Frommer's San Francisco 2012 - Matthew Poole [26]
UNION SQUARE Union Square is the commercial hub of San Francisco. Most major hotels and department stores are crammed into the area surrounding the actual square, which was named for a series of violent pro-union rallies staged here on the eve of the Civil War. A plethora of upscale boutiques, restaurants, and galleries occupy the spaces tucked between the larger buildings. A few blocks west is the Tenderloin neighborhood, a patch of poverty and blight where you should keep your wits about you. The Theater District is 3 blocks west of Union Square.
THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT East of Union Square, this area, bordered by the Embarcadero and by Market, Third, Kearny, and Washington streets, is the city’s business district and the stomping grounds for many major corporations. The pointy Transamerica Pyramid, at Montgomery and Clay streets, is one of the district’s most conspicuous architectural features. To its east sprawls the Embarcadero Center, an 81⁄2-acre complex housing offices, shops, and restaurants. Farther east still is the old Ferry Building, the city’s prebridge transportation hub. Ferries to Sausalito and Larkspur still leave from this point. However, in 2003, the building became an attraction all its own when it was completely renovated, jam-packed with outstanding restaurants and gourmet food- and wine-related shops, and surrounded by a farmers’ market a few days a week, making it a favorite place of San Francisco’s residents seeking to stock their kitchens.
NOB HILL & RUSSIAN HILL Bounded by Bush, Larkin, Pacific, and Stockton streets, Nob Hill is a genteel, well-heeled district still occupied by the city’s major power brokers and the neighborhood businesses they frequent. Russian Hill extends from Pacific to Bay streets and from Polk to Mason streets. It contains steep streets, lush gardens, and high-rises occupied by both the moneyed and the bohemian.
CHINATOWN A large red-and-green gate on Grant Avenue at Bush Street marks the official entrance to Chinatown. Beyond lies a 24-block labyrinth, bordered by Broadway, Bush, Kearny, and Stockton streets, filled with restaurants, markets, temples, shops, and, of course, a substantial percentage of San Francisco’s Chinese residents. Chinatown is a great place for exploration all along Grant and Stockton streets, Portsmouth Square, and the alleys that lead off them, like Ross and Waverly. This district has a maddening combination of incessant traffic and horrible drivers, so don’t even think about driving around here.
NORTH BEACH This Italian neighborhood, which stretches from Montgomery and Jackson streets to Bay Street, is one of the best places in the city to grab a coffee, pull up a cafe chair, and do some serious people-watching. Nightlife is equally happening in North Beach; restaurants, bars, and clubs along Columbus and Grant avenues attract folks from all over the Bay Area, who fight for a parking place and romp through the festive neighborhood. Down Columbus Avenue toward the Financial District are the remains of the city’s Beat Generation landmarks, including Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Booksellers and Vesuvio’s Bar. Broadway Street—a short strip of sex joints—cuts through the heart of the district. Telegraph Hill looms over the east side of North Beach, topped by Coit Tower, one of San Francisco’s best vantage points.
Lombard Street, famous for its steep slope and hairpin turns, offers a staircase for pedestrians.
FISHERMAN’S WHARF North Beach runs into Fisherman’s Wharf, which was once the busy heart of the city’s great harbor and waterfront industries. Today it’s a kitschy and mildly entertaining tourist area with little, if any, authentic waterfront life, except for a small fleet of fishing boats and some lethargic sea lions. What it does have going for it are activities for the whole family, with honky-tonk attractions and museums, restaurants, trinket shops, and beautiful views everywhere you look.
Fisherman’s Wharf.
THE MARINA DISTRICT Created on landfill for the Panama Pacific Exposition of 1915, the Marina District boasts