111 Places in San Francisco that you must not miss

By Floriana Petersen and Steve Werneyhs

San Francisco: the home of hills and valleys, of dreamers and trailblazers, of hippies and hipsters. From the gold rush to the Golden Gate, the City by the Bay has always basked in the glow of its colorful and celebrated history and world-renowned landmarks. But for those who live and love on this compact seven-mile by seven-mile metropolis, San Francisco is a treasure trove of unusual neighborhood sights and places that sparkle with the allure of hidden pleasures and local lore. Discover a stairway that transports you from the depths of the ocean to the heights of outer space; take a spin class amidst the grand elegance of a repurposed 1920s movie palace; or slide down a century-old sundial that sits at the center of what was once California's first racetrack for cars. This is the real San Francisco. Strung together, the 111 experiences gathered here tell the B-side story of the city once romantically known as the Paris of the West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emons Verlag
• Release date: Sep 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9783960410133

Book preview

111 Places in San Francisco That You Must Not Miss

Floriana Petersen und Steve Werney

emons: Verlag

Imprint

Many San Franciscans shared their city secrets with us for this book. Special thanks are due to Barbara Roether and Mark MacNamara, who contributed not only suggestions but history, background, and literary inspiration. –F.P.

© Emons Verlag GmbH // 2016

All rights reserved

Text: Floriana Petersen

All photographs © Steve Werney, except page 32 (photo by Melissa Kaseman), courtesy of The Battery

cover icon: Istockphoto.com © soberve

Edited by Katrina Fried

Design: Emons Verlag

Maps based on data by Openstreetmap, © Openstreet Map-participants, ODbL

ISBN 978-3-96041-013-3

eBook of the original print edition published by Emons Verlag

Did you enjoy it? Do you want more? Join us in uncovering new places around the world on: www.111places.com

Table of contents

Foreword

1_140 New Montgomery | San Francisco

It’s all about communication

2_826 Valencia | San Francisco

Reading, writing, and Ahoy, matey!

3_1450 Noriega Street | San Francisco

Where the heiress robbed a bank

4_Alhambra Theater | San Francisco

A cinematic workout

5_Anchor Brewing Company | San Francisco

Born and brewed in San Francisco

6_The Antique Vibrator Museum | San Francisco

A history of good vibrations

7_Arion Press | San Francisco

Lost and foundry

8_The Armory | San Francisco

Where kink is king

9_The Audium | San Francisco

Seeing with your ears

10_Balmy Alley Murals | San Francisco

Struggle and change

11_Bar Agricole | San Francisco

Keeping it local

12_The Battery Club | San Francisco

Old world, new school

13_The Bay Lights | San Francisco

The Bay Bridge gets its bling

14_The Beach & Park Chalet | San Francisco

Upstairs, downstairs, in Golden Gate Park

15_The Beat Museum | San Francisco

Still on the road

16_Billionaires’ Row | San Francisco

Life on the Gold Coast

17_Bliss Dance | San Francisco

Forty feet of female energy

18_The Bohemian Club | San Francisco

A private place for powerful men

19_Bourbon & Branch | San Francisco

The password-protected speakeasy

20_Buena Vista Park | San Francisco

A magical hush

21_Building One | San Francisco

A sinking treasure

22_Building 95 | San Francisco

If a tree falls in the forest …

23_Candlestick Park | San Francisco

Long live the ’stick

24_Casa Cielo | San Francisco

Sunny Jim Rolph’s love nest

25_Chinese Telephone Exchange | San Francisco

1500 names on the tip of the tongue

26_Clarion Alley | San Francisco

These walls can talk

27_The Cloud Forest | San Francisco

Communing with nature on Mount Sutro

28_The Condor Club | San Francisco

Death by piano

29_Conservatory of Flowers | San Francisco

Home to the beautiful and the bizarre

30_Cow Palace | Daly City

From moo to Who

31_Creativity Explored | San Francisco

Art for all

32_Crissy Field | San Francisco

From airfield to House of Air

33_Dashiell Hammett’s Apartment | San Francisco

Where the Maltese Falcon took flight

34_The F-Line | San Francisco

A journey back in time

35_Flora Grubb Gardens | San Francisco

Coffee and air plants, anyone?

