To really get to know San Francisco, break out of the downtown and Fisherman's Wharf areas to explore the ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhoods. Walk the streets, browse the shops, grab a bite at a local restaurant -- you'll find that San Francisco's beauty and charm are around every corner, not just at the popular tourist destinations.
Nob Hill--When the cable car started operating in 1873, this hill became the city's exclusive residential area. The "Big Four" and the "Comstock Bonanza kings" built their mansions here, but they were all destroyed by the earthquake and fire in 1906. The only two surviving buildings were the Flood Mansion, which serves today as the Pacific Union Club, and the Fairmont Hotel, which was under construction when the earthquake struck. Today the burned-out sites of former mansions hold the city's luxury hotels -- the Mark Hopkins, the Stanford Court, the Fairmont, and the Huntington -- as well as spectacular Grace Cathedral, which stands on the Crocker mansion site. Nob Hill is worth a visit if only to stroll around Huntington Park, attend a Sunday service at the cathedral, or ooh and aah your way around the Fairmont's spectacular lobby.
South of Market (SOMA)--From Market Street to Townsend Street and the Embarcadero to Division Street, SoMa has become the city's newest cultural and multimedia center. The process started when alternative clubs began opening in the old warehouses in the area nearly a decade 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. Today, gentrification and high rents hold sway, spurred by a building boom that started with the Moscone Convention Center and continued with the Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena Gardens, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Four Seasons Hotel, and the Metreon. Other institutions, businesses, and museums move into the area on an ongoing basis. A substantial portion of the city's nightlife takes place in 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, sign up for a guided Javawalk with coffee nut Elaine Sosa.
Chinatown--The first of the Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco in the early 1800s to work as servants. 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 window you might hear women mixing mah-jongg tiles as they play the centuries-old game. (Be warned: You're likely to hear lots of spitting around here, too -- it seems to be part of local tradition.)
The gateway at Grant Avenue and Bush Street marks the entry to Chinatown. The heart of the neighborhood is Portsmouth Square, where you'll find locals playing board games (often gambling) or just sitting quietly.
On Waverly Place, a street where the Chinese celebratory colors of red, yellow, and green are much in evidence, you'll find three Chinese temples: Jeng Sen (Buddhist and Taoist) at no. 146, Tien Hou (Buddhist) at no. 125, and Norras (Buddhist) at no. 109. If you enter, do so quietly so that you do not disturb those in prayer.
A block west of Grant Avenue, Stockton Street, from 1000 to 1200, is the community's main shopping street, lined with grocers, fishmongers, tea sellers, herbalists, noodle parlors, and restaurants. Here, too, is the Buddhist Kon Chow Temple, at no. 855, above the Chinatown post office.
Japantown--Approximately 11,410 citizens of Japanese descent (1.4% of the city's population) live in San Francisco, or Soko, as it is often called by the Japanese who first emigrated here. Initially, they settled in Chinatown and south of Market along Stevenson and Jessie streets from Fourth to Seventh streets. After the earthquake in 1906, SoMa became a light industrial and warehouse area, and the largest Japanese concentration took root in the Western Addition between Van Ness Avenue and Fillmore Street, the site of today's Japantown. By 1940, it covered 30 blocks.
In 1913, the Alien Land Law was passed, depriving Japanese Americans of the right to buy land. From 1924 to 1952, the United States banned Japanese immigration. During World War II, the U.S. government froze Japanese bank accounts, interned community leaders, and removed 112,000 Japanese Americans -- two-thirds of them citizens -- to camps in California, Utah, and Idaho. Japantown was emptied of Japanese people, and war workers took their place. Upon their release in 1945, the Japanese found their old neighborhood occupied. Most of them resettled in the Richmond and Sunset districts; some did return to Japantown, but it had shrunk to a mere 6 or so blocks. Among the community's notable sights are the Buddhist Church of San Francisco, 1881 Pine St. (at Octavia St.); the Konko Church of San Francisco, 1909 Bush St. (at Laguna St.); the Sokoji-Soto Zen Buddhist Temple, 1691 Laguna St. (at Sutter St.); Nihonmachi Mall, 1700 block of Buchanan Street between Sutter and Post streets, which contains two steel fountains by Ruth Asawa; and the Japan Center, an Asian-oriented shopping mall occupying 3 square blocks bounded by Post, Geary, Laguna, and Fillmore streets. At its center stands the five-tiered Peace Pagoda, designed by world-famous Japanese architect Yoshiro Taniguchi "to convey the friendship and goodwill of the Japanese to the people of the United States." Surrounding the pagoda, in a network of arcades, squares, and bridges, are dozens of shops and showrooms featuring everything from TVs and tansu chests to pearls, bonsai (dwarf trees), and kimonos. When it opened in 1968, the complex seemed as modern as a jumbo jet. Today, the concrete structure is less impressive, but it still holds some interesting surprises. Kabuki Springs & Spa (see the "Urban Renewal" box) is the center's most famous tenant. The Japan Center houses numerous restaurants, teahouses, and shops, a multiplex movie theater, and the Asian-inspired 14-story Radisson Miyako Hotel .
