High-end stores ring Union Sq now, but this people-watching plaza has been a hotbed of protest, from pro-Union Civil War rallies to AIDS vigils. Atop the central pillar is the Goddess of Victory, who is apparently having a wardrobe malfunction. This bare-breasted deity is modeled after Big Alma Spreckles, who volunteered her nude-modeling services when she heard sugar-baron Adolph Spreckels was heading the monument committee. Spreckles became her 'sugar daddy,' and Alma donated her fortune to build the Legion of Honor.
Union Square
Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.22 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…
2.52 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
0.5 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
0.68 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
0.39 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…
1.02 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…
4.19 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…
2.21 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 Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa attractions
0.06 MILES
When Timothy Pflueger’s radical design was revealed on Union Sq in 1948, SF society was shocked: San Francisco’s flagship clothing store appeared…
2. Ruth Asawa's San Francisco Fountain
0.07 MILES
Covered in local landmarks and colorful SF characters – burlesque icon Carol Doda, psychedelic rockers Jefferson Airplane, protesters declaring themselves…
3. Frank Lloyd Wright Building
0.09 MILES
Shrink the Guggenheim, plop it inside a yellow-brick box with a round Romanesque entryway and put it where you'd least expect it: on a shady SF alley that…
0.11 MILES
A 26-story deco dental building fit for the gods, this 1929 Mayan-revival stone skyscraper has a lobby covered floor to ceiling with cast-bronze snakes…
0.2 MILES
Pity the collectors silently nibbling endive in austere Chelsea galleries – at 49 Geary, First Thursday art openings mean unexpected art, popcorn and…
0.21 MILES
This 1904 stone building survived the 1906 earthquake and retains its original character, notwithstanding the Gap flagship downstairs. Upstairs,…
0.22 MILES
San Francisco's infamous, secretive men's club was originally founded by bonafide bohemians – but they couldn't afford the upkeep and allowed the ultra…
0.22 MILES
Enter through the Dragon archway donated by Taiwan in 1970, and you'll find yourself on the street formerly known as Dupont in its notorious red-light…