36_The Fly-Casting Pools | San Francisco

Angling for a good time

37_Fog Bridge | San Francisco

A walk in the clouds at the Exploratorium

38_Forbes Island & The Taj Mahal | San Francisco

Boats by any other name

39_Foreign Cinema | San Francisco

Dinner and a show

40_Fort Funston | San Francisco

Where humans take to the sky

41_The Frank Lloyd Wright Building | San Francisco

A mid-century jewel in the Barbary Coast

42_Gallery 6 | San Francisco

The ghosts of Vertigo at the Legion of Honor

43_The Gardens of Alcatraz | San Francisco

Planting life on the Rock

44_Glen Canyon Park | San Francisco

A time machine to the San Francisco of yore

45_Glide Memorial Church | San Francisco

Can I get an amen?

46_Grace Cathedral Labyrinths | San Francisco

A maze for meditation

47_The Green Roof | San Francisco

The Academy of Sciences goes underground

48_The Hallidie Building | San Francisco

Ahead of its time

49_Headlands Center for the Arts | Sausalito

Using creativity as a weapon

50_Heath Ceramics | San Francisco

Very Made in America

51_Hunter S. Thompson’s House | San Francisco

Fear & Loathing in San Francisco

52_Hunter’s Point | San Francisco

A flourishing artist colony in a shipyard

53_Ingleside Terrace Sundial | San Francisco

Time is on its side

54_Institute of Illegal Images | San Francisco

A trip to the museum

55_The Interval at Long Now | San Francisco

For thinkers and drinkers

56_Kabuki Springs & Spa | San Francisco

Wet, naked, and hot

57_Lands End | San Francisco

A mystical walk through history

58_The Lefty O’Doul Bridge | San Francisco

In memory of a hometown hitter

59_LeRoy King Carousel | San Francisco

Round and round we go

60_Levi Strauss & Co. | San Francisco

Birthplace of the 501

61_Lyon Street Steps | San Francisco

Where health meets wealth

62_Macondray Lane | San Francisco

Tales of the city

63_The Malloch Building | San Francisco

For those who appreciate curves

64_Maritime Museum | San Francisco

A shipshape exhibition space

65_Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial | San Francisco

A fountain for reflection in Yerba Buena Gardens

66_Mavericks | Half Moon Bay

A surfer’s nirvana

67_Mechanics’ Institute | San Francisco

Home to books and rooks

68_Mission Creek Houseboats | San Francisco

Islands in the storm

69_Mission Dolores Cemetery | San Francisco

Where the bodies are buried

70_The Monastery Stones | San Francisco

Relics in the Botanical Garden

71_Moraga Street Steps | San Francisco

Stairway to Heaven

72_Musée Mécanique | San Francisco

A penny arcade on the Embarcadero

73_National Cemetery Overlook | San Francisco

A graveyard with a view

74_Nimitz Mansion | San Francisco

Secret views from Yerba Buena

75_The Observation Tower | San Francisco

A castle in the trees at the de Young

76_Ocean Beach | San Francisco

Hanging ten on city waves

77_ODC | San Francisco

Put on your dancin’ shoes

78_Old Skool Café | San Francisco

Serving up second chances

79_The Parrots of Telegraph Hill | San Francisco

As free as a bird

80_Patricia’s Green | San Francisco

From parkway to park

81_The Phoenix Hotel | San Francisco

Rock ’n’ roll crash pad

82_Pier 24 Photography | San Francisco

A private collection goes public

83_Pier 70 | San Francisco

Industrial ruins with a waterfront view

84_Pink Triangle Park | San Francisco

The only memorial of its kind

85_Point Bonita Lighthouse | Sausalito

Overlooking an underwater graveyard

86_Portals of the Past | San Francisco

A bit of history and the occult on Lloyd Lake

87_The Presidio Pet Cemetery | San Francisco

Final resting place for the furry and feathered

88_Project Artaud | San Francisco

The artist factory

89_The Ramp | San Francisco

Fog City’s hangover cure

90_The Rock Colony | San Francisco

Where music legends lived and free loved

91_The Rousseaus | San Francisco

One man, many facades

92_Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church | San Francisco