There is often live entertainment on summer weekends, including Japanese music and dance performances, tea ceremonies, flower-arranging demonstrations, martial-arts presentations, and other cultural events. The Japan Center is open Monday through Friday from 10am to 10pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 9am to 10pm. To get there, take bus no. 2, 3, or 4 (exit at Buchanan and Sutter sts.), or no. 22 or 38 (exit at the northeast corner of Geary Blvd. and Fillmore St.).
Kabuki Springs & Spa, 1750 Geary Blvd. (tel. 415/922-6002), the Japan Center's most famous tenant, was once an authentic, traditional Japanese bathhouse. The Joie de Vivre hotel group bought and renovated it, and it's now more of a pan-Asian spa with a focus on wellness. The deep ceramic communal tubs, private baths, and shiatsu massages remain -- at a very affordable $15 to $18 per person and hours as late as 10pm; joining them are an array of massages and ayurvedic treatments, body scrubs, wraps, and facials, which cost extra.
Spa Radiance, 3011 Fillmore St. (tel. 415/346-6281; www.sparadiance.com), is an utterly San Francisco spa experience. No, I'm not talking groovy, hippielike treatments. This is an unassuming Victorian where actress Sharon Stone reportedly has come for rejuvenation, with wonderfully luxurious treatments such as facials (14 kinds!), body treatments, massages, manicures, pedicures, and waxing.
Haight-Ashbury--Few of San Francisco's neighborhoods are as varied -- or as famous -- as Haight-Ashbury. Walk along Haight Street, and you'll encounter everything from drug-dazed drifters begging for change to an armada of the city's funky-trendy shops, clubs, and cafes. Turn anywhere off Haight, and instantly you're among the clean-cut, young urban professionals who are the only ones who can afford the steep rents in this hip 'hood. The result is an interesting mix of well-to-do and we'll-screw-you aging flower children, former Dead-heads, homeless people, and throngs of tourists who try not to stare as they wander through this most human of zoos. Some find it depressing, others find it fascinating, but everyone agrees that it ain't what it was in the free-lovin' psychedelic Summer of Love. Is it still worth a visit? Not if you are here for a day or two, but it's certainly worth an excursion on longer trips, if only to enjoy a cone of Cherry Garcia at the now-famous Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Store on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets, and then to wander and gawk at the area's intentional freaks.
The Castro--Castro Street, between Market and 18th streets, is the center of the city's gay community as well as a lovely neighborhood teeming with shops, restaurants, bars, and other institutions that cater to the area's colorful residents. Among the landmarks are Harvey Milk Plaza and the Castro Theatre, a 1930s movie palace with a Wurlitzer. The gay community began to move here in the late 1960s and early 1970s from a neighborhood called Polk Gulch, which still has a number of gay-oriented bars and stores. Castro is one of the liveliest streets in the city and the perfect place to shop for gifts and revel in free-spiritedness.
The Mission District--Once inhabited almost entirely by Irish immigrants, the Mission District is now the center of the city's Latino community as well as a mecca for young, hip residents. It's an oblong area stretching roughly from 14th to 30th streets between Potrero Avenue on the east and Dolores on the west. In the outer areas, many of the city's finest Victorians still stand, although many seem strangely out of place in the mostly lower-income neighborhoods. The heart of the community lies along 24th Street between Van Ness and Potrero, where dozens of excellent ethnic restaurants, bakeries, bars, and specialty stores attract people from all over the city. The area surrounding 16th Street and Valencia is a hotbed for impressive -- and impressively cheap -- restaurants and bars catering to the city's hip crowd. The Mission District at night doesn't feel like the safest place (although in terms of creepiness, the Tenderloin, a few blocks off Union Sq., beats the Mission by far), and walking around the area should be done with caution, but it's usually quite safe during the day and is highly recommended.
For an even better insight into the community, go to the Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center, 2981 24th St., between Harrison and Alabama streets (tel. 415/285-2287), and take one of the 1 3/4- to 2-hour tours conducted on Saturday and Sunday at 11am and 1:30pm. The 11am tour costs $10 for adults, $8 for students with ID, $5 for seniors, and $2 for children under 18; the 1:30 tour, which is half an hour longer and includes a slide show, costs $12 for adults, $8 for students with ID, $5 for seniors, and $2 for children under 18. You'll see 60 murals in an 8-block walk. Every year during Mural Awareness Month (usually May), tours are given daily. All but the Saturday-morning tour (call for information) leave from the center's 24th Street location (tel. 415/285-2287). Other signs of cultural life are progressive theaters such as Theater Rhinoceros and Theater Artaud.
At 16th Street and Dolores is the Mission San Francisco de Assisi, better known as Mission Dolores . It's the city's oldest surviving building and the district's namesake.
