Time-travel to 1968 as you cross Japan Center's indoor wooden bridges, with noren (curtains) and maneki-neko (cat figurines) waving welcomes from restaurant entryways. Hard to believe, but this kawaii-cute mall started with a knock-down fight. While Japanese American residents were interned during World War II, the city planned to tear down Japantown. Postwar, 1500 recently returned Japantown residents were uprooted to build the mall. But Japantown residents and businesses rallied, stopping evictions and converting the mall into a community hub.
Japan Center
Top choice in Japantown, Fillmore & Pacific Heights
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
3.02 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
1.46 MILES
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1.4 MILES
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1.52 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1.57 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
1.77 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
3.21 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
1.77 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby Japantown, Fillmore & Pacific Heights attractions
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The spiritual center of Japantown's commercial district is minimalist master Yoshiro Taniguchi's Peace Pagoda. It was donated by San Francisco's sister…
0.04 MILES
During drought years you'll have to imagine how they look with water flowing, but even without they're a sight to behold. Celebrated sculptor and former…
0.16 MILES
Inside this low-roofed, high-modernist church a blond-wood sanctuary welcomes all faiths. Kindly Reverend Joanne Tolosa will answer questions about…
0.16 MILES
Detour to days of yore, when this neighborhood was a sleepy seaside village – before lumber barons arrived with bombastic Victorian fanfare. Serene…
5. Fillmore Center Waterfall & Plaza
0.31 MILES
This patch of green flanked by apartment towers is open to the public and a welcome break from Fillmore sidewalks. Walk past the fountain at O'Farrell…
0.61 MILES
If these red-velvet parlor walls could talk this 1886 Queen Anne–style Victorian could tell you about earthquakes, booms, busts and untimely deaths. This…
0.63 MILES
Get in on the ground floor of the next SF art movement at this public showcase for local talent, with past exhibits ranging from Susan O'Malley's silk…
0.7 MILES
Hippie communes and Victorian bordellos, jazz greats and opera stars, earthquakes and Church of Satan services: these genteel 'Painted Lady' Victorian…