Entertainment sights in San Francisco
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A
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Pride Parade
Hands down, the year's biggest party. Pirates in pink and giant-winged fairies toss candy and condoms from overflowing fanny packs, while pit bulls in rainbow-hued tutus trot alongside. Stilt-walkers in glitter, trannies on unicycles, queens on roller skates – anything goes. Crowds pour from BART and Muni, climbing streetlight posts for better views, and float-dancers strut atop moving stages. Growing almost every year since 1971, Pride draws about a million participants and sidewalk supporters, running the gamut from sweater queens to granola dykes, bondage masters to GLBT seniors. Afterwards there's an all-afternoon festival at Civic Center. Hotels fill; book early. The…
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B
Masonic Auditorium
Conspiracy theorists, jazz aficionados and anyone exploring immigrant roots should know about Masonic Auditorium. Built as a temple to freemasonry in 1958, the building regularly hosts top jazz acts, such as Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. And every other Tuesday morning it hosts mass US-citizenship swearing-in ceremonies. If you’re looking for confirmation that California is run by a secret club, well, here you have it: many of the nation’s founding fathers were Freemasons, including George Washington, and the same can be said about California’s. It’s all captured in the modernist stained-glass windows, which su…
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C
Castro St Fair
This is the yin to the Folsom St Fair's yang. Instead of black leathers, think white sweaters. Instead of whips and chains, think country & western dancing and hot dog booths. The Castro St Fair was started by gay political icon and city supervisor Harvey Milk in 1974 as a way to put the nascent gay community on the map. The fair succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and an estimated 150,000 people now show up. Proceeds fund a variety of queer- and AIDS-related nonprofit groups. The fair is an all-day event, with nonstop bands, emcees and speakers. The primary activities are endless cruising and shopping, the latter being the favorite activity of the somewhat more conserva…
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D
San Francisco Carousel
Your chariot awaits to whisk you and the kiddies past the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and other SF landmarks hand-painted on this Italian carousel twinkling with 1800 lights at the bayside end of Pier 39. The old-timey organ carnival music is loud enough to drown out the inevitable tiny tot clinging for dear life to a high-stepping horsey.
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E
Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Building
Cinemas like the Castro made the reputation of architect Timothy Pflueger, who took that theatrical flair to a whole new level in this striking 1925 art deco skyscraper dolled up in terra-cotta. Step inside the black marble lobby to check out the bronze elevator doors and ceiling with Chinese mythic figures.
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F
Musée Mécanique
At Pier 45 you can guillotine a man for a quarter at the Musée Mécanique, where 19th-century arcade games like the macabre French Execution compete for your spare change with Ms Pac-Man.
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