San Francisco Main Library

Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa

A grand light well illuminates SF's favorite subjects: poetry in the Robert Frost Collection, civil rights in the Hormel LGBTQIA Center, SF music zines in the Little Maga/Zine Center and comic relief in the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor. Check out the wallpaper made from the old card catalog on the 3rd to 5th floors – artists Ann Chamberlain and Ann Hamilton invited 200 San Franciscans to add multilingual commentary to 50,000 cards.

The library quietly hosts high-profile basement lectures, plus enlightening Skylight Gallery ephemera exhibits.

Contact

Address

100 Larkin St

Get In Touch

415-557-4400

https://www.sfpl.org

Suggest an edit to this attraction

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Golden Gate Park
3.63 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
1.86 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
1.19 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
1.36 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
0.93 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
1.7 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
4.07 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
1.48 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…

View more attractions

Nearby Downtown, Civic Center & SoMa attractions

1. Asian Art Museum

0.04 MILES

Imaginations race from subtle Chinese ink paintings to seductive Hindu temple carvings and from elegant Islamic calligraphy to cutting-edge Japanese…

2. United Nations Plaza

0.13 MILES

This brick-paved triangle with an often-dry fountain awkwardly commemorates the signing of the UN charter in San Francisco. Most days, UN Plaza offers…

3. Twitter Headquarters

0.18 MILES

Market St's traffic-stopping 1937 Mayan deco landmark was built to accommodate 300 wholesale furniture-design showrooms – but, a decade ago, fewer than 30…

4. City Hall

0.19 MILES

Rising from the ashes of the 1906 earthquake, this beaux arts landmark echoes with history. Demonstrators protesting red-scare McCarthy hearings on City…

5. Federal Building

0.21 MILES

The groundbreaking green design of this government-office building by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Thom Mayne means major savings in energy –…

6. Root Division

0.25 MILES

Get back to your creative roots at this arts nonprofit, which hosts curated shows on themes ranging from garden art to calligraphy made with human-hair…

7. SF Arts Commission Gallery

0.28 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…

8. SF Camerawork

0.33 MILES

Since 1974, this nonprofit art organization has championed experimental photo-based imagery beyond classic B&W prints and casual digital snapshots. Since…

View more attractions