Sights in San Francisco
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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 maudlin – that is, until you watch the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge from the hilltop park named in his honor.
Sterling was a great romancer of all that San Francisco offered – nature, idealism, free love and opium – and was frequently broke. But as the toast of the secretive, elite Bohemian Club, San Francisco's high society indulged the poet in his eccentricities, including carrying a lethal dose of cyanide as a reminder of life's transience. Broken by his ex-wife's suicide and loss of his best friend,…
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Presidio National Park
Explore that splotch of green on the map between Baker Beach and Crissy Field, and you’ll find a parade grounds, Yoda, a centuries-old adobe wall and a pet cemetery. What started out as a Spanish fort built by conscripted Ohlone in 1776 is now a treasure hunt of oddities. Begin your adventures by heading across the parade grounds at Moraga to get a trail map at the visitors center (Moraga Ave near Arguello Blvd) in the old Officers’ Club (verify location ahead of time; it’s slated to move), or take advantage of rock-star photo ops among the decrepit barracks. This is where Jerry Garcia began and ended his ignominious military career by going AWOL nine times in eight…
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Portsmouth Square
Since apartments in Chinatown's narrow brick buildings are small, Portsmouth Square 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. Bronze plaques and monuments dot the perimeter of the historic square and a monument bearing a ship with golden sails is dedicated to adventure author Robert Louis Stevenson, who found inspiration here c 1879. 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…
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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 headline acts. 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, 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 depict founders of Freemasonry in California and their accomplishments – if you can decipher the enigmatic…
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Powell St Cable Car Turnaround
Stand awhile at Powell and Market Sts and you'll spot arriving cable car operators leaping out, gripping trolleys and slooowly turning them around by hand on a revolving wooden platform. Cable cars can't go in reverse and this terminus is where the Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde lines end and begin. Riders line up late morning to early evening for the city's famous moving historic landmarks – so do panhandlers, street performers and preachers on megaphones. Some find the scene colorful, others find it unnerving. If you're worried about time, count heads and do the math: cable cars hold 60 people maximum (29 seated, 31 standing), but leave the terminus with fewer as to leave…
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Fort Funston
Grassy dunes up to 200ft high at Fort Funston give you an idea of what the Sunset looked like before it was paved over in the 20th century. The fort is protected as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and it attracts butterflies and migrating birds. In this defunct military installation, you'll find 146-ton WWII guns pointing out to sea and abandoned Nike missile silos near the parking lot. Nuclear missiles were never launched from Ft Funston, but on any sunny, breezy day, flocks of hang gliders launch and land here.
The National Park Service is gradually replacing invasive ice plants with native California plants such as dune sagebrush, coastal buckwheat and…
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Bohemian Club
The most infamous, secretive club in all San Francisco was founded in the 19th century by bona fide bohemians, but they couldn't afford the upkeep so allowed the ultra-rich to join. Now the roster lists an odd mix of power elite and famous artists: apparently both George W Bush and Bob Weir are current members. On the Post St side of the club's ivy-covered brick wall, look for the plaque honoring Gold Rush–era author Bret Harte, which depicts characters from his works. On the extreme right is 'The Heathen Chinee.' It's not a racist attack – quite the opposite – but a reference to the eponymous 1870 satirical poem Harte wrote mocking anti-Chinese sentiment in Northern…
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Swedenborgian Church
Radical ideals in the form of distinctive buildings make beloved SF landmarks; this standout 1894 example is the collaborative effort of 19th-century Bay Area progressive thinkers, such as naturalist John Muir, California Arts & Crafts leader Bernard Maybeck and architect Arthur Page Brown. Church founder Emanuel Swedenborg was an 18th-century Swedish theologian, a scientist and an occasional conversationalist with angels, who believed that humans are spirits in a material world unified by nature, love and luminous intelligence – a lovely concept, embodied in an equally lovely building. Enter the church through a modest brick archway, and pass into a garden, sheltered by…
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South Park
South Park ‘Dot-com’ was the word on the street here in the mid-’90s, when venture capitalists plotted website launches in parkside cafes with tattooed 20-something techies. But speculation is nothing new to South Park, which was planned by a real-estate speculator in the 1850s as a bucolic gated community. Though the South Park development itself never quite took off, a plaque on an office building around the corner at 601 3rd St marks the birthplace of Jack London, esteemed author of The Call of the Wild,White Fang and many other popular adventure stories. Otherwise the neighborhood retreated into obscurity, and Filipino American war veterans formed a quiet…
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California Historical Society Museum
Get the lowdown on California history at this exhibition space devoted entirely to the state's history. Galleries show themed highlights from the museum's vast collection of more than half a million photographs, paintings and ephemera. Recent exhibits have shown how the Golden State built its reputation for movies, fresh food and the good life through silent-movie posters, vintage fruit labels and tourism brochures – and how that mythology washes with historical realities.
