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Femina Potens
SF's showcase for women's talents is a gallery by day, and a venue for classes, events and free giveaways at night. Thursdays are the Alternative Library, featuring free media by women and transgendered artists. On Mondays it's Crafty Bitches, with women crocheting and hot-gluing items that may end up for sale at the gallery desk.
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Ferry Building
Other towns have their gourmet ghettos, but San Francisco puts its love of food front and center at the Ferry Building. The once-grand port was overshadowed by a 1950s freeway overpass until 1989, when the freeway turned out to be less than earthquake-proof. The overpass was torn down and the Ferry Building emerged as the symbol of San Francisco's new pride and joy: the food.
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Filbert Street Steps
Somewhere in the middle of the steep climb up Filbert St Steps to Coit Tower, you might begin to wonder if it's worth the trouble. Then you take a breather and look around: already you're passing hidden cottages along a wooden boardwalk called Napier Lane, sculpture tucked in among gardens flowering year-round, and sweeping vistas of the Bay Bridge.
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First Unitarian Church
Low-down and rough around the edges aren't usually meant as compliments, and they're not usually applied to a church. But George Percy's 1888 down-to-earth design for a cathedral in rough-hewn stone was perfect for the radical Universalists (whose current church committees include a pagan interest group and gay marriage advocacy) and has since become one of SF's few universally beloved ecclesiastical structures.
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Folsom St Fair
Bondage and fetish enthusiasts proudly emerge from dungeons all over SF, led by leashes into the bright September sunshine. Expect leather chaps, restraints and latex skirts, accompanied by lots of gawking tourists with videocams. This is the third-largest event in the entire state, trailing only the Tournament of Roses in So Cal and San Francisco's Pride Parade. It's one of the biggest, craziest, kinkiest parties around, with free spankings (donations to charities accepted) and fully equipped dungeons in large tents. For tamer paraders and observers, there's a poster art competition, national bands, cheap beer and eye candy galore. But be warned: there are also plenty of bods you may not want to see naked.
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Fort Funston
The grassy dunes of this fort give you some idea what the Sunset looked like before it was paved over in the early 20th century. The fort is protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and attracts butterflies and migrating birds. The park is a defunct military installation, and you can still see a WWII gun battery where 146-tonne guns still point out to sea and remains of Nike missile silos near where the parking lot is now.
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Fort Mason Center
San Francisco takes subversive glee in turning military installations into venues for nature, fine dining and out-there experimental art - and Fort Mason is no exception. The military mess halls are gone, replaced by vegan-friendly Greens, a restaurant run by a Zen community. Warehouses now host cutting-edge theater at Magic Theater and improvised comedy workshops at BATS, and the dockside Herbst Pavilion has art fairs in its arsenal.
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Fort Point
Spoiling for a fight, Fort Point is the result of a seven-year makeover from small Spanish fort to triple-decker US military fortress. The Fort was completed with 126 cannons in 1861, just in time to protect the Bay against certain invasion by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War… or not, as it turned out. Without firing a single shot, Fort Point was abandoned in 1900, and became neglected once the Golden Gate Bridge was built right over it.
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Galería De La Raza
Art never forgets its roots at this showcase for Latino art since 1970 - witness Dulce Pinzon's portrait of Spiderman as an immigrant window-washer, and mirrors filling with the viewer's exhaled breath to reveal portraits of the disappeared by Columbian artist Oscar Muñoz. On the gallery wall outside is a billboard that sells ideas instead of cigarettes, such as Serio de La Torre's huge poster of clear blue sky with a hazy slogan: REVOLT.
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Gallery Paule Anglim
Expect the unexpected from museum marquee names like Tony Oursler, whose video projections of distorted faces grumble and squeak in the corner. But provocative works by local upstarts threaten to steal the show, including Ala Ebtekar's paintings of soldiers and storm clouds gathering on ancient Iranian prayer scriptures, and Bull.Miletic's video views of San Francisco from the perspective of a flitting butterfly.
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Ghirardelli Square
Willie Wonka would tip his hat to Domingo Ghirardelli ( gear -ar-deli), whose business became the West's largest chocolate factory in 1893. After the company moved to the East Bay, two sweet-talking developers reinvented the factory as a mall and landmark ice-cream parlor in 1964. Today, the square is entering its third incarnation as a luxury timeshare-spa complex - like a massage with your Ghirardelli chocolate sundae?
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Glide Memorial United Methodist Church
'Go ahead!' shouts the lady in the wheelchair as the rainbow-robed ex-con closes his eyes to hit a high note. The 100-member Glide gospel choir is kicking off another Sunday celebration, and the welcome is warm for whoever walks or rolls in the door - the 1500+ congregation includes gays, lesbians, transsexuals, single-parent families and many who'd once lost all faith in faith.
