Frommer's San Francisco 2009 by Matthew R. Poole

Author:Matthew R. Poole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2010-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

San Francisco received the highest score of any city in the United States in Condé Nast Traveler’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards. This is the 17th time San Francisco has topped the poll’s “Top Cities—United States” category since it debuted in 1990. It is the 16th consecutive year that San Francisco has scored the highest (Santa Fe won in 1992).

SOUTH OF MARKET (SOMA)

From Market Street to Townsend Street and the Embarcadero to Division Street, SoMa has become the city’s newest cultural and multimedia center. The process started when alternative clubs began opening in the old warehouses in the area nearly a decade ago. A wave of entrepreneurs followed, seeking to start new businesses in what was once an extremely low-rent area compared to the neighboring Financial District. Today, gentrification and high rents hold sway, spurred by a building boom that started with the Moscone Convention Center and continued with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Yerba Buena Gardens, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Four Seasons Hotel, W Hotel, St. Regis Hotel, and the Metreon Entertainment Center. Other institutions, businesses, and museums move into the area on an ongoing basis. A substantial portion of the city’s nightlife takes place in warehouse spaces throughout the district.

NORTH BEACH

In the late 1800s, an enormous influx of Italian immigrants to North Beach firmly established this aromatic area as San Francisco’s “Little Italy.” Dozens of Italian restaurants and coffeehouses continue to flourish in what is still the center of the city’s Italian community. Walk down Columbus Avenue on any given morning and you’re bound to be bombarded by the wonderful aromas of roasting coffee and savory pasta sauces. Although there are some interesting shops and bookstores in the area, it’s the dozens of eclectic little cafes, delis, bakeries, and coffee shops that give North Beach its Italian-bohemian character.

For more perspective on this neighborhood, follow the detailed walking tour in chapter 9 or sign up for a guided Javawalk with coffee nut Elaine Sosa (see “Walking Tours,” in this chapter).

This City’s for the Birds!

If you’re walking around San Francisco—especially Telegraph Hill or Russian Hill—and you suddenly hear lots of loud squawking and screeching overhead, look up. You’re most likely witnessing a fly-by of the city’s famous green flock of wild parrots. These are the scions of a colony that started out as a few wayward house pets—mostly cherry-headed conures, which are indigenous to South America—who found each other, and bred. Years later they’ve become hundreds strong, traveling in chatty packs through the city (with a few parakeets along for the ride), and stopping to rest on tree branches and delight residents who have come to consider them part of the family. To learn just how special these birds are to the city, check out the book The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, or see the heart-warming movie of the same name.

CHINATOWN

The first of the Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco in the early 1800s to work as servants. By 1851, 25,000 Chinese people were working in California, and most had settled in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

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