SAN FRANCISCO AREA BY AREA - San Francisco and Northern California - page 122

five-tiered, 75-ft
(22-m) concrete
pagoda, is the
remodeled Peace
Pagoda Garden.
Taiko drummers
and others perform
here at the Cherry
Blossom Festival
(see p50) each April.
Both sides of the
Garden are lined
with Japanese
restaurants, shops, and the eight-
screen AMC Kabuki (see p250) .
This area has been the heart
of the Japanese community for
over 80 years. More authentic
Japanese shops are on Post
Street, where there are twin steel
sculptures by Ruth Asawa.

their lower-class status. The
Cottage Row houses were saved
from destruction during the
process of slum clearance in the
1960s. A program organized by
Justin Herman awarded grants
to help people restore their
existing houses, rather than
replace them. All but one of
the houses have now been
restored, and they face a
small attractive city park. The altar in St. Mary's Cathedral

9 St. Mary's
Cathedral
1111 Gough St. Map 4 E4.
Tel [phone]. @ 2, 3, 31, 38.
Open 8:30am-4:30pm Mon-Fri,
9am-6:30pm Sat & Sun. 5 6:45am,
8am, 12:10pm Mon-Fri; 6:45am, 8am,
5:30pm Sat; 7:30am, 9am, 11am, 1pm
(in Spanish) Sun. ^ during services.
8 7 ∑ stmarycathedralsf.org

q Cottage Row
Map 4 D4. @ 2, 3, 22, 38.
One of the few surviving
remnants of working-class
Victorian San Francisco, this
short stretch of flat-fronted
cottages was built in 1882, at
the end of the Pacific Heights
building boom. Unusual for San
Francisco, the cottages share
dividing walls, like terraced
houses in Europe or on the East
Coast of America. Their utter
lack of ornament, and their
siting on what was a dark and
crowded back alley, emphasize

Situated at the top of Cathedral
Hill, the ultra-modern St. Mary's
is the city's principal Roman
Catholic church and one of its
most prominent landmarks.
Designed by architect Pietro
Belluschi and engineer Pier Luigi
Nervi, it was completed in 1971.
The four-part arching
paraboloid roof stands out
like a white-sailed ship on the
horizon. The 200-ft- (60-m-)
high concrete structure, which
supports a cross-shaped
stained-glass ceiling, seems to
hover effortlessly over the 2,500-
seat nave. A sunburst canopy
made of aluminum rods
sparkles above the plain
stone altar.

Cottage Row
w Hayes Valley
Map 4 E5. @ 21, 22.
Just west of City Hall, these few
blocks of Hayes Street became
one of San Francisco's trendier
shopping districts after US 101
highway was badly damaged
in the Loma Prieta earthquake
of 1989 (see p20) .
The road was then
torn down, having
previously cut Hayes
Valley off from the
wealthy power
brokers and
theatergoers of the
Civic Center. A few
of the local cafés
and restaurants, like
Hayes Street Grill,
had already mixed
in with the Hayes
Street secondhand
furniture and thrift
shops. The influx
of expensive art
galleries, interior
design shops, and
clothing boutiques
has made the Hayes
Valley area noticeably
more upscale.

0 Japan Center
Post St and Buchanan St.
Map 4 E4. Tel [phone]. @ 2, 3, 38.
Open 10am-8pm Mon-Sat, 11am-
7pm Sun (restaurants open till later).
Closed Jan 1, Thanksgiving, Dec 25.
∑ sfjapantown.org

The Japan Center was built in the
1960s as part of a scheme to
revitalize the Fillmore District.
Blocks of aging Victorian houses
were demolished and replaced
by the Geary Expressway and the
large Japan Center shopping
complex. At the heart of the
complex, and centered upon a Japan Center by night