Worship in the house of jazz

93_Saints Peter and Paul Church | San Francisco

Home base of a neighborhood

94_Sam’s Grill | San Francisco

A historic chophouse with a fishy past

95_San Francisco Art Institute | San Francisco

All hail Diego Rivera

96_Slovenian Hall | San Francisco

The past is present here

97_Stow Lake | San Francisco

The ghost of the White Lady

98_Sutro Heights Park | San Francisco

A garden of earthly delight

99_Swedenborgian Church | San Francisco

Sacred space hidden in plain sight

100_Tenderloin National Forest | San Francisco

A quiet sliver of green amid the chaos

101_Tessie Wall Townhouse | San Francisco

Home of a trigger-happy madam

102_Tin How Temple | San Francisco

The How of Tao

103_Tosca Café | San Francisco

Still cool (thanks to Sean Penn)

104_Toy Boating on Spreckels Lake | San Francisco

It’s anything but child’s play

105_Transamerica Redwood Park | San Francisco

Secrets of the pyramid

106_UCSF Medical Center Park | San Francisco

Public art en plein air

107_Van Ness Auto Row | San Francisco

When cars were kings

108_Vermont Street | San Francisco

The thrill of S curves

109_Warrior Surfer Mural | San Francisco

Reflection of a neighborhood

110_Wave Organ | San Francisco

Shhh … listen

111_Wood Line | San Francisco

The art of sticks and stones

Gallery

Maps

Foreword

In all my years living in San Francisco, I have never stopped discovering new places, hidden stairways, unexpected vistas, and stories embedded in every crevice. Strolling the city’s rolling terrain brings you face-to-face with these charming details, like the scrollwork on an old Victorian, an overgrown garden of jasmine in a concealed alley, or the lively salsa rhythms drifting out of an open window.

For a city that is only seven miles wide and seven miles long, the diversity here is stunning; from musicians, artists, and hippies, to hipsters and entrepreneurs, its population reflects every human shape, color, and spirit. It’s not only the people who have defined the neighborhoods, but the land itself: there are 14 hills across which the city rises and falls.

In San Francisco, each hill, from Telegraph to Potrero, and every valley, from Noe to Hayes, has its own architecture, its own history, and even its own weather. Visitors often find it hard to comprehend that the sunny blue skies of the Mission District turn to cold and fog just over Twin Peaks. Locals know to dress for the many microclimates, and expect the sudden shifts in temperature. In many ways, extremes are in the DNA of San Francisco, a notion that becomes ever clearer as you delve into the city’s storied past. During the Gold Rush, the population went from around 1,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1850; and by 1855, almost 300,000 people lived here. For decades San Francisco was the only outpost of real civilization west of the Rockies. 1848 may seem new by European standards, but for the American West, this is the old mother city.

All cities change; the recent boom in Silicon Valley has made the Bay Area a new playground for young millionaires. People, and wealth, come and go quickly here, but the landscape—the purple headlands jutting into the Pacific, the island-scattered bay, the fog pouring over the Golden Gate Bridge—is as stoic and enduring as Nature itself.

San Francisco

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1_140 New Montgomery

It’s all about communication

The Pacific Telephone Building rose up at 140 Montgomery Street to be San Francisco’s first skyscraper. It was built in 1925 for $4 million and provided offices for 2,000 workers, mostly women. With its fresh look of verticality and its Art Deco lobby, including the reddish ceiling full of unicorns, phoenixes, and clouds, the building suggested a new style of workplace. Dressed in highly reflective, granite-colored terra-cotta exterior panels, it presided over the city for 40 years.

