asking him, “You think I was born yesterday?!”
After taking care of that he simply sat down and kept sorting the mail like nothing happened.
”What an absolute G” the member told me.

While such a boisterous forceful presence, I would also see him act so respectful and sweet and as a caring listener as he helped elderly ladies with directions. Then he would come back in and threaten everyone loudly to not touch his plastic bottle collection. He explained later to me that he used the return fees on those to support the widowed women in his church.

I included in my job description as the Head of Security - learn from John.

I sit in the same place he sat for over 20 years.

The Heritage of 995 Market St

The David Hewes building (named after “The Maker of San Francisco” who leveled and filled the land where our buildings exist today) arose in 1908.

Almost 100 years later, John entered the building. He served as its guardian for the next two decades.

He was known locally as “The Mayor of Sixth Street.” Neighborhood business owners, former WeWork members (the building was most recently a WeWork) and even the kids of the people he knew stopping by for Compass social services or Urban Alchemy (they also had an office here) would greet him warmly.

Then the pandemic struck and the building lay dormant for years… except for one man. John sat at the same desk day after day with no one else in sight. The view out of the window looked like the apocalypse.

Then one day, some men asked John in their German accent, “do you approve of this building?”
And as he does, he made them feel welcomed, a sense of history, a wonder and gratitude for being able to exist here. Then he put in a good word connecting them with the current owner so they could buy it and start this wild project called Frontier Tower.

As the membership exploded into the hundreds, John became the face of The Tower. One day, starting at the top, I shouted to people “it’s John’s Birthday! Want to come sing with us?” And all these incredibly busy startup founders and builders shouted back without hesitation, “hell yes!!”
As we descended, the crowd grew with each passing floor until we were packed into the lobby like sardines.
In that same desolate lobby where he sat alone for years, now a crowd of people were singing to him and shouting, “we love you!”

The End of an Era

This is the last text I received from John the evening of Oct 27, 2025.

The morning of Oct 28 a woman knocked on the door of the tower and asked, “we’re looking for Noah.”
I told her, “that’s me!”
”Hi Noah, I’m Doreen, John’s wife. He passed away last night.”

I’m surprised to find myself crying now as I write this. I hope Doreen knows that being able to hug her on the few moments she shows how much pain she’s feeling have been helpful for me too.

In the following days, I spent a lot of time in the lobby looking at the empty chair. There was a stream of people coming in and hugging each other and crying.

John passed away in a hospital bed with Doreen by his side. It was a complete shock to everyone as they found out.

Nicole set up a Day of the Dead shrine.
It includes:
-The Club of Justice—his custom made weapon he kept under the desk in case things ever got rowdy.
-A laser cut glass etching of him made by Tony Loehr (Thank you Tony!)
-A pair of googly eye patches that say “Chill Out!” that I found in the desk drawer

His celebration of life was the largest gathering of Tower citizens to date. Once again, he brought us together.

There were many tears.

And hugs

And as we shared our memories of John, a lot of laughter

I remember Doreen excusing herself before we started saying she needed a minute. I could see her hands shaking.
When she returned, she had transformed into a powerful, inspiring conductor.

By the end she had all of us up and dancing. She was clear that this was to be a celebration of life for John.

Thank you James, Natascha, Lydia, and many others who helped with the set up, the food, and clean up.

Thank you to everyone who spoke, and especially to everyone who refrained from speaking for the sake of time.

The Tower also matched all funds contributed to the GoFundMe which covered the funeral costs that was held at his church at a later date. Thank you Jakob, CHP, Christian, and Xenofon.

I later found out from Erica the CEO of Compass Family Services that they had received a donation from Doreen in John’s name.

Thank you Derrick and Headphone James for the photos

And to Rhiannon and Derrick for making this beautiful video in honor of John

I’ll include here a of his speech at the end:

Be prepared. Link up.
Be prepared. Link up.
Don’t lose this time because of Bitcoin, crypto, money, jewels, cars… link up!
Find that community again.
Don’t go. We’ve lost too many people—dead—without being celebrated, applauded, who had more stuff than me. Good guys, good women, and it’s sad but the people I grew up with would have never let you die like that.
This world has changed and we did it to ourselves—so link up. Be a community again.
You can’t take none of this with you. There’s no U-haul that’s going to drive you to Hell or Heaven… you can’t take it. So stop trying to take it with you…
So that’s all I would do.
Link up. Hold on. Be a community again, or there’s nothing left of human kind.

We miss you, John.

Thank you for bringing us together.