History buffs will want to make a date at the fascinating research library for access to rare books, photos and manuscripts. The library has the definitive collection on the American Civil Liberties…
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Bob Kaufman Alley
What, you mean your hometown doesn’t have a street named after an African American Catholic-Jewish-voodoo anarchist Beat poet who refused to speak for 12 years? The man revered in France as the ‘American Rimbaud’ was a major poet who helped found the legendary Beatitudes magazine in 1959 and a spoken-word bebop jazz artist who was never at a loss for words, yet he felt compelled to take a Buddhist vow of silence after John F Kennedy’s assassination that he kept until the end of the Vietnam War. Kaufman’s life was hardly pure poetry: he was a teenage runaway, periodically found himself homeless, was occasionally jailed for picking fights in poetry with police,…
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Old St Mary's Cathedral
Many thought it a lost cause, but California's first cathedral, inaugurated in 1854, tried for decades to give San Francisco some religion – despite its location in brothel central. Hence the stern admonition on the church's clock tower: 'Son, observe the time and fly from evil.'
Eventually the archdiocese abandoned attempts to convert Dupont St whoremongers and handed the church over to America's first Chinese community mission, run by the activism-oriented Paulists. During WWII, the church served 450,000 members of the US armed services as a recreation center and cafeteria. The walls of the church miraculously withstood the 1906 earthquake and fire, which destroyed one…
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Columbus Tower
Like most SF landmarks worthy of the title, this one has a seriously checkered career. Built by shady political boss Abe Ruef in 1905, the building was finished just in time to be reduced to its steel skeleton in the 1906 earthquake and fire. The new copper cladding was still shiny in 1907 when not-so-honest Abe was convicted of bribing city supervisors. By the time he emerged bankrupt from San Quentin State Prison, the cupola was oxidizing green.
Towering artistic aspirations found a home here, too. Grammy-winning folk group The Kingston Trio bought the tower in the 1960s, and the Grateful Dead recorded in the basement. Since the 1970s, Columbus Tower has been owned by…
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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…
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Chinese Culture Center
You can see all the way to China on the 3rd floor of the Hilton inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits of traditional Chinese arts, including China's leading brush-painters; Xian Rui (Fresh & Sharp) cutting-edge art installations, recently featuring Stella Zhang's ethereal indoor sails and discomfiting toothpick-studded pillows; and a new 'Art at Night' series showcasing Chinese-inspired art, jazz and food. In odd-numbered years, don't miss the Present Tense Biennial, where 30-plus Bay Area artists are invited to give their personal takes on Chinese culture.
