Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
15
writers are more likely to live in the Mission or farther out of town where rents are
cheaper, and where experimental entertainment forms of the '60s were launched,
although now the heady venues are spread more evenly around the city. North
Beach is the kind of neighborhood that vigorously resists change of any kind; chain
stores are banned, and landlords will let buildings stand empty for years rather than
rent to a corporation. The result is a place where many of the businesses are mom-
and-pop affairs that have been running for generations, and so this area is a delight-
ful place to stroll and stop for house-roasted coffee—or for sexual aids: The drag
of Broadway east of Columbus is full of adult stores. The area's other main drag,
Columbus Avenue, cuts a diagonal from the Fisherman's Wharf area to the
Financial District, and many of the area's primary places to eat line this street. The
cable car's Powell-Mason line cuts through North Beach, and its terminus at Bay
and Taylor streets is one of the least-crowded places to board for a complete one-
way ride. Coit Tower stands atop Telegraph Hill, another fiercely protected resi-
dential enclave threaded with enchantingly secluded stairways.
FISHERMAN'S WHARF
Best for:
Seafood, souvenir stands, maritime history, crowds of slow-moving
tourists
What you won't find:
Cheap food, peace and quiet
Every tourist makes at least one appearance here, although they shouldn't have to.
The only sight of real historic value is the Hyde Street Pier, where a number of
precious boats are docked as a living maritime museum. The ferry to Alcatraz
Island boards at a wharf that's about a 10-minute walk east, and countless visitors
combine their trips there with strolls around the shops here. Around the foot of
Pier 45, at Taylor Street, a selection of restaurants serve up crab and other fresh
seafood both indoors and at outdoor stalls; it's not hard to do a comparison of
both fish quality and price on your own, although few of these restaurants are
truly celebrated. Otherwise, the area is not very “San Francisco,” but rather, typ-
ical of touristy districts anywhere: wax museums, souvenir shops, Häagen-Dazs.
The F line historic streetcar boards at Jones and Beach streets, and it travels down
the waterfront to the foot of Market Street, where it hangs a right and ends up in
the Castro; quite a wide-ranging journey through town for just $1.50.
CHINATOWN
Best for:
Cheap dim sum, silly knickknacks, unusual groceries
What you won't find:
Cafes, Western cuisine
San Francisco's Chinatown, now one of the world's largest settlements of Chinese
life outside of China, has been established for as long as the city itself, and a trip
through here—mandatory, it would seem, for any first-time visitor—still reveals
the echoes of a more tumultuous age. It has two main drags—Grant Avenue and
Stockton Street from Sutter Street to Broadway—with two personalities. Grant
Avenue is the touristy road, with tons of cheesy souvenir stores selling knockoff
Buddha statues and other noisy knickknacks that children find hard to resist.
Stockton, though, is more like the “real” China, with its butcher shops and its
produce stalls selling fruit that most Western people have never heard of. The lit-
tle side streets and alleys off these two streets host little dim sum places where