The architect was Timothy Pflueger (1892–1946), a San Francisco native, who—in the wake of the 1906 earthquake—never went to college yet found his way to the field of architecture and interior design. Following Prohibition, Pflueger’s interiors graced the city’s most renowned cocktail lounges, most notably the Patent Leather Bar at the St. Francis Hotel. Other well-known Pflueger buildings include the Castro and Alhambra theaters (see p. 16), and 450 Sutter street. He also designed buildings for the Olympic Club, the quintessential West Coast men’s club, of which he, himself, was a member. One night, after his customary swim, he dropped dead from a heart attack on the street outside.

Info

Address 140 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105 | Public Transport Bus: 8X (3rd St & Howard St stop); 10, 12 (2nd St & Howard St stop) | Tip The restaurant and bar Trou Normand next door offers delicious charcuterie.

Pflueger’s inspiration for 140 Montgomery was a never-built skyscraper imagined by the great Finnish architect, Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen. Now, almost 90 years after it was built, the 26-story building is lost in the glass-and-steel forest that has grown around it. Yet it remains not only an architectural landmark, but also a symbol of the city’s focus on communications: Pacific Telephone was a cutting-edge company in its day. The building’s main client now is Yelp, the online review site. Today, the interior includes various perks typical of the modern, progressive, start-up workplace culture, such as showers for commuters and a bike repair shop built inside a former wood-paneled boardroom.

Nearby

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial (0.193 mi)

Mechanics’ Institute (0.217 mi)

LeRoy King Carousel (0.261 mi)

The Hallidie Building (0.292 mi)

To the online map

To the beginning of the chapter

San Francisco

View full image

2_826 Valencia

Reading, writing, and Ahoy, matey!

Back

This city is full of creative characters and always has been, and writer Dave Eggers is among the most honorable examples. Eggers is a genuine renaissance fellow, a Bono of words, whose 2000 blockbuster memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, became a way to parlay his literary wits and profits into various collaborations, some of which involve methods for teaching kids how to read and write and teachers how to inspire their students.

In 2002 Eggers teamed up with educator and advocate Nínive Calegari to organize a one-on-one tutoring program for kids. He found a location at 826 Valencia Street, which in those days was in a shopping-hood with retro furniture stores and a Santeria shop. The idea was to run his quarterly literary magazine and publishing company, McSweeneys, out of the same building, and have his staff and community of writers and editors work with the neighborhood kids after school. From the start, the charter was to draw students into a space where imagination was king, and where writing was respected and explored.

Info

Address 826 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, www.826valencia.org, +1 415.642.905 | Public Transport Bus: 33 (18th St & Valencia St stop) | Hours Daily 12–6pm| Tip Stop at Dandelion Chocolate at 740 Valencia Street. You can sit in the front cafe and watch the chocolate-making process in the factory in the back.

To make it a going concern, Eggers and Calegari opened up a pirate-supply store in the front of the building, where you can pick up practically anything an aspiring or practicing swashbuckler might need—from peg legs and mermaid bait (or repellant), to eye patches and planks sold by the foot. Although the shop was created as a means to an end, it is an enchantment in its own right, not to mention a terrific magnet for potential pupils. After all, who wouldn’t rather do their homework surrounded by pirate paraphernalia instead of at their kitchen table?

Incidentally, 826 Valencia has nonprofit extensions in seven other cities across the country. Programs for kids ages 6 to 18 include tutoring, publishing, and college and career training, along with parallel opportunities for teachers.

Nearby

Institute of Illegal Images (0.155 mi)

Foreign Cinema (0.255 mi)

Clarion Alley (0.267 mi)

ODC (0.379 mi)

To the online map

To the beginning of the chapter

San Francisco

View full image

3_1450 Noriega Street

Where the heiress robbed a bank

Back

In the 1970s, the Outer Sunset District was an increasingly Asian suburb far removed from downtown. On the corner of Noriega and 22nd Avenue stands what was then a branch of the Hibernia Savings & Loan. At 10am on April 15, 1974, several members of a Marxist-inspired