This 1904 stone building survived the 1906 earthquake and retains its original character, notwithstanding the Gap flagship downstairs. Upstairs, labyrinthine marble hallways are lined with frosted-glass doors, just like a noir movie set. No coincidence: in 1921 the SF office of infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency hired a young investigator named Dashiell Hammett, author of the 1930 noir classic The Maltese Falcon.
James Flood Building
Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.16 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…
2.43 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…
0.71 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
0.89 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
0.36 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…
1.23 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…
4.28 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…
2.03 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. Powell St Cable Car Turnaround
0.02 MILES
Peek through the passenger queue at Powell and Market Sts to spot cable-car operators leaping out, gripping the chassis of each trolley and slooowly…
0.19 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…
3. Compton’s Transgender Cultural District
0.21 MILES
The world's first legally recognized transgender district was created to commemorate historical sites and preserve existing non-profits, businesses and…
0.21 MILES
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…
0.21 MILES
That upended blue-steel box miraculously balancing on one corner atop the Contemporary Jewish Museum is appropriate for an institution that upends…
6. Glide Memorial United Methodist Church
0.23 MILES
When the rainbow-robed Glide gospel choir enters singing their hearts out, the 2000-plus congregation erupts in cheers, hugs and dance moves. Raucous…
0.25 MILES
Like a dandelion pushing through sidewalk cracks, this plucky nonprofit gallery has brought signs of life to one of the Tenderloin's toughest blocks for…
8. Frank Lloyd Wright Building
0.25 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…