San Francisco Attractions
Importance
- The largest Chinese city outside Asia is in San Francisco on the Grant Avenue between Bush Street and Columbus Avenue.
- The people are descendants of Asians, mainly railway workers, who settled from 1850 onwards.
- Almost completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, Chinatown was rebuilt after the devastating earthquake, entirely in the Chinese style and was soon even more attractive than before the disaster.
Aim to Visit
- Now with its temples, theaters, workshops, small businesses, stores, antique shops, teahouses and with their old nostrums, Chinatown has become one of the major tourist sites of San Francisco.
Tourist’s attractions
- Coit Tower stands 500ft or 150m above sea-level on the summit of Telegraph Hill.
- Has interesting murals, which makes it one of the best vantage points for views.
- A lift ascends the Perspex-glazed viewing platform. In clear weather one can see as far as Mount Tamalpais.
- Coit Tower is named after Lillie Hitchcock Coit.
- This erected in honor of the fire brigade. Constructed in 1934, and was designed by Arthur Brown Jr.
- There are many who claim to the shape of the free-standing columnar tower, the nozzle of a fire-hose.
- Golden Gate Park is 3mi/5km long, 0.5mi/800m wide and occupies 1,017 acres or 4.1sq.km.
- It is known as the "lungs" of San Francisco, among the city’s one or two small parks. Before its development in 1871 this was an area of arid dunes, and with the great difficulty it was made an artificial park.
- The credit of course lies chiefly with John McLaren- Park Commissioner for 56 years starting from the year 1887 to 1943.
- Consequently, nowadays visitors going to the park enjoy a grand network of footpaths and cycle tracks, more than 5,000 different kinds of plants and dozens of species of trees, several lakes, bridle-paths, a buffalo paddock, three museums, a Japanese tea garden, greenhouses, a botanical garden and considerably more.
- But, while the tourists are in the park, they have to be conscious that after 3 p.m., when the mist tends to come rolling in from the Pacific, the park can suddenly seem a less welcoming place.
North beach
- A little portion of this street on Russian Hill is famous as the main sights of the city. It’s well-known as "the crookedest street in the world", as it has a fourteen percent negotiated by ten zigzag bends.
- This "crooked" section is lined with plantations of hydrangeas, which is making it blissful in outlook.
- Visitors usually enjoy to drive east up Lombard Street from the Pacific side, then take the route of junction with Hyde Street, then take the direction through the crooked section followed by Columbus Avenue.
- Then there is yet another attraction such as Washington Square, which is the center of the Italian quarter.
- More than 50,000 Italians live here, and a glance at the shops and restaurants is enough to make any visitor that the Italian way of life is still practiced in this part of the city.
- In the sixties and seventies it was where the Hippies met.
- This psychedelic movement started here and in other squares in this quarter of the city. Apart from these, the famous Church of St Peter and St Paul also stand in this square.
Entertainment quarter
The southeast part of this area, surround by Broadway and Columbus and San Francisco's main entertainment area, which consists night-clubs, jazz-clubs, bars, cabarets, theaters, restaurants and cafés.
