Square, Plaza sights in San Francisco
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A
Union Square
Louis Vuitton is more top-of-mind 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 renovation paved the place and installed benches narrow enough to keep junkies from nodding off, turning this once-lovely park into a prison exercise yard. Redeeming features include Emporio Rulli Caffè, the half-price theater-ticket booth and stellar people-watching.
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B
Alamo Square
The finest restaurants in town can’t provide views as spectacular as the picnic tables atop Alamo Square Park facing Steiner St’s Postcard Row, a row of pastel Victorian ‘Painted Lady’ houses with gingerbread detailing and frosting flourishes that may leave you craving dessert. The city skyline looms in the background, and from the corner of Steiner and Fulton Sts you can glimpse City Hall. On the crest of the hill, check out the old shoes creatively reused as planters. On foggy days, you may want to wear a parka – as you can guess from the wind-sculpted pines, it can get a tad blustery up here.
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C
Portsmouth Square
Since apartments in Chinatown’s old brick buildings are small, Portsmouth Sq is the neighborhood’s living room. The square is named after John B Montgomery’s sloop, which pulled up near here in 1846 to stake the US claim on San Francisco, but the presiding deity at this park is the Goddess of Democracy, a bronze replica of the statue made by Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.
First light is met with outstretched arms by tai-chi practitioners. By afternoon toddlers rush the playground slides, and tea crowds collect at the kiosk under the pedestrian bridge to joke and dissect the day’s news. The checkers and chess played on concrete tables in gazebos late into the e…
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D
Ghirardelli Square
Willy Wonka would tip his hat to Domingo Ghirardelli (g ear -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 boutique luxury timeshare/spa complex with wine-tasting rooms – care for a massage and some merlot with your Ghirardelli chocolate sundae? The square is already looking spiffy, with local boutiques such as elizabethW and a branch of Lola of North Beach, along with the charming tearoom Crown & Crumpet and tempting branch of Kara’s Cupcak…
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E
Washington Square
Wild parrots, tai chi masters, nonagenarian churchgoing nonnas (grandmothers) and Ben Franklin are the company you’ll keep on this lively patch of lawn. The parrots keep their distance in the treetops, but like anyone else in North Beach, they can probably be bribed into friendship with focaccia from Liguria Bakery on the square’s northeast corner. The 1897 statue of Ben Franklin is a non sequitur, and the taps below his feet falsely advertise mineral water from Vichy, France – yet another example of a puzzling public artwork courtesy of a certifiable SF eccentric, Henry D Cogswell, who made his fortune fitting miners with gold fillings.
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F
Peace Pagoda
When San Francisco’s sister city of Osaka, Japan, made a gift of Yoshiro Taniguchi’s five-tiered concrete stupa to the people of San Francisco in 1968, the city seemed stupa-fied what to do with the minimalist monument, and kept clustering boxed shrubs around its stark nakedness. But with some well-placed cherry trees and low, hewn-rock benches in the plaza, the pagoda is finally in its element au naturel.
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G
United Nations Plaza
This vast brick-paved triangle commemorates the signing of the United Nations charter in San Francisco. It offers a clear view of City Hall, sundry Scientologists drumming up converts, and the odd drug deal in progress. Thankfully, a wonderful farmers market (415-558-9455) provides a fresher perspective on the Tenderloin, every Wednesday and Sunday from about 7am to 5pm.
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H
Justin Herman Plaza
The plaza across from the Ferry Building may not be much to look at – what’s Vaillancourt Fountain supposed to be, anyway, a cubist large intestine? – but for years Justin Herman has been popular with lunchtime concert-goers, Critical Mass protesters, ice-skaters at the outdoor rink in winter, and internet daters screening their dates from behind the fountain’s wall of water.
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