1.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
2.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
3.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
4.
Jyutping
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Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanisation Scheme, the LSHK promotes the use of this romanisation system. The name Jyutping is a contraction consisting of the first Chinese characters of the terms Jyut6jyu5, only the finals m and ng can be used as standalone nasal syllables. ^ ^ ^ Referring to the pronunciation of these words. There are nine tones in six distinct tone contours in Cantonese, however, as three of the nine are entering tones, which only appear in syllables ending with p, t, and k, they do not have separate tone numbers in Jyutping. Jyutping and the Yale Romanisation of Cantonese represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they differ in the following, The vowels eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping, the initial j represents /j/ in Jyutping whereas y is used instead in Yale. The initial z represents /ts/ in Jyutping whereas j is used instead in Yale, the initial c represents /tsʰ/ in Jyutping whereas ch is used instead in Yale. In Jyutping, if no consonant precedes the vowel yu, then the initial j is appended before the vowel, in Yale, the corresponding initial y is never appended before yu under any circumstances. Jyutping defines three finals not in Yale, eu /ɛːu/, em /ɛːm/, and ep /ɛːp/ and these three finals are used in colloquial Cantonese words, such as deu6, lem2, and gep6. To represent tones, only tone numbers are used in Jyutping whereas Yale traditionally uses tone marks together with the letter h. Jyutping and Cantonese Pinyin represent Cantonese pronunciations with the letters in, The initials, b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, ng, h, s, gw, kw. The vowel, aa, a, e, i, o, u, the coda, i, u, m, n, ng, p, t, k. But they have differences, The vowel oe represents both /ɵ/ and /œː/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas eo and oe represent /ɵ/ and /œː/ respectively in Jyutping. The vowel y represents /y/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas both yu and i are used in Jyutping, the initial dz represents /ts/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas z is used instead in Jyutping. The initial ts represents /tsʰ/ in Cantonese Pinyin whereas c is used instead in Jyutping. To represent tones, the numbers 1 to 9 are usually used in Cantonese Pinyin, however, only the numbers 1 to 6 are used in Jyutping
5.
Chinese Americans
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Chinese Americans, also known as the American Chinese, are Americans who have full or partial Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, the Chinese American community is the largest overseas Chinese community outside of Asia. It is also the third largest in the Chinese diaspora, behind the Chinese communities in Thailand, the Chinese American community comprises the largest ethnic group of Asian Americans, comprising 25. 9% of the Asian American population as of 2010. Americans of Chinese descent, including those with partial Chinese ancestry constitute 1. 2% of the total U. S. population as of 2010, according to the 2010 census, the Chinese American population numbered approximately 3.8 million. In 2010, half of Chinese-born people living in the United States resided in the states of California, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820, according to U. S. government records. 325 men are known to have arrived before the 1849 California Gold Rush, There were 25,000 immigrants by 1852, and 105,465 by 1880, most of whom lived on the West Coast. They formed over a tenth of Californias population, nearly all of the early immigrants were young males with low educational levels from six districts in Guangdong Province. In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the mines, but also to take agricultural jobs. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-Chinese attitude among other workers in the American economy, the Chinese laborers worked out well and thousands more were recruited until the railroads completion in 1869. Chinese labor provided the workforce needed to build the majority of the Central Pacifics difficult route through the Sierra Nevada mountains. American objections to Chinese immigration took many forms, and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America and these financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United States, therefore, many of the non-Chinese workers in the United States came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them out of their jobs. Some advocates of anti-Chinese legislation therefore argued that admitting Chinese into the United States lowered the cultural and moral standards of American society, others used a more overtly racist argument for limiting immigration from East Asia, and expressed concern about the integrity of American racial composition. Because anti-Chinese discrimination and efforts to stop Chinese immigration violated the 1868 Burlingame-Seward Treaty with China, the Chinese population rose from 2,716 in 1851 to 63,000 by 1871. In the decade 1861-70,64,301 were recorded as arriving, 77% were located in California, with the rest scattered across the West, the South, and New England. Most came from Southern China looking for a life, escaping a high rate of poverty left after the Taiping Rebellion. In 1879, advocates of immigration restriction succeeded in introducing and passing legislation in Congress to limit the number of Chinese arriving to fifteen per ship or vessel, republican President Rutherford B. Hayes vetoed the bill because it violated U. S. treaty agreements with China
6.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
8.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
9.
YWCA
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For other uses, including specific buildings and chapters, see Young Womens Christian Association. The World Young Womens Christian Association is a global movement working for the empowerment, leadership and rights of women, young women, the members and supporters include women from many different faiths, ages, backgrounds, beliefs and cultures. The World office is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The YWCA is independent of the YMCA, but many local YMCA and YWCA associations have merged into YM/YWCAs or YMCA-YWCAs, today, YWCAs in 70 countries have programs related to HIV, including prevention, advocacy, treatment, care and support, and addressing stigma. The YWCA works closely with HIV-positive women on a grassroots level, initiatives within the YWCA by HIV-positive women have allowed for the tailoring of programs to meet the specific needs of their communities. Along with HIV prevention, the World YWCA has strongly promoted access to the female condom, according to a statement made by Dr. Musimbi Kanyoro, former General Secretary of the World YWCA “Accelerated female condom distribution and education is essential. HIV infection rates among women are rising disproportionately to men in every region of the world, and when AIDS affects women, it affects entire families and communities, tearing apart social safety nets and fueling instability and conflict. The World YWCA recently held the first international conference on Women and HIV, the International Womens Summit on HIV and AIDS featured speakers from UNAIDS, YWCAs and other global leaders. The Positive Womens Forum, held on the first day, was organised by and for HIV-positive women, while the YWCAs had, on various levels, been active with refugees for some time, the issue took a central focus during Israels War of Independence. Since then there have been programs to provide income and to meet the needs of those living in refugee camps, such as adequate healthcare, education and literacy programs. Underpinning refugee work has been the movement for peace and justice, with its policy rooted in the 1920s, the World YWCA has emphasized peace education and justice as an integral part of the movement’s promotion of human rights. Sustainable development has also been a priority for the YWCA. In 1987, the World YWCA stated its commitment to development that empowers women to become decision-makers and community leaders. ”The movement has emphasized a gender and human rights approach, acknowledging the exploitative. Racial equality and anti-lynching initiatives Throughout the course of its existence, in coordination with this imitative, the YWCA focused on creating campaigns and writing letters to legislators, with the intention of passing anti-lynching legislation. The YWCA’s participation in this movement peaked during the 1940s, shortly after the start of the second World War, “In 1940, a National Board commission was charged with mobilizing decisively integration work in the YWCA. This group devised an ‘Interracial Charter’ calling for the integration of black women into YWCA life and pledging the efforts of the collective YWCA to fight racial prejudice. ”While these efforts weren’t successful on a National level, they did raise awareness. It is also a member of CONGO, Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in a Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, each year during the third week in October, YWCAs worldwide focus on raising awareness on violence against women. The YWCA Week Without Violence was launched in 1995 and has grown from an initiative into a global movement with women, men and children participating in events in over 20 countries
10.
Julia Morgan
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Julia Morgan was an American architect in California. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Morgan was the first woman to be admitted to the program at lÉcole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She designed many buildings for institutions serving women and girls including YWCA buildings and buildings for Mills College, Morgan embraced the Arts and Crafts Movement and used various producers of California pottery to adorn her buildings. Julia Morgan is the first woman to receive the AIA Gold Medal, Morgans father, Charles Bill Morgan, was born into a prominent East Coast family that included successful military men, politicians, and influential businessmen. He studied to be an engineer, then in 1867, he sailed for San Francisco, California, to speculate in mines. He returned the year to marry Eliza Woodland Parmelee, the favored daughter of Albert O. Parmelee. The wedding was in Brooklyn, New York, where she had grown up, as a wedding present, Parmelee gave his daughter an envelope full of money so that she could raise a family in comfort. He indicated that more money would follow, the newlyweds traveled to San Francisco and settled downtown in a family-oriented but luxurious residential hotel. In April 1870, a son was born and named Parmelee Morgan, on January 20,1872, Julia Morgan was born. Three more children were born to the family in Oakland, Charles Morgan was not successful in any of his business ventures, so the family relied upon money from grandfather Parmelee. Eliza Morgan ran the household with a hand, providing young Julia with a role model of womanly competence and independence. In mid-1878, Eliza took the children to live near the Parmelees in New York for a year while Charles worked in San Francisco, in New York, Julia was introduced to her older cousin Lucy Thornton, who was married to successful architect Pierre Le Brun. After returning to Oakland, Julia kept in contact with Le Brun, in New York, Julia also got sick with scarlet fever and was kept in bed for a few weeks. As a result of illness, throughout her adult life she was prone to ear infections. In July 1880, grandfather Parmelee died, soon, grandmother Parmelee moved into the Oakland house, bringing with her the Parmelee wealth. This reinforced Julias impression that women provided the foundation of social means, Morgan resisted her mothers suggestion that she have a debutante party to celebrate her availability for marriage. She argued that she should first gain a career and her parents were supportive of this wish
11.
Chinatown, San Francisco
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The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. It is the oldest of the four notable Chinatowns in the city, since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, there are two hospitals, numerous parks and squares, a post office, and other infrastructure. Chinatown has been defined by the neighborhoods of North Beach, and Telegraph Hill areas as bound by Bush Street, Taylor Street, Bay Street. Officially, Chinatown is located in downtown San Francisco, covers 24 square blocks, within Chinatown there are two major thoroughfares. It is dominated by buildings that are three to four stories high, with shops on the ground floor and residential apartments upstairs. A major focal point in Chinatown is Portsmouth Square, since it is one of the few open spaces in Chinatown and sits above a large underground parking lot, Portsmouth Square bustles with activity such as Tai Chi and old men playing Chinese chess. A replica of the Goddess of Democracy used in the Tiananmen Square protest was built in 1999 by Thomas Marsh and it is made of bronze and weighs approximately 600 lb. According to the San Francisco Planning Department, Chinatown is the most densely populated area west of Manhattan. In the 1970s, the density in Chinatown was seven times the San Francisco average. The estimated total population in the 2000 Census was at 100,574 residents, during the time from 2009 to 2013, the median household income was $20,000 - compared to $76,000 citywide - with 29% of residents below the national poverty threshold. The median age was 50 years, the oldest of any neighborhood, as of 2015, two thirds of the residents lived in one of Chinatowns 105 single room occupancy hotels,96 of which had private owners and nine were owned by nonprofits. Most residents are speakers of Mandarin or Cantonese, in 2015. Many of those Chinese immigrants who gain some wealth while living in Chinatown leave it for the Richmond District, working-class Hong Kong Chinese immigrants began arriving in large numbers in the 1960s. Despite their status and professional qualifications in Hong Kong, many took low-paying employment in restaurants, an increase in Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Mainland China has gradually led to the replacement in Chinatown of the Hoisanese/Taishanese dialect by the standard Cantonese dialect. These outer neighborhoods have been settled largely by Chinese from Southeast Asia, there are also many suburban Chinese communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, especially in Silicon Valley, such as Cupertino, Fremont, and Milpitas, where Taiwanese Americans are dominant. Despite these developments, many continue to commute in from these neighborhoods and cities to shop in Chinatown, causing gridlock on roads and delays in public transit. To address this problem, the public transit agency, Muni, is planning to extend the citys subway network to the neighborhood via the new Central Subway
12.