For more first-hand experiences of Chinese culture, check the center's schedule for upcoming concerts,…
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Pacific-Union Club
The only Nob Hill mansion to survive the 1906 earthquake and fire is a squat neoclassical brownstone, which despite its grandeur lacks architectural imagination. Today it's a private men's club. The exclusive membership roster lists newspaper magnates, both Hewlett and Packard of Hewlett-Packard, several US secretaries of defense and government contractors (insert conspiracy theory here). Democrats, people of color and anyone under 45 are scarce on the published list, but little else is known about the 800-odd, all-male membership: members can be expelled for leaking information. Cheeky cross-dressing protesters have pointed out that there's no specific ban on transgender…
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Legion of Honor
Never doubt the unwavering resolve of a nude model. This marble-clad replica of Paris' Legion d'Honneur was a gift to San Francisco from Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, a larger-than-life sculptor's model who married well and donated her fortune to create this monumental tribute to Californians killed in France in WWI. The Legion's world-class collection is wildly eclectic, from Monet water lilies to John Cage soundscapes, ancient Iraqi ivories to R Crumb comics. The centerpiece of 'Big Alma's' legacy is Rodin's The Kiss – but at 4pm on weekends, pipe organ recitals steal the show in the Rodin gallery. Don't miss rotating shows from the Legion's Achenbach Foundation for…
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Dragon's Gate
Enter the Dragon archway and you'll find yourself on the once-notorious street known as Dupont in its red-light heyday. Sixty years before the family-friendly overhaul of the Las Vegas Strip, Look Tin Eli and a group of forward-thinking Chinatown businessmen pioneered the approach here in Chinatown, replacing seedy attractions with more tourist-friendly ones.
After consultation with architects and community groups, Dupont St was transformed into Grant Ave, with deco-chinoiserie dragon lamps and tiled pagoda rooftops, and police were reluctantly persuaded to enforce the 1914 Red Light Abatement Act in Chinatown. By the time this gate was donated by Taiwan in 1970 grandly…
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Fort Point
Despite its impressive guns, this Civil War fort saw no action – at least until Alfred Hitchcock shot scenes from Vertigo here, with stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge from below.
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Yerba Buena Gardens
A spot of green in the swath of concrete South of Market. With Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and SFMOMA on one side and the Metreon cinema on the other, this is a prime spot for sun and downtime in between art and a movie. Free noontime concerts in the summer feature world music, hip-hop and jazz. The show-stopping 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.'
A pedestrian bridge over Howard St links the popular esplanade to an often overlooked playground and family…
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Balmy Alley
Inspired by 1930s WPA and Diego Rivera murals in San Francisco, and outraged by US foreign policy in Central America, Mission activist artists set out in the 1970s to transform the political landscape, one mural-covered garage door at a time. Balmy Alley showed personal perspectives on international events, with early works by muralist groups such as the Mujeres Muralistas (Women Muralists) and Placa (meaning 'mark-making') transforming fences and garages into artistic statements.
Today, a one-block walk down Balmy Alley leads past three decades of murals, from an early memorial for El Salvador activist Archbishop Óscar Romero to an homage to the golden age of Mexican…
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Luggage Store Gallery
A dandelion pushing through the cracks in the sidewalk, this plucky nonprofit gallery has for two decades brought signs of life to one of the toughest blocks in the Tenderloin. The art sprawls across the spacious 2nd-floor gallery, rising above the street without losing sight of it: this space was the launching pad for renowned graffiti satirists.
Two Luggage Store regulars you might recognize around town are Rigo and Brazilian duo Ogemeos. Rigo did the 'One Tree' mural that looks like a one-way sign by the 101 Fwy on-ramp in SoMa. And the Ogemeos did the mural of a defiant kid holding a lit firecracker atop the gallery building. With such oddly touching works, poetry…
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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…
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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 down-to-earth 1888 design for a cathedral in rough-hewn stone was considered appropriate by the progressive Universalists, whose current church committees include a pagan interest group and gay marriage advocacy. The 1970–74 annex built by Callister Payne & Rosse is a modernist eye-catcher that’s conceptually consistent with the older structure: a low, concrete-slab building that makes no secret of its construction. The design for the annex owes an obvious debt to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, as well as local…
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Chinese Telephone Exchange
California's earliest adopters of advanced technology weren't in Silicon Valley, but right here in Chinatown. This triple-decker tiled pagoda caused a sensation in 1894 not for its looks, but its smarts. To connect callers to the right person, switchboard operators had to speak fluent English and five Chinese dialects as well as memorize at least 1500 Chinatown residents by name, residence and occupation. The switchboard was open 365 days a year, and the manager and assistant managers lived on-site.
Since anyone born in China was prohibited by law from visiting San Francisco throughout the 1882–1943 Chinese Exclusion era, this switchboard was the main means of contact with…
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