City Hall and other San Francisco, CA General Tips

Favorite Thing: San Francisco City Hall is home to both the City and County of San Francisco Government (since the city and county share the same geographical boundaries, they share a government). Designed by architect Arthur Brown Jr. (who also built Coit Tower and the War Memorial Opera House), City Hall opened in 1915 as a replacement to an earlier city hall that was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. It's massive 66-foot diameter stands 307.5 feet above the ground and is considered the fifth largest dome in the world. The building was remodeled after damage in the 1989 earthquake, and is considered the largest seismic retrofit project in the world. City Hall's most famous events include Joe DiMaggio & Marilyn Monroe's wedding, the public viewing of President Warren G. Harding who died in the city while still serving as President, and the assassination of city Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

The City Hall Rotunda can be rented for $10,000 to $30,000 per evening depending on the number of guests.

Located at 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place near the intersection of Market and Van Ness, it is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tours are given Monday - Friday 10:00 am, 12:00 noon and 2:00 pm and last 45 minutes. City Hall is accessible via the Civic Center BART or Muni Stations.


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Favorite Thing: From Lincoln Park, you may notice a stubby white and red striped tube sticking up from the water about a half mile in the distance to the north. During my visit I couldn't figure out if this was part of an old sunken ship or some other oddity of the sea. After some research I discovered this is part of Mile Rocks Lighthouse, and it was constructed at the turn of the century to warn sailors of the dangerous rocks a the southern entrance to the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay.

The lighthouse was built on Mile Rock which, along with Little Mile Rock were known as Mile Rocks. Mile Rock is just 30 x 40 feet and had to be blasted to form a flat foundation for the lighthouse. The first section of the lighthouse, a 35-foot tall concrete pillar with four foot thick walls forms the base. Above this concrete section there were three steel rings each slighter smaller than the one below it, all capped by the lantern area. In 1966 the Coast Guard removed the lantern section and the top two steel rings, leaving just the concrete base and the first steel ring capped with a helicopter landing pad.


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Favorite Thing: Nob Hill is an exclusive neighborhood at the top of the hill near the intersection of the Powell and California cable car lines. It sits at the heart of the city, surrounded by Union Square, North Beach, the Tenderloin, Chinatown, Telegraph Hill, and Russian Hill. At the top of Nob Hill you'll find Grace Cathedral, the exclusive Pacific-Union Club, and fancy hotel such as the Fairmont, the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel, the Stanford Court, and the Huntington Hotel.

This neighborhood has always had a reputation as home to the rich and famous of San Francisco.


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Favorite Thing: The Old US Mint in San Francisco was constructed in 1874 iin Greek style, and survived the 1906 earthquake. The mint played a key role in the Gold Rush, and at one time its vault held two thirds of the US gold reserves. In 1937 the Old Mint, which was ranked by the General Services Administration as the second most important government building in the country for its historical and architectural significance, closed to be replaced by a new mint. This was the second of three mints in San Francisco; the original San Francisco mint went into use in 1852, and the new US Mint is still in use, manufacturing regular proof and silver proof coin sets.

The Mint Project is underway, which will take the beautiful but abandoned Old Mint building, and remodel it for use as the Museum of San Francisco and the Bay Area, the American Money Museum, a proposed new location for the San Francisco Visitors Information Center, a Museum Store, several dining and retail venues, and rental space for events and cultural festivals. The Mint Project also includes conversion of Jesse Street into a pedestrian area called Mint Plaza, closed to traffic and redesigned to accommodate a wide range of uses, including art, live music, cafés, and street fairs.

The Old Mint is located in SOMA at the corner of Mission and 5th Streets, easy walking distance from Union Square.


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Favorite Thing: SoMa (short for South of Market) comprises a huge section of downtown San Francisco bordered by Market, Embarcadero, Townsend, and 11th. This area is a unique mix of modern and run down, nightclubs and homeless men in abundance. Though SoMa is not overly touristy, it does have its draws such as Yerba Buena Gardens, the Museum of Modern Art, AT&T Park, the Metreon, and the new San Francisco Shopping Center. There are a variety of restaurants and nightlife in the area, but they seem to be pretty spread out, occasionally just a single popular club on a deserted street.

After watching a Giants/Pirates game at AT&T Park, we decided to check out the nightlife in SoMa, so we wandered toward Union Square stopping at a popular Mexican restaurant called Tres Agave then a smaller bar called Voda. Our hotel was also in SoMa, just a half block off Market Street, and it was called the Mosser.


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Favorite Thing: Portsmouth Square is a small, one-block square between Chinatown and the Financial District surrounded by Kearny Street, Washington Street, Clay Street, and Walter Lum Place. The square was established as the central plaza of the Mexican pueblo of Yerba Buena in the 1830s. It's modern name comes from the USS Portsmouth, the command ship that seized San Francisco in 1846 and whose captain raised the first US flag in the city on this site. Nearby Montgomery Street was named after the ship's commander, Captain John B. Montgomery.

The park has various markers and statues, including a landmark for the first public school in California, a marker for the Eastern Terminus of Clay Street Hill Railroad Company, a monument of the hoisting of the American flag, a memorial for Robert Louis Stevenson, and a statue of the Goddess of Democracy. The democracy statue is my favorite, as it is a replica of the democracy statue constructed by students at the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 in Beijing.

After its $3.9 million renovation in 2001, the park has become a center of daily Chinatown life. On any given day you will see dozens if not hundreds of local Chinese-Americans playing Chinese chess, cards, or just chatting away the day.

Under Portsmouth Square is a 500-space, four-story parking garage operated by the city.

In 2005 the Project for Public Spaces named Portsmouth Square the 8th best public square in America and Canada.


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Favorite Thing: Washington Square is in the center of the great Little Italy neighborhood called North Beach. The grassy one-block square is lined by cafes, restaurants, and the grand Saints Peter and Paul Church. It is located on the center of the Columbus Ave, one of the main streets between Fishermans Wharf and Chinatown, and the square is right between Lombard Street and Coit Tower.

The park has a firemen's memorial, Ben Franklin Statue, a time capsule, and a children's playground, but it is really a refuge for local dog owners, bums, hippies, kids, sun bathers, occasional naked bums, and people who just want to relax and read the paper.

In 2005 the Project for Public Spaces named Washington Square the 9th best public square in America and Canada.


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Favorite Thing: Old Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church is the city's first cathedral, completed in 1854. The church building survived the 1906 earthquake only to be gutted by the ensuing fires that engulfed the city. All the remained of this landmark cathedral were a few walls and the bell tower. In 1909 reconstruction of the cathedral began, and the church underwent a major expansion in 1929 to enable a capacity of 2,000 people.

Next to the church is St. Mary's Square which is home to a 12-foot statue of Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese Republic. Sun spent some time in San Francisco in th elate 1890s.


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