History of Chinese Americans in San Francisco
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As of 2012,21. 4% of the population in San Francisco was of Chinese descent, and at least 150,000 Chinese American residents. The Chinese are the largest Asian American subgroup in San Francisco, San Francisco has the highest percentage of residents of Chinese descent of any major U. S. city, and the second largest Chinese American population, after New York City. The San Francisco Bay Area is 7. 9% Chinese American, with residents in Oakland. San Franciscos Chinatown was the port of entry for early Toishanese and Zhongshanese Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong Province of southern China from the 1850s to the 1900s. The area was the one geographical region deeded by the city government, the majority of these Chinese shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and hired workers in San Francisco Chinatown were predominantly Hoisanese and male. Many Chinese found jobs working for companies seeking a source of labor. Other early immigrants worked as workers or independent prospectors hoping to strike it rich during the 1849 Gold Rush. Although many of the waves of Chinese immigration were predominantly males searching for labor. The first known Chinese woman to immigrate to America was Marie Seise who arrived in 1848, within a matter of months after Seise’s arrival to the West Coast, the rush for gold in California commenced which brought a flooding of prospective miners from all around the globe. Among this group were Chinese primarily from the Guangdong Province most of whom were seafarers who had al ready established Western contacts, “Few women accompanied these early sojourners, many of whom expected to return from after they made their fortune. “During the Gold Rush era, when Chinese men were a common sight in California, Chinese women were an oddity”, unlike the rural areas, Chinatown afforded few opportunities for women to come into contact with the larger society. With national unemployment in the wake of the Panic of 1873, the heads of these companies were the leaders of the Chinese merchants, who represented the Chinese community in front of the business community as a whole and the city government. The anti-immigrant sentiment became law as the United States Government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – the first immigration restriction law aimed at a single ethnic group. Exceptions were in fact granted to the families of wealthy merchants, the exclusion act was repealed during World War II under the Magnuson Act in recognition of the important role of China as an ally in the war, although tight quotas still applied. One of the more successful sergeants, Jack Manion, was appointed in 1921, the neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake that leveled most of the city. From 1910 to 1940, Chinese immigrants were detained at the Angel Island immigration station in the San Francisco Bay, to be permitted entry to the United States, Chinese immigrants crossing the Pacific to San Francisco had to enter through the gauntlet of Angel Island. Thousands, the majority being Chinese, were detained for months in a purgatory of isolation, some spent years on the island waiting for entry to the U. S. An increase in Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Mainland China has gradually led to the replacement of the Taishanese dialect with the standard Cantonese dialect
13.
Chinese American Museum
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The Chinese American Museum is a museum located in Downtown Los Angeles as a part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. It is dedicated to the history and experience of Chinese Americans in the state of California and it presents exhibits of fine art by Chinese American artists as well as historical exhibits. Planning for the museum began in October 1984, with the grand opening taking place on December 18,2003, the museum is housed in the Garnier Building, the oldest surviving Chinese building in Southern California. The original Los Angeles Chinatown was located here before it was moved to New Chinatown for the construction of Los Angeles Union Station, a permanent exhibit at the museum is the recreation of the Hing Yuen Hong Chinese Herb Shop of yesteryear. The exhibit on Hollywood Chinese, The Arthur Dong Collection was opened on October 23,2009 and it was based on Arthur Dongs Hollywood Chinese documentary that was broadcast on PBS on May 27,2009. It closed on November 7,2010, remembering Angel Island, commemorating the centennial anniversary of the opening of the immigration station in California, July 16,2010 – January 31,2012. Dreams Deferred, Artists Respond to Immigration, December 10,2010 – December 18,2011, breaking Ground, Chinese American Architects in Los Angeles, January 19,2012 – June 3,2012. Part of Pacific Standard Time, Art in L. A, LA Heat, Taste Changing Condiments, March 13-July 12,2014. This art exhibition explored the impact of Sriracha and Tapatio in Los Angeles, the exhibit included a curated selection of artwork from artists of diverse backgrounds passionate and reflective about notions of identity, community, and foodways. Participating artists included, Edith Beaucage, Erik Benjamins, Audrey Chan, Ching Ching Cheng, chris Christion, Clayton Brothers, Eye One, Gajin Fujita, Daniel Gonzalez, Pato Hebert, Michael C. Long Story Short, a documentary on actress Jodi Longs family, was shown at the 8th Annual festival which was held on February 7,2009, the 2013 Lantern Festival was held Saturday, March 2,2013,12 p. m. –7 p. m. A2009 honoree was Lisa Lu, Chinese-American actress and documentary producer for excellence in film and entertainment. Y
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Museum of Chinese in America
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The Museum of Chinese in America is a museum in New York City which exhibits Chinese American history. The museum moved to a new site at 215 Centre Street in 2009 and it increased in size by sixfold, in a space that was designed by architect Maya Lin. The curator and director of exhibitions as of May 31,2011 is Herb Tam, the permanent exhibition, With a Single Step was designed by Matter Practice. The Museum in January 2015 presented Waves of Identity,35 Years of Archiving, the title of the exhibit was inspired by a Chinese proverb, “Each wave of the Yangtze River pushes at the wave ahead. S. Collections and Research Center houses more than 65,000 artifacts, photos, memorabilia, documents, oral histories and this expansive array of archival material enriches the history of Chinese in America for our visitors in ways both rigorously academic and profoundly personal. Starr Scholars, Nancy Kwan, and William C,2014 honorees have included, Tyrus Wong Theodore T. Wang Victor and William Fung Foundation Ltd. Wang Community Health Center Anla Cheng Mark E
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Chinese Historical Society of Southern California
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Chinese Historical Society of Southern California is located in Los Angeles Chinatown, at 415 Bernard Street. Its Chinatown Heritage & Visitors Center is open to the public and it was started by Paul Louie, William Mason, and Paul De Falla, with the organizing meeting held at Cathay Bank on November 1,1975. CHSSC is one of the most active historical societies in Southern California, there are monthly meetings, field trips, archive and library collections, oral history projects, scholarships, and publications. They have included,2005 - Los Angeles Chinese American Pioneers in Law — Betty Tom Chu, Judge Rose Hom, You Chung Hong, Judge Ronald S. W. Wang, Owner of New York Islanders Hockey Club, Kevin Wong, volleyball player, Annie Yee, cheerleader, Chinese American Athletic Association, Chinatown Firecracker Run Committee
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49-Mile Scenic Drive
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The 49-Mile Scenic Drive is a designated scenic road tour highlighting much of San Francisco, California. It was created in 1938 by the San Francisco Down Town Association to showcase the citys major attractions, originally beginning at San Francisco City Hall and ending on Treasure Island, the route has been modified several times since. Today the route forms a loop proceeding counterclockwise from Civic Center Plaza, owing variously to its length, its labyrinthine route, and the difficulty of driving through a bustling city, the drive remains relatively unpopular with tourists and locals alike. The drive begins on Polk St opposite San Francisco City Hall, after entering Japantown, the drive turns north onto Webster Street before immediately returning east along Post Street, where it continues past Japan Center, Lower Nob Hill, and Union Square. At Grant Avenue, the route turns north and enters Chinatown through its Dragon Gate. Drivers are soon directed onto California Street and up Nob Hill, at Portsmouth Square, the route proceeds north along Kearny Street for two blocks and turns northwest onto Columbus Avenue, entering North Beach. After passing City Lights Bookstore and turning onto Grant Avenue once more, passing the Joe DiMaggio Playground, the route turns north toward Fishermans Wharf on Mason Street. Over the next few miles, the route passes nearly all of San Franciscos Golden Gate National Recreation Area locations, continuing for a few blocks each on Baker, Bay, Broderick, Chestnut, and Lyon Streets, the route enters the Presidio at Lombard Street. At 8.6 miles, the passes the Letterman Digital Arts Center, proceeds onto Presidio Boulevard. The route detours through the Presidios Main Post before returning to Lincoln Boulevard near San Francisco National Cemetery. Passing above Crissy Field and Fort Point, under the U. S. Highway 101 approach to the Golden Gate Bridge, and above Baker Beach, the route exits the Presidio into Sea Cliff. Continuing along El Camino del Mar into Lincoln Park, the passes the Legion of Honor. Turing westward onto Geary Boulevard, drivers proceed several blocks and continue onto Point Lobos Avenue, soon reaching the Sutro Baths, briefly skirting the Haight-Ashbury and Cole Valley neighborhoods, the route ascends Parnassus Street and passes the University of California, San Franciscos main campus. Turning south onto 7th Avenue in the Inner Sunset, the route curves around Mount Sutro, from Twin Peaks Boulevard, drivers are directed into the north peaks parking area and offered unobstructed views of the city below. The route then descends into Corona Heights—built to take advantage of the views at this height. Winding its way down the hill, the route takes drivers past the Randall Museum before descending east along 14th Street into San Franciscos prominent gay neighborhood, at Cesar Chavez Street, the route continues east through Potrero Hill before abruptly directing drivers onto northbound I-280. After about 40 miles of streets, the route travels along I-280 for the final 1.5 miles of that freeway, exiting near Mission Bay. It winds along The Embarcadero and underneath the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge—once the final leg of the route before its Treasure Island terminus, at Market Street, the route crosses in front of the Ferry Building and shortly thereafter turns westward along Washington Street to enter the Financial District
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Alcatraz Island
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Alcatraz Island is located in San Francisco Bay,1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a fortification, a military prison. In 1972, Alcatraz became part of a recreation area. Today, the facilities are managed by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fishermans Wharf, hornblower Cruises and Events, operating under the name Alcatraz Cruises, is the official ferry provider to and from the island. According to a 1971 documentary on the history of Alcatraz, the island measures 1,675 feet by 590 feet and is 135 feet at highest point during mean tide, however, the total area of the island is reported to be 22 acres. Over the years, the Spanish version Alcatraz became popular and is now widely used, in August 1827, French Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly wrote. Covered with a number of these birds. A gun fired over the feathered legions caused them to fly up in a great cloud, the California brown pelican is not known to nest on the island today. The Spanish built several buildings on the island and other minor structures. Julian Workman is the name of William Workman, co-owner of Rancho La Puente. Later in 1846, acting in his capacity as Military Governor of California, frémont, champion of Manifest Destiny and leader of the Bear Flag Republic, bought the island for $5,000 in the name of the United States government from Francis Temple. Frémont and his heirs sued for compensation during protracted but unsuccessful legal battles that extended into the 1890s. S, Army began studying the suitability of Alcatraz Island for the positioning of coastal batteries to protect the approaches to San Francisco Bay. In 1853, under the direction of Zealous B, tower, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began fortifying the island, work which continued until 1858, eventuating in Fortress Alcatraz. The islands first garrison at Camp Alcatraz, numbering about 200 soldiers and 11 cannons, at this time it also served as the San Francisco Arsenal for storage of firearms to prevent them falling into the hands of Confederate sympathizers. Alcatraz, built as a fortified military site on the West Coast, formed a triangle of defense along with Fort Point and Lime Point. The island was also the site of the first operational lighthouse on the West Coast of the United States, Alcatraz never fired its guns offensively, though during the war it was used to imprison Confederate sympathizers and privateers on the west coast. Because of its isolation from the outside by the cold, strong, hazardous currents of the waters of San Francisco Bay, following the war in 1866, the army determined that the fortifications and guns were being rapidly rendered obsolete by advances in military technology
