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I am not sure how much of an event this counts as but my History of Design class had us do a walking tour of SF that shows off some of the great historical architecture of San Francisco and highlights the multicultural character of our vibrant city. The tour took about 2 or 3 hours.





At the corner of Post and Mason is a building housing the Academy of Art. This Neoclassical building used to be a church, you have to look walk around it a bit to find a sign in the side of the building to discover this.



Along the way I passed by this museum, it was a pretty small looking thing but I nonetheless had no idea it was there. I would love to visit it to see what they have in there.



Is a piece that was next to the entrance of the Craft + Design museum. I'm a bit confused. I figure Design = Functional and remember Craft best as = no extra decoration from what I've learned about the Arts and Crafts movement in History of Design. This piece just looks like an art piece rather than a piece of Craft + Deisgn and I am curious as to why they chose to put this one next to the entrance of this museum.

Continue up Mason until you reach Sutter. Make a right (go east) for a block and a half until you get to 450 Sutter, a fabulous art deco high-rise completed in 1929. Check out the amazing lobby, fashioned after a Mayan tomb. I took so many pictures
(the elevator guy kind of stared at me but didn't stop me) because when I walked in I was amazed.





The garage door, I couldn't get a decent picture of the elevator doors but rest assured they were pretty much about as awesome as this one.



The low-relief sculpture above the door kind of reminds me of Pre-Hispanic art that Diego Rivera took inspiration from in some of his murals. Namely the one in... I think it was Detroit? (I am probably wrong, Judith Bettelheim would have a fit at me) The theme was industrialization and there was a giant robot which took cues from a pre-hispanic sculpture. It also vaguely reminds of Cubism art like Picasso and Afro-Cuban Wilfredo Lam.

The forms are very much art deco, while they're not “machines” exactly they are still very geometric. They are abstract shapes but it is symmetrical on both sides. Elegant, glamorous, definitely a use of sumptuous materials as the whole of it is gold.

Another fabulous green-and-black art deco Bush Market at 820 Bush St. At the corner of Bush and Mason who's picture which I appear to have woefully misplaced.

At the corner of Mason and California is the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel. Where my high school senior prom was held. Apparently if you stand at the street corner (the Southeast corner, just in front of the Mark Hopkins Hotel) with your back to Hotel, just a few steps to the right of the stop light. Look to your right (east) and look into the distance you might be able to see the outlines of a famous NY landmark. It's a little hard to see, I couldn't see it until I walked a little further down and entered the Top of the Mark
which is a sky-bar, where visitors can choose from their famous 100-martini menu. Better yet, there is an free, amazing view of SF from the lookout window to the side of the elevators.



Hello, Transamerica Pyramid. Yes, I can see you very well.

Also the outline of that famous NY landmark, I think:



I asked a lot of people at the hotel to help me find the land mark. One of them finally pointed to the island and said, "Oooh! I think that's it!" It was the best guess out of all of them.

From my walking tour:

"This area is Nob Hill, a swanky neighborhood which was once home to wealthy railroad barons and businessmen (and yes, in those days they were men,) who built their mansions here. For example, that big brown mansion at the corner of California and Mason is called Flood Mansion, built in 1885-86 by James C. Flood, a millionaire who made his fortune with profitable silver mines in Nevada and by investing in railroads. Mr. Flood was worth about $30 million in 1880’s dollars, or about $20 billion in today’s dollars. Flood Mansion was one of the few buildings on Nob Hill to survive the 1906 earthquake."

Not to far from that was the Grace Cathedral, the largest Episcopal Church on the West Coast.



The original church was somewhat smaller and was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. The façade (front) of the church was inspired by the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris



I walked one of the labyrinths (mazes on the ground that you walk through to reach the middle) outside of the current French gothic-style cathedral (built from 1928-1964).



An awesome mural at the Le Beau Nob Hill Market on the corner of Clay.

As you walk down Nob Hill the character of the neighborhood seems to change. Less swanky and formal. More colorful and cultural. The buildings aren't as stuffy as a giant cathedral or huge masions like the Flood Mansion. It's not as upscale and uptight and is a bit more fun looking. It is also much quieter as the streets are mostly apartment buildings and there aren't nearly as many people walking around and passing by.

For one thing there are graffiti murals such as the on the corner of Clay and Polk St which is hilarious because it has an angry Spongebob Squarepants-like character.



Polk St. is a really unique neighborhood. Most of the original buildings on this street were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, but new buildings were built on top of the old ruins. There are dozens of ethnic restaurants here as well as old standbys.



I really like Polk St. a lot. It's not all high fashion and upscale shopping like around the Westfield mall/Powell-ish area, nor is it terribly full of tourists like the major buildings around Nob's Hill. In general it's not as... busy? I suppose? That is not to say there aren't plenty of people walking around, I think they just seem to be in less of a busy city rush.

At the same time it's not like a certain area just down past Westfield, one minute you're surrounded by classy stores like Bloomingdales and the Gap and Forever 21 and then the next you're in the ghetto with all the adult stores and sortof kind of thrift stores that sell tacky Rolex watches and cameras and junk with no rhyme or reason to it and dirty, weird people that make you walk faster.

While Polk St. doesn't really have huge skyrise malls and department stores and I did pass by an adult store and even a Good Vibrations (I went in, it was very clean and organized! And not scary at all. Well, some of the stuff in there was a little scary but you know). It's not a place I feel nervous walking in even though it's obviously not the safe “rich” metropolitan-y part of SF. It is indeed very ethnic. There are restaurants for just about everything from Italian to Japanese to Mexican to good old fashioned donuts. I suppose the best word I can think of to describe it is very neighborhood-y.

The store that I am standing in front of, Brownies Hardware, the people inside were ridiculously friendly and helpful even going so far as to mention that a store further down the street had a cheaper priced water filter that I was looking at. I get the impression that they genuinely want to help people who come in.

Anyway, phew. That was a lot of walking, I was terribly tired at the end of it all.