'If, as they say, God spanked the town/For being over-frisky/Why did He burn His churches down/And spare Hotaling's whiskey?' This saloon-goers' retort was the snappiest comeback in SF history after Hotaling's 1866 whiskey warehouse survived the 1906 earthquake and fire. A bronze plaque bearing the ditty graces the resilient Italianate building.
AP Hotaling Warehouse
Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
Golden Gate Park
4.69 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…
Haight Street
3.08 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…
Chinatown Alleyways
0.28 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
City Lights Books
0.24 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
0.74 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…
Coit Tower
0.46 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…
Golden Gate Bridge
4.26 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…
Dolores Park
2.86 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
1. Transamerica Pyramid & Redwood Park
0.09 MILES
The defining feature of San Francisco's skyline is this 1972 pyramid, built atop a whaling ship abandoned in the gold rush. A half-acre redwood grove…
2. Jackson Square
0.09 MILES
Today upscale Jackson Sq is framed by Washington, Columbus, Pacific and Sansome Sts – but before the gold rush filled in the area with abandoned ships,…
3. Columbus Tower
0.14 MILES
If these copper-clad walls could talk, they'd name-drop shamelessly. The tower's original occupant was political boss Abe Ruef, ousted in 1907 and sent to…
4. Chinese Culture Center
0.15 MILES
You can see all the way to China from the Hilton's 3rd floor inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits ranging from showcases of contemporary…
5. Portsmouth Square
0.19 MILES
Chinatown's unofficial living room is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which staked the US claim on San Francisco in 1846. SF's first city hall…
6. Sun Terrace
0.2 MILES
Enjoy knockout vistas of the Financial District and Transamerica Pyramid from atop a slender art deco skyscraper. Take the elevator to the 15th floor.
7. Wentworth Place
0.2 MILES
Dragons bring this shadowy brick byway roaring to life. The narrow entryway is illuminated with 'Dragon Boats Chasing Moonlight,' a new mosaic mural…
8. Wells Fargo History Museum
0.21 MILES
Gold miners needed somewhere to stash and send cash, so Wells Fargo opened in this location in 1852. Today this storefront museum covers gold rush–era…