San Francisco Overview - A Bad Rep and a Bad Rap, Still the Most Beautiful City, Period
Catch a ball at Pac Bell Park, watch the World Series bound San Francisco Giants
(pending)San Francisco: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Perhaps the best known feature of San Francisco is the Golden Gate Bridge.Just as well known (and visited) is the area from Pier 39 to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiradelli Square. Complemented by Aquatic Park and Fort Mason, this area is not far from the Palace of Fine Arts and Crissy Field.
Others know San Francsico for Union Square: shopping, restaurants, and great history for those who look for such things. At the east end of Union Square is Maiden Lane, now a location for art sales. Maiden Lane does not describe the type of women who worked here 100 years ago.
Everyone knows San Francisco for it's 125 year old cable cars, a National Monument. You could walk the Barbary Coast trail from Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf, then take a Cable Car back to your hotel.
There are a variety of other neighborhoods ranging from the Tenderloin to the Civic Center to the Mission and the Castro. West Portal, the Haight-Ashbury, Chestnut Street and Union Street, North Beach, Chinatown, Downtown - Financial District, Richmond and Sunset and Nob Hill all have their own chacteristics.
There are a few things about San Francisco that are not perfect. As travel agents are aware, San Francisco has recently seen a huge rise in the number of street people publicly living in filth. While I personally would argue a mentaly ill person's need for medical care, San Francisco politicians have bowed to pressure by liberal groups.
These groups argue for a person's right to live on the street in sloth and literal filth. Thanks for Terrence Hallinan and company, "lifestyle crimes" are not prosecuted. This means the police won't ticket or arrest for crimes that won't be charged; crimes like urinating and defecating on the streets, prostitution, and aggressive begging are common.
If you stick to the main tourist areas, you will see many homeless people, and without moralizing further, most people don't travel to San Francisco to be hassled by people asking for or demading money.
It seems like most San Francisco tourist mapmakers just draw a horizontal line somewhere barely south of Twin Peaks and pretend nothing exists below the line. In reality, from Hunters Point to Sunnydale to SFSU and Lake Merced is a large and diverse population with quite a variety of neighborhoods. Perhaps it's because most SF landmarks are north of Twin Peaks that the tourists are kept north of that line?
Most of the least-touristed neighborhoods are in south-central San Francisco and south-east San Francisco, the Southwest. These areas are mixed industrial and residential, with the shipyards dominating Hunters Point.
In the Southwest part of SF off most tourist maps is everything south of the Cliff House. Geary Blvd. runs east-west from downtown to the Cliff House. There it meanders south along the beach for miles, becoming the Great Highway. At the south end of the Great Highway is Highway 35, a connector down to Highway 280, Highway 1, or Highway 380 to SFO. Also in the Southwest is the San Francsico Zoo, Lake Merced with the Boathouse bar and grill, and just across the line is Westlake Joe's in Daly City.
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On Grant St. at the corner of Bush is the Chinatown Gate.
O'Doul Gate, named for Left O'Doul. Lefty O'Doul's is a classic restaurant off Union Square, established in 1954. Lefty O'Douls features Giants memorabilia.
A view of Pacific Bell Park baseball stadium from the backside, on a fishing pier.
On Grant St. at the corner of Bush is the Chinatown Gate.