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Golden Gate Bridge
Strange but true: the elegant suspension bridge painted a signature shade called 'International Orange' was almost nixed by the Navy in favor of concrete pylons and yellow stripes. Joseph B Strauss correctly gets heaps of praise as the engineering mastermind behind this marvel. Only southbound traffic is charged a toll.
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Golden Gate National Recreation Area Headquarters
Find out everything a hard-core hiker needs to know about accessing the outer reaches of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), including Presidio, Alcatraz, Fort Point, Fort Funston, the Cliff House, Muir Woods and the Marin Headlands. This is the park's headquarters and visitors center, and offers a wealth of maps and information about camping, hiking and other programs for national parks in the Pacific West region.
Read more about Golden Gate National Recreation Area Headquarters
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Golden Gate Park
When San Franciscans refer to 'the park,' there's only one that gets the definite article: Golden Gate Park. Everything that San Franciscans hold dear is here: free spirits, free music, redwoods, Frisbee, protests, fine art, bonsai and buffalo.
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Good Luck Parking Garage
You'd be lucky to find parking in Chinatown or North Beach, but this garage takes it one step further. Each parking spot comes with fortune-cookie wisdom stenciled onto the asphalt: 'You have already found your true love. Stop looking.' or 'You are not a has-been.'
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Grace Cathedral
This Episcopal church has been rebuilt three times since the Gold Rush, and the current French-inspired, reinforced concrete cathedral took 40 years to complete. The impressive pipe organ and soaring Gothic structure are widely admired - Ansel Adams' photographs of Grace recall the grandeur of Yosemite.
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Grateful Dead House
Like most of the members of the Grateful Dead, this Victorian has more than just a touch of gray - but back in the 1960s this was the candy-colored flophouse where Jerry Garcia et al blew minds, amps and brain cells.
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Haas-Lilienthal House
A grand Queen Anne-style Victorian with its original period splendor c 1882, this family mansion looks like a Clue game come to life - Colonel Mustard could definitely have committed murder with a candlestick in the dark-wood ballroom, or Miss Scarlet in the red velvet parlor. One-hour tours are led by volunteer docents whose devotion to Victoriana is almost cultish.
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Haight Ashbury Food Program
Flower children who arrived in the '60s to a free hot meal in the Haight are now returning the favor at Haight Ashbury Food Program. Hippie idealism meets 21st-century street smarts here, where everyone gets a healthy meal and a second chance. Stop by and volunteer to serve a meal or contribute to job training programs, and prove the Summer of Love isn't over yet.
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Harvey Milk Plaza
The first thing you'll notice as you emerge blinking from the darkness of the Castro St Muni station into the sunlight of Harvey Milk Plaza is a huge, irrepressibly cheerful rainbow flag. Look around and you'll notice even worn-out wage slaves and tough leather daddies cracking a smile. Look closer and you'll notice a plaque honoring the man whose lasting legacy to the Castro is civic pride and political clout.
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Hosfelt Gallery
Trancelike states are often induced by Hosfelt, where visitors step from gritty SoMa sidewalks into dreamy, meticulously detailed interior worlds. Close inspection of Russell Crotty's giant orbs reveals nocturnal landscapes painstakingly sketched with a BIC pen, and Marco Maggi's minutely carved stacks of office paper make paperwork seem sublime.
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Hunter S Thompson Crash Pad
How this building survived Hunter S Thompson's tenancy here in the mid-60s is anyone's guess. On the otherwise unremarkable Bay windowed facade, you might notice the odd bullet hole - mementos from parties that invariably degenerated into Hell's Angels orgies and shoot-outs.
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Hyde St Pier Historic Ships Collection
'Aye, she's a beauty,' you'll growl like a true salty dog once you've visited any of the four historic Bay Area boats currently open as museums along Hyde St Pier - especially elegant 1891 schooner Alma and the steamboat Eureka, the world's largest ferry c 1890. For more mariner action, check out the deck of the magnificent triple-masted, iron-hulled 19th century Balclutha and the toylike paddlewheel tugboat Eppleton Hall.
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Ikenobo Ikebana Society
Even shoppers hell-bent on iron teapots and maneki neko (waving kitty) figurines stop and stare at the arrangements in the windows here. This is the oldest and largest society outside Japan for ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, with the displays to prove it: a curly willow branch tickling a narcissus under its chin in an abstract jiyubana (freestyle) arrangement, or a traditional seven-part rikka landscape featuring pine and iris.
