Frommer's San Francisco 2012 - Matthew Poole [122]
Also on display here is one of the first grip cars developed by Andrew S. Hallidie, operated for the first time on Clay Street on August 2, 1873. Other displays include an antique grip car and trailer that operated on Pacific Avenue until 1929, and dozens of exact-scale models of cars used on the various city lines. There’s also a shop where you can buy a variety of cable car gifts. You can see the whole museum in about 45 minutes, and the best part—it’s free.
1201 Mason St. (at Washington St.). 415/474-1887. www.cablecarmuseum.org. Free admission. Apr–Sept daily 10am–6pm; Oct–Mar daily 10am–5pm. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Cable car: Both Powell St. lines.
The Cable Car Museum.
California Academy of Sciences ★★★ San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences has been entertaining locals and tourists for more than 150 years, and with the grand opening of the all-new Academy in 2008, it’s now going stronger than ever. Four years and $500 million in the making, the new Academy is the “greenest” museum in the world, and the only institution in the world to combine an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum, and scientific research program under one roof. The spectacular new complex has literally reinvented the role of science museums in the 21st century, a place where visitors interact with animals, educators, and biologists at hands-on exhibits such as a four-story living rainforest dome complete with flitting butterflies and birds, and the world’s deepest living coral reef display. Even the Academy’s 21⁄2-acre undulating living garden roof is an exhibit, planted with 1.7 million native California plants, including thousands of flowers.
More than 38,000 live animals fill the new Academy’s aquarium and natural history exhibits. Highlights include the Morrison Planetarium, the world’s largest all-digital planetarium, which takes you on a guided tour of the solar system and beyond using current data from NASA to produce the most accurate and interactive digital universe ever created; the Philippine Coral Reef, the world’s deepest living coral reef tank where 4,000 sharks, rays, sea turtles, giant clams, and other aquatic creatures live in a Technicolor forest of coral; and the Rainforests of the World, a living rainforest filled with mahogany and palm trees, croaking frogs, chirping birds, leaf cutter ants, bat caves, chameleons, and hundreds of tropical butterflies. You can climb into the treetops of Costa Rica, descend in a glass elevator into the Amazonian flooded forest, and walk along an acrylic tunnel beneath the Amazonian river fish that swim overhead.
Even the dining options here are first rate, as both the Academy Café and Moss Room restaurant are run by two of the city’s top chefs, Charles Phan and Loretta Keller, and feature local, organic, sustainable foods. The only thing you won’t enjoy here is the entrance fee—a whopping $30 per adult—but it includes access to all the Academy exhibits and the planetarium shows, and if you arrive by public transportation, they’ll knock $3 off the fee (how very green). Combined with a visit to the spectacular de Young museum across the Concourse, it makes for a very entertaining and educational day in Golden Gate Park.
55 Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park. 415/379-8000. www.calacademy.org. Admission $30 adults, $25 seniors 65 and over, $25 youths 12–17, $20 children 7–11, free for children 6 and under. Free to all 3rd Wed of each month. Mon–Sat 9:30am–5pm; Sun 11am–5pm. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bus: 5, 16AX, 16BX, 21, 44, or 71.
The aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences.
California Historical