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By Root 750 0

Street, SoMa has become the city’s cultural and multimedia center. The process started when alternative clubs began opening in the old warehouses in the area nearly 2 decades ago. A wave of entrepreneurs followed, seeking to start new businesses in what was once an extremely low-rent area compared to the neighboring Financial District. Once the dot.commers moved in, it was gentrification and high rents all the way. The building boom started with the construction of the Moscone Convention Center and continued with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the early ’90s. During the dot.com years, the Four Seasons Hotel, W Hotel, St. Regis Hotel, and scads of chic live-work lofts appeared on the scene. The last few years, SoMa has been ground zero for a new wave of mega high-rises, including Millennium Tower and One Rincon Hill. Much of the city’s nightlife takes place in former warehouse spaces throughout the district.

North Beach ★★★

In the late 1800s, an enormous influx of Italian immigrants to North Beach firmly established this aromatic area as San Francisco’s “Little Italy.” Dozens of Italian restaurants and coffeehouses continue to flourish in what is still the center of the city’s Italian community. Walk down Columbus Avenue on any given morning and you’re bound to be bombarded by the wonderful aromas of roasting coffee and savory pasta sauces. Although there are some interesting shops and bookstores in the area, it’s the dozens of eclectic little cafes, delis, bakeries, and coffee shops that give North Beach its Italian-bohemian character.

For more perspective on this neighborhood, follow the detailed walking tour in chapter 7 or sign up for a guided Javawalk with coffee nut Elaine Sosa.

fortune cookie FACTORY

At 56 Ross Alley is the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory ( 415/781-3956), a tiny Chinatown storefront where, since 1962, three women sit at a conveyer belt, folding messages into thousands of fortune cookies as the manager invariably calls out to tourists, beckoning them to stroll in, watch the cookies being made, and buy a bag of 40 for about $3. Sure, there are other fortune cookie bakeries in the city, but this is the only one left where the cookies are still made by hand the old-fashioned way. You can purchase regular fortunes, unfolded flat cookies without fortunes, or, if you bring your own fortunes, they can create custom cookies (great for dinner parties) at around $6 for 50 cookies—a very cheap way to impress your friends. The factory is open daily 8am to 8pm. Admission is free.

Chinatown ★★

The first Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco in the early 1800s to work as laborers. By 1851, 25,000 Chinese people were working in California, and most had settled in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Fleeing famine and the Opium Wars, they had come seeking the good fortune promised by the “Gold Mountain” of California and hoped to return with wealth to their families in China. For the majority, the reality of life in California did not live up to the promise. First employed as workers in the gold mines during the gold rush, they later built the railroads, working as little more than slaves and facing constant prejudice. Yet the community, segregated in the Chinatown ghetto, thrived. Growing prejudice led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which halted all Chinese immigration for 10 years and severely limited it thereafter. (The Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943.) Chinese people were also denied the opportunity to buy homes outside the Chinatown ghetto until the 1950s.

Today, San Francisco has one of the largest communities of Chinese people in the United States. More than 80,000 people live in Chinatown, but the majority of Chinese people have moved out into newer areas like the Richmond and Sunset districts. Although frequented by tourists, the area continues to cater to Chinese shoppers, who crowd the vegetable and herb markets, restaurants, and shops. Tradition runs deep here, and if you’re lucky, through an open