San Francisco - Alison Bing [54]
CHINESE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE Map
743 Washington St; 1, 15, 30, 45; California
This triple-decker tiled pagoda caused a sensation in 1894 not for its looks, but its smarts: to connect callers to the right person, switchboard operators had to speak fluent English and five Chinese dialects and memorize at least 1500 Chinatown residents by name, residence and occupation. The switchboard was open 365 days a year, and the manager and assistant managers lived onsite.
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TRANSPORTATION: CHINATOWN
Bus Lines 30 and 45 run up Stockton St from Union Square; bus 15 runs along Kearny St, while bus 1 runs along California St.
Cable car The Powell-Mason St line links Union Square to Chinatown; the California St line runs through Chinatown on its ascent to Nob Hill.
Parking Street parking is impossible; try your luck at the public Good Luck Parking Garage.
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Since anyone born in China was prohibited by law from visiting San Francisco throughout the 1882–1943 Chinese Exclusion era, this switchboard was the main means of contact with family and business partners in China. The exchange operated until 1949, and the landmark was bought and restored by Bank of Canton in 1960.
CHINESE CULTURE CENTER Map
415-986-1822; www.c-c-c.org; 3rd fl, Hilton Hotel, 750 Kearny St; gallery free (donation requested), tours adult/child $25/20; 10am-4pm Tue-Sat; 1, 15, 41
You can see all the way to China on the 3rd floor of the Hilton inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits of traditional Chinese arts and such breakthrough contemporary shows as the Present Tense Biennial. For this show, held in odd-numbered years, 30-plus artists from across the Bay Area give their personal takes on Chinese culture, from Cui Fei’s Chinese calligraphy that’s painstakingly sculpted from bent twigs to Thomas Chang’s monumental photographs of a miniaturized Great Wall at a Florida theme park.
Kid-friendly, docent-led Chinese Heritage Walks guide visitors through the living history and mythology of Chinatown in two hours; tours are available by reservation with a two-person minimum. For more first-hand experiences of Chinese culture, check the center’s schedule of Mandarin classes, poetry readings, movies and genealogy services.
DRAGON’S GATE Map
intersection of Grant Ave & Bush St; 1, 15, 30, 45; California;
Enter the Dragon archway and you’ll find yourself on the once-notorious street known as Dupont in its red-light heyday. Sixty years before the family-friendly overhaul of the Las Vegas Strip, Look Tin Eli and a group of forward-thinking Chinatown businessmen pioneered the approach here in Chinatown, replacing seedy attractions with more tourist-friendly ones.
After consultation with architects and community groups, Dupont was transformed into Grant Ave, with Deco-Chinoiserie dragon lamps and tiled pagoda rooftops, and police were reluctantly persuaded to enforce the 1914 Red Light Abatement Act in Chinatown. By the time this gate was donated by Taiwan in 1970 grandly proclaiming that ‘everything in the world is in just proportions,’ Chinatown finally had a main street that did the community greater justice.
OLD ST MARY’S CATHEDRAL Map
415-288-3800; www.oldsaintmarys.org; 660 California St; 11am-6pm Mon-Tue, 11am-7pm Wed-Fri, 9am-6:30pm Sat, 9am-4:30pm Sun; 1, 15, 30, 45; California, Powell-Mason, Powell-Hyde;
Many thought it a lost cause, but California’s first cathedral, inaugurated in 1854, tried for decades to give San Francisco some religion – despite its location in brothel central. Hence the stern admonition on the church’s brick clock tower: ‘Son, observe the time and fly from evil.’
Eventually the archdiocese abandoned attempts to convert Dupont St whoremongers and handed the church over to a Chinese community mission run by the activism-oriented Paulists. During