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San Francisco cable car system
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The San Francisco cable car system is the worlds last manually operated cable car system. An icon of San Francisco, the car system forms part of the intermodal urban transport network operated by the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Of the 23 lines established between 1873 and 1890, only three remain, two routes from downtown near Union Square to Fishermans Wharf, and a route along California Street. While the cable cars are used to an extent by commuters. They are among the most significant tourist attractions in the city, along with Alcatraz Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, the cable cars are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cable cars are not to be confused with San Franciscos heritage streetcars, which operate on Market Street, the first successful cable-operated street railway was the Clay Street Hill Railroad, which opened on August 2,1873. The promoter of the line was Hallidie, and the engineer was William Eppelsheimer, the line involved the use of grip cars, which carried the grip that engaged with the cable, towing trailer cars, the design was the first to use grips. The term grip became synonymous with the operator, the line started regular service on September 1,1873, and its success led it to become the template for other cable car transit systems. It was a success, and Hallidies patents were enforced on other cable car promoters. Accounts differ as to exactly how involved Hallidie was in the inception of the line, the next cable car line to open was the Sutter Street Railway, which converted from horse operation in 1877. This line introduced the side grip, and lever operation, both designed by Henry Casebolt and his assistant Asa Hovey, and patented by Henry Casebolt. This idea was brought about because Casebolt did not want to pay Hallidie royalties of $50,000 a year for use of his patent, the side grip allowed cable cars to cross at intersections. In 1878, Leland Stanford opened his California Street Cable Railroad and this companys first line was on California Street and is the oldest cable car line still in operation. In 1880, the Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railway began operation, the Presidio and Ferries Railway followed two years later, and was the first cable company to include curves on its routes. The curves were let-go curves, where the car drops the cable, in 1883, the Market Street Cable Railway opened its first line. This company was controlled by the Southern Pacific Railroad and was to grow to become San Franciscos largest cable car operator. At its peak, it operated five lines all of which converged into Market Street to a terminus at the Ferry Building, during rush hours, cars left that terminus every 15 seconds. In 1888, the Ferries and Cliff House Railway opened its initial two-line system, the Powell-Mason line is still operated on the same route today, their other route was the Powell-Washington-Jackson line, stretches of which are used by todays Powell-Hyde line
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Castro District, San Francisco
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The Castro District, commonly referenced as The Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States, San Franciscos gay village is mostly concentrated in the business district that is located on Castro Street from Market Street to 19th Street. It extends down Market Street toward Church Street and on sides of the Castro neighborhood from Church Street to Eureka Street. Some consider it to include Duboce Triangle and Dolores Heights, which both have a strong LGBT presence and it reappears in several discontinuous sections before ultimately terminating at Chenery Street, in the heart of Glen Park. Castro Street was named for José Castro, a Californian leader of Mexican opposition to U. S. rule in California in the 19th century, and alcalde of Alta California from 1835 to 1836. The neighborhood now known as the Castro was created in 1887 when the Market Street Railway Company built a line linking Eureka Valley to downtown. In 1891, Alfred E. Clarke built his mansion at the corner of Douglass and it survived the 1906 earthquake and fire which destroyed a large portion of San Francisco. Up to the 19th century, the possession of the Russian Empire in North America included the modern-day U. S. State of Alaska and settlements in the modern-day U. S. states of California. These Russian possessions were collectively and officially referred to by the name Russian America from 1733 to 1867, formal incorporation of the possessions by Russia did not take place until the establishment of the Russian-American Company in 1799. At the time, Russia was a young naval power. From the start, in 1840–1865, three consecutive Finnish pastors served this pastorate, Uno Cygnaeus, Gabriel Plathán and Georg Gustaf Winter, the Finns Aaron Sjöstrom and Otto Reinhold Rehn served as the parish organists/sextons during the same period. In 1841, under the governorship of Russian America by Finnish Arvid Adolf Etholén, during the final three decades of the existence of Russian America, Finnish Chief Managers of Russian America included Arvid Adolf Etholén in 1840–1845 and Johan Hampus Furuhjelm in 1859–1864. A third Finn, Johan Joachim von Bartram, declined the offer for the term between 1850 and 1855. All three were high ranking Imperial naval officers, in reference to San Francisco, researcher Maria J. Enckell states the following about the Finns in the Russian-American Company, Russia relied heavily on Finnish seamen. These seamen manned Russian naval ships as well as its deep-sea-going vessels, Company records show that in the early 1800s these ships were crewed predominantly by merchant seamen from Finland. From 1840 onward the Companys around-the-world ships were manned entirely by Finnish merchant skippers, Most Company ships stationed in Sitka and the Northern Pacific were likewise manned by Finnish skippers and Finnish crews. During the California Gold Rush and in its aftermath, a substantial Finnish population had settled in San Francisco, accordingly, Kalevalas visit in the city received a very warm welcome and created much attention. In addition to the Finnish-built corvette Kalevala now returning to the U. S, Finnish officers serving in the squadron included Theodor Kristian Avellan, who later became the Minister of Naval Affairs of the Russian Empire
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San Francisco City Hall
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San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. The structures dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet, the present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, which was two blocks from the present one. It was bounded by Larkin Street, McAllister Street, and City Hall Avenue, largely where the current Public Library and U. N. Plaza stand today. The principal architect was Arthur Brown, Jr. of Bakewell & Brown, whose attention to the finishing details extended to the doorknobs, browns blueprints of the building are preserved at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Brown also designed the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, Veterans Building, Temple Emanuel, Coit Tower, the buildings vast open space is more than 500,000 square feet and occupying two full city blocks. It is 390 ft between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, and 273 ft between Grove and McAllister Streets and its dome, which owes much to Mansarts Baroque domes of the Val-de-Grâce and Les Invalides in Paris, rises 307.5 ft above the Civic Center Historic District. It is 19 ft higher than the United States Capitol, and has a diameter of 112 ft, resting upon 4 x 50 ton and 4 x 20 ton girders, each 9 ft deep and 60 ft. The building as a whole contains 7,900 tons of steel from the American Bridge Company of Ambridge. It is faced with Madera County granite on the exterior, and Indiana sandstone within, together with finish marbles from Alabama, Colorado, Vermont, much of the statuary is by Henri Crenier. The Rotunda is a space and the upper levels are public. Opposite the grand staircase, on the floor, is the office of the Mayor. A bust of former county supervisor Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in the building was unveiled on May 22,2008, MAYOR1931 The words were written by the previous Mayor Edward Robeson Taylor, and dedicated by Mayor James Rolph. The medallions in the vaults of the Rotunda are of Equality, Liberty, Strength, Learning and, as memorialized in the South Light Court display, Progress. The current City Hall building is a replacement for a building which was completed in 1899 after 27 years of planning. The original city hall was a larger building which also contained a smaller extension which contained the citys Hall of Records. The building was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, after Arthur Brown Juniors design was selected, construction started in 1913 and was completed by 1915, in time for the Exposition. The main rotunda had also served as the location of prominent state funerals. General Fredrick Funston, hero of the Spanish–American War, Philippine–American War, joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married at City Hall in 1954
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Cliff House, San Francisco
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The Cliff House is a restaurant perched on the headland above the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach, on the western side of San Francisco, California. It overlooks the site of the former Sutro Baths and is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, on the terrace of the Cliff House is a room-sized camera obscura. Cliff House has had five major incarnations since its beginnings in 1858 and that year, Samuel Brannan, a prosperous ex-Mormon elder from Maine, bought for $1,500 the lumber salvaged from a ship that foundered on the basalt cliffs below. With this material he built the first Cliff House, the second Cliff House was built in 1863, and leased to Captain Junius G. Foster. It was a trek from the city and hosted mostly horseback riders. With the opening of the Point Lobos toll road a year later, later the builders of the toll road constructed a two-mile speedway beside it where well-to-do San Franciscans raced their horses along the way. On weekends, there was room at the Cliff House hitching racks for tethering the horses for the thousands of rigs. Soon, omnibus, railways and streetcar lines made it to near Lone Mountain where passengers transferred to stagecoach lines to the beach. The growth of Golden Gate Park attracted beach travellers, in search of meals, in 1877, the toll road, now Geary Street, was purchased by the city for around $25,000. After a few years of management by J. M. Wilkens. The blast was heard a hundred miles away and demolished the north wing of the tavern. The building was repaired, but was completely destroyed by fire on Christmas night 1894 due to a defective flue. Wilkens was unable to save the guest register, which included the signatures of three Presidents and dozens of illustrious world-famous visitors and this incarnation of the Cliff House, with its various extensions, had lasted for 31 years. In 1896, Adolph Sutro built a new Cliff House, a seven story Victorian Chateau, called by some the Gingerbread Palace and this was the same year work began on the famous Sutro Baths in a small cove immediately north of the Restaurant. The baths included six of the largest indoor swimming pools, a museum, great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles, carts and horse wagons on Sunday excursions. Sutro purchased some of the collection of stuffed animals, artwork, the 1896 Cliff House survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage, but burned to the ground on the evening of September 7,1907, after existing for only 11 years. Dr. Emma Merritt, Sutros daughter, commissioned a rebuilding of the restaurant in a style that was completed within two years and is the basis of the structure seen today. In 1914, the guidebook Bohemian San Francsco described it as one of the great Bohemian restaurants of San Francisco, while you have thought you had good breakfasts before this, you know that now you are having the best of them all
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Coit Tower
