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Sterling Park
'Homeward into the sunset/Still unwearied we go,/Till the northern hills are misty/With the amber of afterglow.' Poet George Sterling's 'City by the Sea' is almost embarrassingly romantic, but when you watch the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge from the hilltop park named in his honor, you'll concede his point.
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Stow Lake
The miniresort in the center of the park is Stow Lake, with a picturesque island called Strawberry Hill for short but sweaty hikes. Huntington Falls tumbles down the hill into the lake, near a romantic Chinese pavilion that fairly begs for a soap-opera scene to be filmed there. Pedal boats, row boats and electric motor boats are available at the boathouse (hourly rate around US$13 -17; ; - ). Boats must have at least one person 16 or older aboard, and you can bring dogs on rowboats.
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Sutro Baths
All good things must come to an end, but the Sutro Baths make a particularly splendid ruin. In its heyday Victorian dandies and working stiffs converged here for a bracing bath and workout in itchy wool swimsuits. Mining magnate and populist mayor Adolph Sutro built hot and cold indoor pools to accommodate 25,000 frolicking unwashed masses in 1896, but the masses apparently preferred dirt, and the place was reinvented as an ice rink before it finally closed in 1952. Follow the path through the sea-cave archway at low tide for an end-of-the-world view of Marin.
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Swedenborgian Church
Radical ideals wrapped up in distinctive buildings make beloved San Francisco landmarks, and this standout 1894 example is the collaborative effort of a who's who of 19th century Bay Area progressive thinkers: naturalist John Muir, California Arts and Crafts leader Bernard Maybeck and architect Arthur Page Brown.
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The Lab
Escape from the drab certainties of laundry and airport hassles to the wild what-ifs of the Lab. Since 1984 this experimental art space has offered outrageous flights of fancy: Corey Hitchcock's attempt to engineer desire with a machine and fashion shows where one-off designs are sold right off the models' backs.
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The Presidio Base
Explore that splotch of green on the map between Baker Beach and Crissy Field, and you'll find a pet cemetery, parade grounds, Yoda, a centuries-old adobe wall and a vintage bowling alley. What started out as a Spanish fort built by conscripted Ohlone in 1776 is now a treasure trove of weirdness.
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The Wave Organ
Another Exploratorium project well worth checking out is the Wave Organ, a sound system of PVC tubes and concrete pipes capped with found marble from San Francisco's old cemetery, built right into the tip of the Marina Boat Harbor jetty. Depending on the waves, winds and tide, the tones emitted by the organ can sound like nervous humming from a dinnertime line chef or spooky heavy breathing over the phone in a slasher film. Access to the organ is free, but a bit of a hike from the Exploratorium.
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Tien Hou Temple
There was no place to go but up in Chinatown after 1871, when local laws limited where Chinese San Franciscans could live and work. So temples were built atop the barber shops, laundries and neighborhood associations lining Waverly Place, and they made their presence known with brightly painted balconies festooned with flags and lanterns.
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Transamerica Pyramid & Redwood Park
An ancient Egyptian rocket ship perched atop a sperm whaler? Yep, sounds like a San Francisco landmark. The futuristic defining feature of San Francisco's skyline was built atop the wreck of a whaling ship abandoned in the 1849 Gold Rush, on the former site of a saloon frequented by Mark Twain and the newspaper office where Sun Yat-sen drafted his revolutionary Proclamation of the Republic of China.
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Union Square
Louis Vuitton is more top-of-mind here lately than the Emancipation Proclamation, but this plaza bordered by brand-name retailers was named after pro-Union Civil War rallies held here 150 years ago. A misguided recent renovation paved the place and installed benches narrow enough to keep even narcoleptics from nodding off, making this square into a prison exercise yard where fashion crimes are plotted.
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United Nations Plaza
To honor the signing of the UN charter in San Francisco, San Francisco has this brick-paved triangle offering a clear view of city hall, sundry Scientologists drumming up converts, and the odd drug deal in progress. Is this a critique of the UN or what? Thankfully, a farmers' market provides a fresher perspective on the Tenderloin every Wednesday and Sunday, from about to .
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USS Pampanito
Talk about a survivor: this WWII-era US Navy submarine completed six wartime patrols, sunk six Japanese ships and battled three others, and lived to tell the tale. Submariners' stories of tense moments in underwater stealth mode will have you holding your breath - caution claustrophobes - and all those brass knobs and mysterious hydraulic valves make 21st century technology seem way overrated.
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Vedanta Society
As you meander through the Marina you'll pass Mexican-inspired art deco, Victorian houses near Union, many generic Bay-windowed boxes - and hello, what's this? A riotous 1905 mishmash of architectural styles, with red turrets representing major world religions and the Hindu-inspired Vedanta Society's organizing principle: 'the oneness of existence.' The society founded a new temple in 1959, but their architectural conundrum remains.
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Venetian 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 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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Washington Square
Wild parrots, tai chi masters, nonagenarian churchgoing nonnas (grandmothers) and Ben Franklin are the company you'll keep at this lively square in the heart of Italian American North Beach. The parrots keep their distance in the treetops, but like anyone else in North Beach, they can probably be bribed into friendship with a focaccia from Liguria Bakery on the square's northeast corner.
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Women's Building
The nation's first woman-owned and operated community center has been quietly doing good work with 170 women's organizations since 1979 - but the 1994 addition of the Maestrapeace mural showed this building for the landmark that it truly is. An all-star team of muralistas covered the building with the icons of female strength, from Mayan and Chinese goddesses to modern trailblazers, including Rigoberta Menchu, Hanaan Ashrawi and Dr Jocelyn Elders.
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WPA Murals At Rincon Annex Post Office
Russian-born painter Anton Refregier won the Works Project Administration's largest-ever commission to depict the history of Northern California in 1941, but WWII intervened. When Refregier began again in 1945, he was lobbied to present various versions of history, and it took three years and 92 changes to make everyone happy. The murals were deemed 'Communist' by McCarthyists in 1953, but they're now protected by a National Landmark.
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Xanadu Gallery: Folk Art International
Shrink the Guggenheim and plop it inside a brick box with a sunken Romanesque archway, and there you have Frank Lloyd Wright's 1949 Circle Gallery Building, which since 1979 has been the home of Xanadu Gallery. The nautilus shell ramp in the atrium leads you on a world tour of high-end folk art, from Fijian war cubs to mounted nose ornaments from the Andes.
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Yerba Buena Gardens
A spot of green and breath of fresh air in the swath of concrete South of Market. Free noontime concerts held here in summer feature world music, hip-hop and jazz. The showstopping centerpiece is Houston Cornwell and Joseph De Pace's sleek Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Fountain, a wall of water that runs over the Reverend's immortal words: '…until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.'
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Zen Center
No, this isn't a spa, but an active spiritual retreat since 1969 for the largest Buddhist community outside Asia. The graceful landmark building designed by Julia Morgan manages to pull off a seamless Italianate Japanese style without resorting to kitsch, and providing plenty of light. The center is open to the public for visits, meditation and workshops, and also offers overnight stays by prior arrangement for intensive meditation retreats.
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