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Coit Tower, also known as the Lillian Coit Memorial Tower, is a 210-foot tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower was proposed in 1931 as a use of Coits gift. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29,2008, although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coits affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental. Coit Tower was paid for with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, before December 1866, there was no city fire department, and fires in the city, which broke out regularly in the wooden buildings, were extinguished by several volunteer fire companies. Lillie Coit was one of the eccentric characters in the history of North Beach and Telegraph Hill, smoking cigars. She was a gambler and often dressed like a man in order to gamble in the males-only establishments that dotted North Beach. Lillies fortune funded the monument four years following her death in 1929 and she had a special relationship with the citys firefighters. At the age of fifteen she witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co, after that Lillie became the Engine Co. mascot and could barely be constrained by her parents from jumping into action at the sound of every fire bell. After this she was riding with the Knickerbocker Engine Co. 5, especially so in street parades and celebrations in which the Engine Co. participated, through her youth and adulthood Lillie was recognized as an honorary firefighter. Two memorials were built in her name, one was Coit Tower, and the other was a sculpture depicting three firemen, one of them carrying a woman in his arms. Lillie is today the saint of San Francisco firefighters. The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors proposed that Coits bequest be used for a road at Lake Merced, Art Commission President Herbert Fleishhacker suggested a memorial on Telegraph Hill, which was approved by the estate executors. An additional $7,000 in city funds were appropriated, the winner was architect Arthur Brown, Jr, whose design was completed and dedicated on October 8,1933. Coit Tower was listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark in 1984, browns competition design envisioned a restaurant in the tower, which was changed to an exhibition area in the final version. The design uses three nesting concrete cylinders, the outermost a tapering fluted 180-foot shaft that supports the viewing platform, an intermediate shaft contains a stairway, and an inner shaft houses the elevator. The observation deck is 32 feet below the top, with an arcade, a rotunda at the base houses display space and a gift shop. The Coit Tower murals were done under the auspices of the Public Works of Art Project, olmsted Jr. Jose Moya del Pino and Frede Vidar
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F Market & Wharves
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The F Market & Wharves line is one of several light rail lines in San Francisco, California. Despite its heritage status, the F Market & Wharves line is an part of Munis intermodal urban transport network, operating at frequent intervals for 20 hours a day. It carries local commuters and tourists alike, linking residential, business, unlike the San Francisco cable car system, standard Muni fares are levied. The streetcar line was discontinued in 1951 and was replaced by the 30-Stockton route, the F-line designation was therefore available for use by the current line, although that service is over a completely different route from the F-line of 1915 to 1951. Market Street is a major artery for the city of San Francisco. In the 1960s construction began on the Market Street Subway, which would carry BARTs trains on its lower level, all streetcar lines currently operating in the subway previously ran on the surface of Market Street, and were eventually diverted into the upper level of the tunnel. This diversion, together with the provision of new rail cars. The diversion of the Market Street streetcar lines into tunnel and the replacement of the existing streetcars with new rail cars was completed by November 1982. However, the trackage on Market Street was retained. In 1982, San Franciscos cable car lines were shut down for almost two years to allow for a major rebuild, to provide an alternative tourist attraction during this period, the San Francisco Historic Trolley Festivals began in 1983. These summertime operations of vintage streetcars on Market Street were a joint project of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the trolley festival route went from the Transbay Terminal at First and Mission Streets to Market, then up the retained Market Street tracks to Duboce Avenue. From there, it followed a temporary streetcar detour built in the 1970s to bypass subway construction under Market, Duboce, Church Street, the Trolley Festival proved so successful it was repeated every year until 1987. In that year, preparation began for the introduction of a permanent F line, after that year’s festival finished, Muni replaced the old Market Street tracks with new ones, restoring tracks to upper Market Street and recreating a line to Castro. Different types of streetcars were evaluated to provide the backbone of the F-line fleet, resulting in the decision to use the PCC car. Fourteen such cars were acquired second-hand from Philadelphia to add to three of Muni’s own retired double-ended PCCs, at that point in history, this was a rare instance in which a streetcar replaced a bus line in operation, rather than the other way around. Ridership exceeded expectation, and the need for extra cars resulted in the acquisition of ten Peter Witt style cars just being retired in the city of Milan, Italy. These cars were built in the 1920s to a once common in North American cities. The Embarcadero is the eastern waterfront roadway of San Francisco, along San Francisco Bay, at one time busy with port and ferry related traffic, it fell into decline as freight transferred to the container terminals of Oakland and the Bay Bridge replaced the ferries
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Fairmont San Francisco
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The Fairmont San Francisco is an AAA Four-Diamond luxury hotel at 950 Mason Street, atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, California. The hotel was named after mining magnate and U. S, senator James Graham Fair, by his daughters, Theresa Fair Oelrichs and Virginia Fair Vanderbilt, who built the hotel in his honor. The hotel was the vanguard of the Fairmont Hotels and Resorts chain, the group is now owned by Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, but all the original Fairmont hotels still keep their names. As of July 2014, room rates begin at $409 per night and it has been featured in many films, including The Rock. Exterior and interior shots of the hotel were used as stand-ins for the fictional St. Gregory Hotel in the television series Hotel, the Fairmont San Francisco was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 17 April 2002. It is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The hotel was completed before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Although the structure survived, the interior was damaged by fire. In 1945, the Fairmont hosted international statesmen for meetings which culminated in the creation of the United Nations, the United Nations Charter was drafted in the hotels Garden Room and a plaque at the hotel memorializes the event. Among the hotels attractions is the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, a tiki bar, which opened in 1945 and was remodeled in 1952. Elements of the bar were also updated in 2009 and it features a bandstand on a barge that floats in a former swimming pool, a dining area built from parts of an old sailing ship, and artificial thunderstorms. In January 2009, the announced plans to close the Tonga Room in connection with a renovation. In response, a planned to file an application to make the Tonga Room an official San Francisco landmark. The plans were delayed and Tonga Room is still open today and they acquired the Mark Hopkins Hotel across the street in 2014. The hotel was again on November 30,2015 to the South Korean Mirae Asset Global Investments group for $450 million. The Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel was where Tony Bennett first sang I Left My Heart in San Francisco in December 1961. A statue of Tony Bennett was unveiled outside the Fairmont on 19 August 2016, in honor of his 90th birthday, the performance, the Fairmont Hotel was used in the establishing shots for the fictional St. Gregory Hotel in the 1983 television series Hotel. The hotel on which the novel was based is now The Fairmont New Orleans
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Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
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The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is the federal bank for the twelfth district in the United States. The twelfth district is made up of nine western states-—Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—plus the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Guam. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has branch offices in Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake City and it also has a cash processing center in Phoenix. The twelfth district is the nations largest by area and population, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is the second-largest by assets held, after New York. In 2004 the San Francisco Fed processed 20.8 billion currency notes and 1.5 billion commercial checks, the current president, appointed in 2011, is John C. Williams. The Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco has one of the largest collections of U. S. paper money in the United States, which is displayed in the American Currency Exhibit. In 1924, the San Francisco staff moved out of locations and into the Banks newly built headquarters at 400 Sansome Street. In 1983, the relocated to 101 Market St. The old headquarters building of the bank, designed by George W. Kelham, has an Ionic colonnade that is pure Beaux-Arts, the lobby with murals by Jules Guerin who created the palette for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. In 1983 the bank relocated to larger and more facilities on 101 Market Street as the 400 Sansome Street location was sold to private developers who rented out the space. Prominent law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe was headquartered in the building until 2002 when the firm moved out of the space, the building continues to be owned by private developers and current tenants include the Bar Association of San Francisco. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, there is also a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco building in Los Angeles. The 1929 built building is also NRHP-listed, from 1951 to 2008, the Seattle branch was headquartered at the Federal Reserve Bank Building in Downtown Seattle, which had been built in 1951 for the branch and is listed on the NRHP. The following people serve on the board of directors as of 2013, All terms expire December 31. 7943°N122. 4008°W /37.7943, -122.4008
26.
San Francisco Ferry Building
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The San Francisco Ferry Building is a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay, a food hall and an office building. It is located on The Embarcadero in San Francisco, California, on top of the building is a 245-foot tall clock tower with four clock dials, each 22 feet in diameter, which can be seen from Market Street, a main thoroughfare of the city. Designed in 1892 by American architect A, Page Brown in the Beaux Arts style, the ferry building was completed in 1898. At its opening, it was the largest project undertaken in the city up to that time, Brown designed the clock tower after the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain, and the entire length of the building on both frontages is based on an arched arcade. With decreased use since the 1950s, after bridges were constructed across the bay to carry passenger traffic, in 2002, a restoration and renovation were undertaken to redevelop the entire complex. The 660-foot long Great Nave was restored, together with its height, a marketplace was created on the ground floor, the former baggage handling area. The second and third floors were adapted for office and Port Commission use, during daylight, on every full and half-hour, the clock bell chimes portions of the Westminster Quarters. The ferry terminal is a designated San Francisco landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the present structure was designed in 1892 by A. Page Brown, a New York architect who had started with McKim, Mead & White, influenced by studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he designed the clock tower after the 12th-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain. Brown designed it to satisfy needs of a society in high style associated with traditional buildings. The highest quality materials were used, such as marble and mosaics for the state seal, the 660-foot-long Great Nave on the second floor was the major public space for arriving and departing ferry passengers. Opened in 1898, the building replaced a wooden predecessor, the well-built reinforced building with its arched arcades survived both the 1906 and the 1989 earthquakes with little damage. It served as the destination for commuters to San Francisco from the East Bay, who rode the ferry fleets of the Southern Pacific, in the afternoon, they caught ferries returning across the bay. A loop track in front of the building enabled convenient transfers to streetcars, a large pedestrian bridge spanned the Embarcadero in front of the Ferry building to facilitate safe crossing of the busy plaza and transit hub. In the 1940s, this bridge was deconstructed to supply scrap metal for the Second World War. Until the completion of the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930s, after the bridges opened, and the new Key System trains began running to the East Bay from the Transbay Terminal in 1939, passenger ferry use fell sharply. The formerly grand public space was reduced to a narrow and dark corridor, passengers were made to wait for ferries on outdoor benches, and the ticketing booths were moved to the pier. With the construction in the late 1950s of the Embarcadero Freeway, pedestrian access was treated as an afterthought, and the public was cut off from the waterfront
27.
Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco
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Fishermans Wharf is a neighborhood and popular tourist attraction in San Francisco, California. It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghirardelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. The F Market streetcar runs through the area, the Powell-Hyde cable car runs to Aquatic Park, at the edge of Fishermans Wharf. One, Achille Paladini, found success wholesaling local fish as owner of the Paladini Fish Company, most of the Italian immigrant fishermen settled in the North Beach area close to the wharf and fished for the local delicacies and the now famed Dungeness crab. From then until the present day it remained the base of San Franciscos fishing fleet. Despite its redevelopment into a tourist attraction during the 1970s and 1980s, seafood restaurants are aplenty in the area. Some include the floating Forbes Island restaurant at Pier 39 to stands that serve fresh seafood, most notably Dungeness crab, some of the restaurants, including Fishermens Grotto, Pompeis Grotto and Aliotos, go back for three generations of the same family ownership. Other restaurants include chains like Joes Crab Shack and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, other attractions in Fishermans Wharf area are the Hyde Street Pier, the USS Pampanito, a decommissioned World War II era submarine, and the Balclutha, a 19th-century cargo ship. Nearby Pier 45 has a chapel in memory of the Lost Fishermen of San Francisco, there is a sea lion colony next to Pier 39. They took-up residence months before the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the sea lions lie on wooden docks that were originally used for docking boats. He has been a permanent entertainer in the Fishermans Wharf area for the past 30 years and has gained an amount of notoriety among the locals. In 1985, the wharf was used as a location in the James Bond film A View to a Kill. Fishermans Wharf Merchants Association For visitor information including lodging, dining, attractions, sightseeing, arcadia Publishing Fishermans Wharf Merchants Association Fishermans Wharf Community Benefit District JB Monaco Fishermans Wharf Photo Gallery
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Fort Mason
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Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a coastal defense site and subsequently as a military port facility. During World War II, it was the port for the Pacific campaign. Today it is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and it is a National Historic Landmark District with over 49 buildings of historic significance, spread over 1,200 acres. Fort Mason can be split into two distinct areas, the upper area, sometimes called Fort Mason, is situated on a headland and was the site of the original coastal fortifications. The lower area, Fort Mason Center, is situated close to level to the west of Upper Fort Mason. The Marina Green lies to the west of Fort Mason, while Aquatic Park is to the east, the nucleus of Fort Mason was a private property owned by John C. Frémont, the explorer of the US west, who also spearheaded the conquest of California from Mexico. Appointed a Major General in the Union army at the start of the Civil War, in 1863, the government seized the property without payment, by executive order of Lincoln, on the grounds it was needed for the war effort. Frémont would again contest the US presidency in 1864, running as the candidate of radical Republicans, the 1968 lawsuit was perhaps the last shot of a century-long legal struggle to obtain compensation for the seized realty. In 1870, the government returned property to 49 parties in the vicinity, but not to Frémont, but in 1968 the Frémont heirs complained it had failed to carry out this direction, with John Frémont then recently dead and his widow Jessie nearly 70 years old. The Civil War prompted the construction of coastal defense batteries located inside the Golden Gate. A breast-high wall of brick and mounts for six 10-inch Rodman cannons, excavation in the early 1980s uncovered the well-preserved remains of the western-half of the temporary battery, and it has now been restored to its condition during the Civil War. The fort was named Fort Mason in 1882, after Richard Barnes Mason, President Grover Cleveland established the Endicott Board in 1885 for the purpose of modernizing the nations coastal fortifications. Chaired by Secretary of War William Endicott, the board recommended new defenses at 22 U. S. seaports, as a result, an extensive series of forts, batteries, and guns were built on the harbor, including Fort Mason. The piers and sheds of Lower Fort Mason were originally built from 1912 to warehouse army supplies, by this time, the US Army began to build new bases in Hawaii, the Philippines, and various other Pacific islands. Most of the materiel for those bases was shipped through San Francisco, by 1915, the three piers together with their associated warehouse had been completed, and Fort Mason Tunnel driven under Upper Fort Mason to connect with the railroad network along the Embarcadero. With these new facilities, Fort Mason was transformed from a defense post into a logistical. The Army ferry USAT General Frank M. Coxe provided scheduled transportation from Fort Mason to the center at Fort McDowell on Angel Island up to eight times per day during the war
29.
Fort Point, San Francisco
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Fort Point is a masonry seacoast fortification located at the southern side of the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. This fort was completed just before the American Civil War by the United States Army, the fort is now protected as Fort Point National Historic Site, a United States National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service as a unit of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 1769 Spain occupied the San Francisco area and by 1776 had established the areas first European settlement, with a mission and a presidio. To protect against encroachment by the British and Russians, Spain fortified the high white cliff at the narrowest part of the bays entrance, the Castillo de San Joaquin, built in 1794, was an adobe structure housing nine to thirteen cannons. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control of the region and the fort, following the United States victory in 1848, California was annexed by the U. S. and became a state in 1850. The gold rush of 1849 had caused rapid settlement of the area, military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay. Coastal defenses were built at Alcatraz Island, Fort Mason, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Plans specified that the lowest tier of artillery be as close as possible to water level so cannonballs could ricochet across the surface to hit enemy ships at the water-line. Workers blasted the 90-foot cliff down to 15 feet above sea level, the structure featured seven-foot-thick walls and multi-tiered casemated construction typical of Third System forts. It was sited to defend the maximum amount of harbor area, while there were more than 30 such forts on the East Coast, Fort Point was the only one on the West Coast. In 1854 Inspector General Joseph K. Mansfield declared this point as the key to the whole Pacific Coast. a crew of 200, many unemployed miners, labored for eight years on the fort. In 1861, with war looming, the army mounted the forts first cannon, colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Department of the Pacific, prepared Bay Area defenses and ordered in the first troops to the fort. Kentucky-born Johnston then resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army, throughout the Civil War, artillerymen at Fort Point stood guard for an enemy that never came. Troops soon moved out of Fort Point, and it was never again occupied by the army. The fort was important enough to receive protection from the elements. In 1869 a granite seawall was completed, the following year, some of the forts cannon were moved to Battery East on the bluffs nearby, where they were more protected. In 1882 Fort Point was officially named Fort Winfield Scott after the hero from the war against Mexico. The name never caught on and was applied to an artillery post at the Presidio
30.
Ghirardelli Square
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Ghirardelli Square is a landmark public square with shops and restaurants in the Fishermans Wharf area of San Francisco, California. A portion of the area was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 as Pioneer Woolen Mills, the square once featured over 40 specialty shops and restaurants. Some of the shops and restaurants still occupy the square. In 1893, Domenico Ghirardelli purchased the city block in order to make it into the headquarters of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. In the early 1960s, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was bought by the Golden Grain Macaroni Company which moved the headquarters off-site to San Leandro and put the square up for sale. San Franciscan William M. Roth and his mother, Lurline Matson Roth, in 1965, Benjamin Thompson and Associates renovated the lower floor of the Clock Tower, keeping the existing architectural elements, for a Design Research store. The lower floors of the Clock Tower are now home to Ghirardelli Squares main chocolate shop, in order to preserve Ghirardelli Square for future generations, the Pioneer Woolen Mills and D. Ghirardelli Company was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks 49-Mile Scenic Drive Ghirardelli Square - Official site and source of info Guide to the Ghirardelli Square Architectural Records at The Bancroft Library
31.
Golden Gate Bridge
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The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate strait, the one-mile-wide, one-point-seven-mile-long channel between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and it has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommers travel guide describes the Golden Gate Bridge as possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed and it opened in 1937 and was, until 1964, the longest suspension bridge main span in the world, at 4,200 feet. Before the bridge was built, the only practical short route between San Francisco and what is now Marin County was by boat across a section of San Francisco Bay. A ferry service began as early as 1820, with a scheduled service beginning in the 1840s for the purpose of transporting water to San Francisco. Once for railroad passengers and customers only, Southern Pacifics automobile ferries became very profitable, the trip from the San Francisco Ferry Building took 27 minutes. Many wanted to build a bridge to connect San Francisco to Marin County, San Francisco was the largest American city still served primarily by ferry boats. Because it did not have a permanent link with communities around the bay, experts said that ferocious winds and blinding fogs would prevent construction and operation. San Franciscos City Engineer estimated the cost at $100 million, which would have been $2.12 billion in 2009 and he asked bridge engineers whether it could be built for less. One who responded, Joseph Strauss, was an engineer and poet who had, for his graduate thesis. At the time, Strauss had completed some 400 drawbridges—most of which were inland—and nothing on the scale of the new project. Strausss initial drawings were for a massive cantilever on each side of the strait, connected by a central suspension segment, Local authorities agreed to proceed only on the assurance that Strauss would alter the design and accept input from several consulting project experts. A suspension-bridge design was considered the most practical, because of recent advances in metallurgy, Strauss spent more than a decade drumming up support in Northern California. The bridge faced opposition, including litigation, from many sources, the Department of War was concerned that the bridge would interfere with ship traffic. The navy feared that a collision or sabotage to the bridge could block the entrance to one of its main harbors. Unions demanded guarantees that local workers would be favored for construction jobs, in May 1924, Colonel Herbert Deakyne held the second hearing on the Bridge on behalf of the Secretary of War in a request to use federal land for construction. Another ally was the automobile industry, which supported the development of roads. The bridges name was first used when the project was discussed in 1917 by M. M
32.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
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Grace Cathedral is an Episcopal cathedral on Nob Hill, San Francisco, California. It is the church of the Episcopal Diocese of California. There is also an adult choir. The director of music and choirmaster is Ben Bachmann, the Very Reverend Alan Jones retired as dean in 2009. He was also the moderator of The Forum at Grace Cathedral, canon Jane Shaw was installed as the eighth dean of Grace Cathedral. The cathedrals ancestral parish, Grace Church, was founded in 1849 during the California Gold Rush, the cathedral is the daughter of the historic Grace Church. The first little chapel was built in the gold rush year of 1849, the family of a railroad baron and banker, William Henry Crocker, gave their ruined Nob Hill property for a diocesan cathedral, which took its name and founding congregation from the nearby parish. In 1865, Mark Twain published purported private correspondence between himself and potential short-term rectors, satirizing the churchs efforts to find a short-term rector in the 1860s and 1870s, dean J. Wilmer Gresham nurtured the young cathedral and work began on the present structure in 1928. Designed in French Gothic style by Lewis P. Hobart, it was completed in 1964 as the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the nation. On March 28,1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a sermon at Grace Cathedral as part of the festival celebrating its completion and consecration, the service took place on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Approximately 5,000 people were present to hear Kings sermon and it was the largest gathering at the cathedral for the next 37 years, until the September 11,2001, memorial service took place. Grace Cathedral has a significant collection of varied works by Jan Henryk De Rosen, among these are a faux-tile mural behind the Chapel of Grace reredos from 1932, the mural in the Chapel of the Nativitys Adoration from 1946 showing the Holy Family with the magi and shepherds. At the donors request, the original angels hovering above were removed by the artist, De Rosen also included a little image of his boyhood home in Warsaw in the mural. On a smaller scale, De Rosen painted exquisite panels for the old high altar which is now in the Chapel of St. Francis columbarium. The cathedral entrance has a pair of doors, often called the Ghiberti doors. They are reproductions of the doors of the Florence Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti and they were hidden in a disused railway tunnel until 1944, and latex casts were made after their rediscovery. The doors now in the baptistery are also modern replicas installed in 1991, laid out on the floor of Grace Cathedral is a labyrinth that is based on the famous medieval labyrinth of Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres located in Chartres, France. It is said if a visitor walks the pattern of the labyrinth it will bring them to a meditative state
33.
Haight-Ashbury
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Haight-Ashbury is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight, the neighborhood is known for its history of, and being the origin of hippie counterculture. The street names commemorate two early San Francisco leaders, Pioneer and exchange banker Henry Haight and Munroe Ashbury, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1864 to 1870. Both Haight and his nephew as well as Ashbury had a hand in the planning of the neighborhood, the Haight-Ashbury district is noted for its role as a center of the 1960s hippie movement. The earlier bohemians of the movement had congregated around San Franciscos North Beach neighborhood from the late 1950s. Many who could not find accommodation there turned to the quaint, relatively cheap, the Summer of Love, the 1960s era as a whole, and much of modern American counterculture have been synonymous with San Francisco and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood ever since. Before the completion of the Haight Street Cable Railroad in 1883, what is now the Haight-Ashbury was a collection of isolated farms and acres of sand dunes. The Haight cable car line, completed in 1883, connected the east end of Golden Gate Park with the geographically central Market Street line and the rest of downtown San Francisco. The cable car, land grading and building techniques of the 1890s and it was one of the few neighborhoods spared from the fires that followed the catastrophic San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The Haight was hit hard by the Depression, as was much of the city, residents with enough money to spare left the declining and crowded neighborhood for greener pastures within the growing city limits, or newer, smaller suburban homes in the Bay Area. During the housing shortage of World War II, large single-family Victorians were divided into apartments to house workers, others were converted into boarding homes for profit. By the 1950s, the Haight was a neighborhood in decline, many buildings were left vacant after the war. Deferred maintenance also took its toll, and the exodus of middle class residents to newer suburbs continued to many units for rent. In the 1950s, a freeway was proposed that would have run through the Panhandle, the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council was formed at the time of the 1959 revolt. HANC is still active in the neighborhood as of 2008, the bohemian subculture that subsequently flourished there took root, and to a great extent, has remained to this day. The mainstream medias coverage of life in the Haight-Ashbury drew the attention of youth from all over America. Hunter S. Thompson labeled the district Hashbury in The New York Times Magazine, the Haight-Ashbury district was sought out by hippies to constitute a community based upon counterculture ideals, drugs, and music. This neighborhood offered a concentrated gathering spot for hippies to create an experiment that would soon spread throughout the nation
34.
Jack Kerouac Alley
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Jack Kerouac Alley is a one-way alleyway in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, that connects Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue. The alley is named after Jack Kerouac, a Beat Generation writer who used to frequent the pub, the alley was a common place for garbage dumping and a shortcut for trucks. In 1988, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who is the co-founder of City Lights Bookstore, the project involved repaving the alley, banning motor vehicles from entering, and installing new street lights. The new look alley was reopened to the public in March 2007, the alley is now known for its engraved Western and Chinese poems, including poets such as John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, and Kerouac himself. A ceremony was held in April 2007 to celebrate the reopening of the alley, a picture of Jack Kerouac Alley on Flickr
35.
Lombard Street (San Francisco)
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Lombard Street is an east–west street in San Francisco, California that is famous for a steep, one-block section with eight hairpin turns. Stretching from The Presidio east to The Embarcadero, most of the western segment is a major thoroughfare designated as part of U. S. Route 101. The famous one-block section, claimed as the most crooked street in the world, is located along the segment in the Russian Hill neighborhood. The street was named after Lombard Street in Philadelphia by San Francisco surveyor Jasper OFarrell, Lombard Streets west end is at Presidio Boulevard inside The Presidio, it then heads east through the Cow Hollow neighborhood. For twelve blocks, between Broderick Street and Van Ness Avenue, it is a road that is co-signed as U. S. Route 101. Lombard Street continues through the Russian Hill neighborhood and to the Telegraph Hill neighborhood, at Telegraph Hill it turns south, becoming Telegraph Hill Boulevard to Pioneer Park and Coit Tower. Lombard Street starts again at Winthrop Street and ends at The Embarcadero as a collector road, Lombard Street is known for the one-way block on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, where eight sharp turns are said to make it the most crooked street in the world. The design, first suggested by property owner Carl Henry and built in 1922, was intended to reduce the hills natural 27% grade and it is also a hazard to pedestrians, who are accustomed to shallow inclines, up to 4. 86° because of wheel chair navigability concerns. The crooked block is perhaps 600 feet long, is one-way and is paved with red bricks, the sign at the top recommends 5 mph. The Powell-Hyde cable car stops at the top of the block on Hyde Street, past residents of Lombard Street include Rowena Meeks Abdy, an early California painter who worked in the style of Impressionism. As The Crookedest Street in the World, like Lombard Street it has eight turns but over a shorter distance. Media related to Lombard Street at Wikimedia Commons Tourist Trapped, The Crookedest Street In The World, SFGate Culture Blog Lombard Street on San Francisco To Do Lombard Street, SF GuideLines
36.
Mark Hopkins Hotel
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The InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco is a luxury hotel located at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco, California. The hotel is managed by the InterContinental Hotels Group, the chain operates over 5000 hotels and resorts in approximately 75 nations. The Mark Hopkins is the oldest InterContinental in the United States, the 19th floor penthouse suite was converted in 1939 into the glass-walled Top of the Mark restaurant cocktail lounge. InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, Mark Hopkins, one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, chose the southeastern peak of Nob Hill as the site for a dream home for his wife, Mary. The mansion was completed in 1878, after his death, since the tower of the mansion was at the time the highest point in San Francisco, Eadweard Muybridge chose this location to shoot his iconic 1887 panoramic of the city from this location. Mary Sherwood Hopkins, on her death in 1891 at the age of seventy-three, left the Nob Hill mansion, in 1893, Searles donated the building and grounds to the San Francisco Art Association, for use as a school and museum. It was called the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and valued at $600,000 at the time, the Mark Hopkins mansion survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, however, it was destroyed in the three-day fire that followed the earthquake. Mining engineer and hotel investor George D. Smith purchased the Nob Hill site, removed the Art Association building, the San Francisco architectural firm Weeks and Day designed the 19-story hotel, a combination of French château and Spanish ornamentation. One of the areas, The Room of The Dons, contains a piece of California history. Nine seven-foot-high panels painted by artists Maynard Dixon and Frank Von Sloun in 1926 for the hotels opening decorate the upper walls, one panel shows Queen Calafia and her Amazons set against a gold leaf sky. Calafia is the namesake for the state of California, during World War II, the Top Of The Mark lounge was a favored place for Pacific-bound servicemen and their sweethearts to meet before being deployed. In 1962, the hotel was sold by the original owner George D. Smith to San Francisco financier Louis Lurie, in 1973 Luries heirs signed a long-term management contract for the Mark Hopkins with InterContinental Hotels Corporation. Woodridge Capital Partners Affiliates and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management acquired the hotel in 2014 and they also own the Fairmont San Francisco hotel across the street. The Mark Hopkins became a center for the City, and is rated AAA Four-Diamond and has won the Gold-Key award. A bronze plaque installed by the California State Park Commission, designating the site California Historical Landmark #754, was commissioned October 20,1961, the plaque marks the former site of the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. The Mark Hopkins Hotel is also listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark, San Franciscos tallest buildings List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks Woodbridge, Sally B. Media related to Mark Hopkins mansion at Wikimedia Commons Official website
37.
Market Street (San Francisco)
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Market Street is a major thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. Beyond this point, the roadway continues as Portola Drive into the southwestern quadrant of San Francisco, Portola Drive extends south to the intersection of St. Francis Boulevard and Sloat Boulevard, where it continues as Junipero Serra Boulevard. Market Street is the boundary of two street grids, Streets on its southeast side are parallel or perpendicular to Market Street, while those on the northwest are nine degrees off from the cardinal directions. Market Street is a major artery for the city of San Francisco, and has carried in turn horse-drawn streetcars, cable cars, electric streetcars, electric trolleybuses. Today Munis buses, trolleybuses, and heritage streetcars share the street, while below the street the two-level Market Street Subway carries Muni Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit. While cable cars no longer operate on Market Street, the cable car lines terminate to the side of the street at its intersections with California Street. Market Street cuts across the city for three miles from the waterfront to the hills of Twin Peaks and it was laid out originally by Jasper OFarrell, a 26-year-old trained civil engineer who emigrated to Yerba Buena. The town was renamed San Francisco in 1847 after it was captured by United States troops during the Mexican-American War, OFarrell first repaired the original layout of the settlement around Portsmouth Square and then established Market Street as the widest street in town,120 feet between property lines. It was described at the time as an arrow aimed straight at Los Pechos de la Chola, a friend warned OFarrell, before the crowd had dispersed. He rode with all haste to North Beach, took a boat for Sausalito and he found it discreet to remain some time in the country before venturing to return to the city. The city soon filled in the ground between Portsmouth Square and Happy Valley at First and Mission Street, the dunes were leveled and the sand used for fill. The first horsecar-powered railway line to open in San Francisco commenced running down the thoroughfare on July 4,1860, the two Union Railroad tracks were on the inside and the two San Francisco Municipal Railway tracks were on the outside. In 1892 The Owl Drug Company was established at 1128 Market Street, Market Street underwent major changes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Muni Metro service was moved underground in concert with the development of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Construction of the Market Street Subway commenced in July 1967, prolonged disruption to what had traditionally been the social and economic center of the city contributed to the decline of the mid-Market shopping district in later years. In 1980, Munis surface operations were partially routed underground with full service changes occurring in 1982, in the days of the first United Nations conferences, Anthony Eden, Molotov, Stettinius, and Bidault rode up Market Street, waving to the crowds of hopefuls. On Christmas Eve 1910, opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini sang a free concert to a crowd some estimated at 250,000. Another historic Market Street event was the New Years Eve celebration at the Ferry Building on December 31,1999, over 1.2 million people jammed Market Street and nearby streets for the raucous and peaceful turn-of-the-century celebration. The San Francisco Gay Pride parade runs down Market Street, attracting many people every year, victory parades celebrating the San Francisco Giants World Series titles were held on Market Street in 2010,2012, and 2014
38.
Nob Hill, San Francisco
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Nob Hill is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, centered on the intersection of California Street and Powell Street. It is one of San Franciscos 44 hills, and one of its original Seven Hills, prior to the 1850s, Nob Hill was called California Hill. It was renamed after the Central Pacific Railroads Big Four – called the Nobs – built mansions there, the actual peak of Nob Hill lies slightly to the northwest, approximately at the intersection of Jones and Sacramento Streets. South of Nob Hill is Lower Nob Hill neighborhood, the district of Union Square, the Tenderloin neighborhood. To the east is San Franciscos Chinatown and a little farther, northeast of Nob Hill is North Beach and Telegraph Hill. North of Nob Hill is Russian Hill, and eventually, the areas of the waterfront such as Pier 39. The area was settled in the rapid urbanization happening in the city in the late 19th century, because of the views and its central position, it became an exclusive enclave of the rich and famous on the west coast who built large mansions in the neighborhood. This included prominent tycoons such as Leland Stanford, founder of Stanford University, for this reason, its early citizens were known as nabobs, which was shortened to nob, giving the area its eventual name. The neighborhood was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, except for the walls surrounding the Stanford, Crocker, Huntington. Those walls remain and black caused by smoke from the intense fires that burned after the quake can still be seen. Also gutted by the fires was the newly completed Fairmont Hotel at Mason and California Streets, both structures had stone exteriors that survived the fires, and both buildings were subsequently cleaned and refurbished. The Fairmont Hotel remains in operation to day and the Flood Mansion is the headquarters of the exclusive Pacific-Union Club. While the neighborhood was able to maintain its affluence following the quake, some rebuilt mansions further west in San Francisco, for example, in Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow. In place of where the mansions had been located, swank hotels were erected, hotels built over the ruins of the former mansions include the Mark Hopkins, Huntington and Stanford Court. Nob is disparaging British slang abbreviation of noble/nobility referring to the monied, the location is also derisively referred to as Snob Hill. The intersection of California and Powell streets is the location of two of its four well-known and most expensive hotels, the Fairmont Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel and the Huntington Hotel are located one block away at Mason & California. The hotels were named for three of The Big Four, four entrepreneurs of the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, Leland Stanford, the fourth, Charles Crocker has a garage named after him in the neighborhood. The Fairmont is also named for a San Francisco tycoon, James G. Fair, opposite the Fairmont Hotel and Pacific Union Club is Grace Cathedral, one of the citys largest houses of worship
39.
North Beach, San Francisco
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North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fishermans Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Franciscos Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population and it is still home to many Italian restaurants today, though many other ethnic groups currently live in the neighborhood. It was also the center of the beatnik subculture. The American Planning Association has named North Beach as one of ten Great Neighborhoods in America, main intersections are Union and Columbus, the southwest corner of Washington Square, Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street. Originally, the citys northeast shoreline extended only to what is today Taylor, the area largely known today as North Beach was an actual beach, filled in with landfill around the late 19th century. Warehouses, fishing wharves, and docks were built on the newly formed shoreline. Due to the proximity of the docks, the half of the neighborhood south of Broadway was home of the infamous Barbary Coast. Following its reconstruction after the 1906 earthquake, a number of Italian immigrants created the Italian character of the neighborhood that still exists. During the 1950s, many of the cafes and bars became the home and epicenter of the Beat Generation. The term beatnik originated from the here and was coined in a derogatory fashion by famed San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Many of that generations most famous writers and personalities such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, during the 1960s a notable night spot was The Committee, an improvisational theatre group founded by alumni of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10,1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat cabaret theater, the Broadway area also created innovations for the strip club industry. The Condor Club, on the corner of Columbus and Broadway, was opened in 1964 as Americas first topless bar, which it is again today. The Lusty Lady was the first striptease club to be structured as a worker cooperative, Broadway strip clubs owe their legacy to the Barbary Coast, which was located just one block south on Pacific Street during the late 19th-century. In the 1970s and 1980s Broadway was the location of live music clubs, like the Stone. Paul Kantner was living in North Beach in an apartment unit above Als Attire at the corner of Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street at the time of his death, and was often a patron of nearby Cafe Trieste. The North Beach Festival street fair on Grant Avenue and Columbus Avenue usually held on Fathers Day weekend in June is one of the citys largest and it is also considered one of the nations oldest street fairs. The neighborhood also hosts a large Columbus Day/Italian American heritage day parade along Columbus Avenue to San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, the neighborhood still retains an Italian character with many Italian restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that line Columbus Avenue and Washington Square
40.
San Francisco Mint
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The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874 and this building, the Old United States Mint, also known affectionately as The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It served until 1937, when the present facility was opened, within the first year of its operation, the San Francisco mint turned $4 million in gold bullion into coins. The second building, completed in 1874, was designed by Alfred B, mullett in a conservative Greek Revival style with a sober Doric order. Heroic efforts by Superintendent of the Mint, Frank A. Leach, and his men preserved the building, the mint resumed operation soon thereafter, continuing until 1937. In 1961 the Old Mint, as it had known, was designated a National Historic Landmark. It also became a California Historical Landmark in 1974, the given name of The Granite Lady is somewhat of a misnomer as most of the building is made from sandstone. While the base/basement of the building is made of granite, the entire external, the Granite Lady was a marketing term given in the 1970s that stuck. The Old Mint was open to visitors until 1993, in the fall of 2005, ground was broken for renovations that would turn the central court into a glass-enclosed galleria. In 2006 Congress created the San Francisco Old Mint Commemorative Coin, the first phase of renovations were completed in 2011. In 2014, the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society began raising money for the second phase, in 2015, the City of San Francisco looked for a new tenant to renovate and program the space with Activate San Francisco Events being selected as an interim tenant. Until a new tenant is found, the Old Mint will continue to be used for special events, in April 2016, the California Historical Society agreed to undertake the restoration of the building and its preservation as a public space. The new Mint was opened in 1937, beginning in 1955, circulating coinage from San Francisco was suspended for 13 years. In 1968, it took over most proof coinage production from the Philadelphia Mint, from 1975 to 2012, the San Francisco Mint has been used only for proof coinage, with the exception of the Susan B. Anthony dollar from 1979–81 and a portion of the mintage of cents in the early 1980s, the dollars bear a mintmark of an S, but the cents are otherwise indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia. In 2012, the San Francisco mint started to mint circulation strike quarters in the America the Beautiful quarter series, marked with an S mintmark and only issued for collectors. From 1962 to 1988, the San Francisco Mint was officially an assay office, the San Francisco Mint is located at 155 Hermann Street, but only admits visitors on rare exception. On May 15,1987, a number of people were allowed to tour the facility
41.
Painted ladies
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In American architecture, painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada, about 48,000 houses in the Victorian and Edwardian styles were built in San Francisco between 1849 and 1915, and many were painted in bright colors. As one newspaper noted in 1885. red, yellow, chocolate, orange. They are painted up into uncouth panels of yellow and brown, during World War I and World War II, many of these houses were painted battleship gray with war-surplus Navy paint. Another sixteen thousand were demolished, and many others had the Victorian decor stripped off or covered with tarpaper, brick, stucco, in 1963, San Francisco artist Butch Kardum began combining intense blues and greens on the exterior of his Italianate-style Victorian house. His house was criticized by some, but other neighbors began to copy the bright colors on their own houses. Kardum became a designer, and he and other artists / colorists such as Tony Canaletich, Bob Buckter. By the 1970s, the colorist movement, as it was called, had changed entire streets and this process continues to this day. One of the groups of Painted Ladies is the row of Victorian houses at 710–720 Steiner Street, across from Alamo Square park. It is sometimes known as Postcard Row, the houses were built between 1892 and 1896 by developer Matthew Kavanaugh, who lived next door in the 1892 mansion at 722 Steiner Street. Terraced house Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada, Painted Ladies- San Franciscos Resplendent Victorians E. P, dutton, New York,1978 Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada, Daughters of Painted Ladies, E. P. Dutton, New York,1987 Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada, dutton, New York Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada, Americas Painted Ladies, E. P. Dutton, New York,1992 Terry Way, Victorian Homes Of San Francisco, Schiffer, PA2009 ISBN9780764332128 John Clarke Mills, Restoration of an 1890s San Francisco Victorian, Blog,2008
42.
Palace of Fine Arts
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One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is still situated on its original site. It was rebuilt in 1965, and renovation of the lagoon, walkways, the Palace of Fine Arts was designed by Bernard Maybeck, who took his inspiration from Roman and Ancient Greek architecture in designing what was essentially a fictional ruin from another time. For a time the Palace housed an art exhibit, and during the Great Depression. Artists were commissioned to replace the decayed Robert Reid murals on the ceiling of the rotunda, from 1934 to 1942 the exhibition hall was home to eighteen lighted tennis courts. During World War II it was requisitioned by the military for storage of trucks, at the end of the war, when the United Nations was created in San Francisco, limousines used by the worlds statesmen came from a motor pool there. While the Palace had been saved from demolition, its structure was not stable, as a result of the construction and vandalism, by the 1950s the simulated ruin was in fact a crumbling ruin. In 1964, the original Palace was completely demolished, with only the structure of the exhibit hall left standing. The buildings were reconstructed in permanent, light-weight, poured-in-place concrete. All the decorations and sculpture were constructed anew, the only changes were the absence of the murals in the dome, two end pylons of the colonnade, and the original ornamentation of the exhibit hall. In 1969, the former Exhibit Hall became home to the Exploratorium interactive museum, in January 2013, the Exploratorium closed in preparation for its permanent move to the Embarcadero. Today, Australian eucalyptus trees fringe the eastern shore of the lagoon, many forms of wildlife have made their home there including swans, ducks, geese, turtles, frogs, and raccoons. Built around an artificial lagoon, the Palace of Fine Arts is composed of a wide,1,100 ft pergola around a central rotunda situated by the water. Ornamentation includes Bruno Louis Zimms three repeating panels around the entablature of the rotunda, representing The Struggle for the Beautiful, while Ulric Ellerhusen supplied the weeping women atop the colonnade and the sculptured frieze and allegorical figures representing Contemplation, Wonderment and Meditation. The underside of the Palace rotundas dome features eight large insets, four depicted the conception and birth of Art, its commitment to the Earth, its progress and acceptance by the human intellect, and four the golds of California. The Palace of Fine Arts was not the building from the exposition to survive demolition. The Japanese Tea House was purchased in 1915 by land baron E. D, swift and was transported by barge down the Bay to Belmont, California where it stands to this day. The Wisconsin and Virginia buildings were relocated to Marin County, the Ohio building was shipped to San Mateo County, where it survived until the 1950s. The Column of Progress stood for a decade after the close of the Exhibition, at the close of the exposition, the French government granted Alma Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921
43.
San Francisco Peace Pagoda
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The Peace Pagoda is a five-tiered concrete stupa between Post and Geary Streets at Buchanan in San Franciscos Nihonmachi. It was designed by Japanese architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, unlike most peace pagodas, this was not constructed by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji, who began constructing these monuments fourteen years earlier. However, Nipponzan welcomed the pagoda and established a temple in the city. A Peace Pagoda is a Buddhist stupa, a monument to peace, designed to provide a focus for people of all races and creeds. Yoshiro Taniguchi is a noted Japanese modernist architect who designed the National Museum of Modern Art, the Imperial Theater and he is the father of architect Yoshio Taniguchi, known for the 2004 redesign of the New York Museum of Modern Art. Graduate of the University of Tokyo, california Japantowns Japantown Peace Plaza at SF Parks Alliance
44.
Pier 39
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Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, an arcade, street performances, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides. The marina is home to the floating Forbes Island restaurant. A two-story carousel is one of the more dominant features, although it is not directly visible from the street. The family-oriented entertainment and presence of marine mammals make this a popular tourist location for families with kids, the pier is located at the edge of the Fishermans Wharf district and is close to North Beach, Chinatown, and the Embarcadero. The area is accessible via the historic F Market streetcars. From the pier one can see Angel Island, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, blue & Gold Fleets bay cruises leave from Pier 39. Pier 39 was first developed by entrepreneur Warren Simmons and opened October 4,1978, California sea lions have always been present in San Francisco Bay. They started to haul out on docks of Pier 39 in September 1989, before that they mostly used Seal Rock for that purpose. Ever since September 1989 the number of sea lions on Seal Rock has been steadily decreasing, some people speculate that sea lions moved to docks because of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, but the earthquake occurred months after the first sea lions had arrived at Pier 39. It is likely that the sea lions feel safer inside the Bay, once the project was completed, boat owners returned, but did their best to navigate around the sea lions, no efforts were made to encourage the new guests to leave. By the end of year, less than a dozen sea lions frequented the docks at Pier 39. By January 1990, their numbers had increased to 150 animals, owners of the 11 boats docked there began to complain about having to avoid the animals who can weigh up to half a ton, and odor and noise complaints began to pour in. Press releases caught national attention, and the sea began to attract tourists. Advice from The Marine Mammal Center was to abandon the docks to the animals, volunteers and staff at The Marine Mammal Store and Interpretive Center monitor the sea lion population each day, and educational information is provided to tourists who visit from around the world. Scientists continue to collect information there, adding to knowledge about sea lion health, dietary habits, a handful of sea lions did return in February, and by late May several hundred could once again be seen on Pier 39. It remains unknown exactly where they went and why, 49-Mile Scenic Drive The World Famous Bushman Official site
45.
San Francisco Public Library
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The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street, in 1877 a residents meeting was called by Andrew Smith Hallidie who advocated the creation of a public library for San Francisco. A board of trustees for the Library was created in 1878 through the Rogers Act, signed by Governor of California William Irwin, the San Francisco Public Library opened in 1879 on Bush Street at Kearny Street and hired Albert Hart as the first librarian. In 1888 the Library moved to the Larkin Street wing of City Hall at Civic Center, the first three branches opened from 1888 to 1889, in the Mission, in North Beach, and in Potrero Hill. In 1889 the Library became a Federal depository by nomination of Senator George Hearst, in 1906, architect Daniel Burnham presented his plans for a new Civic Center for San Francisco, including a new library building. These plans were put on hold after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the library moved to temporary quarters while a new building was designed and built. In 1917, the new library building, designed by George W. Kelham. Ten major murals by California Tonalist Gottardo Piazzoni were installed in 1931-1932, four more were completed in 1945, but left uninstalled until the 1970s. In 1986, a force was set up to complete the design of the Civic Center, including the use of Marshall Square, next to the main library at the time. Construction on the current Main Library began on March 15,1993, the building was completed in 1995 and opened a year later on April 18,1996. The old main library, which was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was rebuilt as the new Asian Art Museum. At over 376,000 square feet and with six floors above ground and one below, the new library features over 300 computer terminals, room for 1100 laptops, and a new wing for children. The city spent $104.5 million on the new library. San Francisco Public Library/Other Facts about the Building, Library visitations doubled in its first year open, from 1.1 million to 2.1 million, and the number of library card holders nearly tripled. Nonetheless, the Main Library has its critics, in October 1996 author Nicholson Baker wrote a scathing article in The New Yorker about the weeding of books from the library as it moved to the new building. He was also critical about the elimination of the catalog when the computerized catalog was introduced. Due to this publicity, the library released an official response to Nicholsons New Yorker article. Later, under pressure that included then Mayor Willie Brown, City Librarian Ken Dowlin whose policy it was to weed. The library was used in the 1998 film City of Angels
46.
Sutro Baths
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The Sutro Baths were a large, privately owned public saltwater swimming pool complex in the Lands End area of the Outer Richmond District in western San Francisco, California. Built in 1896, it was located near the Cliff House, Seal Rock, the facility burned down in June 1966 and is now in ruins. The site is within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Sutro Historic District, on March 14,1896, the Sutro Baths were opened to the public as the worlds largest indoor swimming pool establishment. The baths were built on the side of San Francisco by wealthy entrepreneur. The structure was situated in a small beach inlet below the Cliff House, both the Cliff House and the former baths site are now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, operated by the United States National Park Service. The baths struggled for years, mostly due to the high operating. Shortly after closing, a fire in 1966 destroyed the building while it was in the process of being demolished, all that remains of the site are concrete walls, blocked off stairs and passageways, and a tunnel with a deep crevice in the middle. The cause of the fire was determined to be arson, shortly afterwards, the developers left San Francisco and claimed insurance money. Media is stored by the Library of Congress as part of the American Memory collection and available for viewing online, Sutro Baths, no.1 and Sutro Baths,2, filmed in 1897 by Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Panoramic view from an engine on the Ferries and Cliff House Railroad line route along the cliffs of Lands End, starting at the Sutro Baths depot, filmed in 1902 by Thomas A. Edison. Panoramic view from the beach below Cliff House at Sutro Baths, filmed in 1903 by American Mutoscope, the following statistics are from a 1912 article written by J. E. Van Hoosear of Pacific Gas and Electric. Materials used in the structure included 100,000 sq ft of glass,600 tons of iron,3,500,000 board feet of lumber, and 10,000 cu yd of concrete. The baths were once serviced by a line, the Ferries and Cliff House Railroad. The route ran from the baths to a terminal at California Street, during high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the nearby ocean, recycling the two million US gallons of water in about an hour. Facilities included, Six saltwater pools and one freshwater pool, the baths were 499.5 feet long and 254.1 feet wide for a capacity of 1,805,000 US gallons. They were equipped with 7 slides,30 swinging rings, and 1 springboard, a museum displaying an extensive collection of stuffed and mounted animals, historic artifacts, and artwork, much of which Sutro acquired from the Woodwards Gardens estate sale in 1894. A 2700-seat amphitheater, and club rooms with capacity for 1100, nPS-GGNRA, Sutro Bath and Cliff House webpage
47.
Sutro Tower
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Sutro Tower is a 977 ft three-pronged TV and radio antenna tower in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro near Clarendon Heights, it is a prominent feature of the city skyline and a landmark for city residents and visitors. Before the construction of Sutro Tower in 1973, television reception in San Francisco was spotty because the hills of the city blocked the line-of-sight television signal. The great height of the new tower helped to resolve that problem, transmitters had been scattered throughout the Bay Area, including at San Bruno Mountain, Mt. Allison, Monument Peak, and Mt. Diablo. Local residents opposed the tower even before it was completed, including criticism of the effect the tower would have on the rest of San Francisco. San Francisco writer Herb Caen once wrote, I keep waiting for it to stalk down the hill, acknowledging both displeasure and affection for its undeniable prominence on the citys skyline, it is sometimes referred to light-heartedly as the Sutro Monster or Space Claw. When first built, the legs of the tower were illuminated at night with long tubes of white light that looked like long fluorescent tubes. However, public outcry resulted in the lights being removed soon after they were turned on, the tower is featured in video games, business logos, on clothing, as furniture and even tattoos. The U. S. band Information Society used it on the cover of their album Dont Be Afraid, a local entertainment guide, SF Station, uses it as a logo, as does the collaborative art game SFZero and the Expose SF art competition. Construction commenced in 1971 by Kline Towers of Columbia, South Carolina, approximately 3,750 m3 of concrete were used to make the foundation of the 3.7 million pound tower. Earthquake proofing includes ballasting two-thirds of the weight of the structure below ground and it is used to transmit the signals of eleven television stations and four FM radio stations and for various other communications services. Sutro Tower also leases space to other Bay Area radio and television stations, including PBS outlet KQED, independent station KOFY-TV, and KBCW, a sister station to KPIX. Three other major Bay Area TV stations are unable to be located at Sutro Tower—the NBC-owned duopoly of KNTV and KSTS and those locations allow these stations to maintain primary coverage over San Jose and the South Bay—San Jose is the city of license for all three stations. The tower stands 297.8 m above ground and 552 m above sea level and it is the tallest structure in the city, surpassing the 258.4 m Transamerica Pyramid by more than 39 m. The old site of the Sutro Mansion, and thus the land on which the stands, is owned by Adolph Sutros descendants. The facility is only by authorized vehicles. The area near the site offers beautiful panoramic viewpoints of San Francisco, there is a platform near the top of the tower,232 m above ground and 486.2 m above sea level. Only authorized maintenance workers can access the tower via a small two-person elevator that runs inside the west tower enclosed leg, there is no public access within the Sutro Tower property lines
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