Contents |
Russian Hill
Russian Hill, a residential neighborhood with pockets of restaurants and shops, feels a bit more visitor-friendly than its more formal neighbor, Nob Hill. The views are also just as dazzling.
The neighborhood got its name when gold rushers found seven Cyrillic-inscribed gravestones at the top of the hill. Consensus on the identity of the Russian men buried there -- they were reputed to be anything from sailors to fur trappers -- was never reached, the gravestones disappeared in the late 1800s and the Russian influence has long since dissipated.
Charming restaurants and small businesses cluster on leafy Hyde Street between Jackson and Union Streets, and Polk Street is crowded with unusual boutiques, antique shops, trendy restaurants and night spots. A mini French quarter has sprung up around Polk and Green, where you'll find a great bistro, a traditional café-boulangerie, a French antiques store, and several French-influenced gift and home décor shops.
The center of Russian Hill is accessible by the Hyde-Powell cable car and two Muni buses, the 41 (weekday rush hour only) and the 45. The 19 runs along Polk Street, stopping frequently from Ghirardelli Square to the Tenderloin.
Marina
The story of San Francisco's Marina District is the story of land and water repeatedly and dramatically altered by nature and by human development.
Eight thousand years ago, American Indians lived on the dunes and near the tidal marshlands that today are the sites of apartment buildings, luxurious homes and some of the city's trendiest shops and restaurants. When the Spanish arrived here in 1776 and established the Presidio -- on the Marina's western border -- the marshlands looked pretty much the same as they would over a century later, in 1906, when the city of San Francisco was shaken and then burned by its first devastating earthquake and the resulting fire.
It wasn't until the aftermath of the big quake that major development began in the Marina. Tons and tons of brick and rock rubble from destroyed downtown buildings were brought over and dumped into the Marina's marshlands, forming an initial (and unstable) foundation for development. A few years later, when the site was chosen as the location of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco had the impetus it needed to turn what began as a haphazard dumping ground into a breathtaking exhibit of architectural beauty.
The Panama-Pacific, and its iconic surviving building the Palace of Fine Arts, introduced the city to the commercial and residential development possibilities of the recently formed prime waterfront real estate. In the decades following the exposition, apartment buildings, homes and businesses sprouted up rapidly and in great numbers until the Marina had become one of San Francisco's most desirable places to live, work and visit. Until 1989, that is, when another earthquake rocked the city and sparked 27 fires citywide, including the devastating Marina blaze, and many of the area's poorly supported buildings collapsed atop the unstable ground. The Loma Prieta earthquake was a wake-up call for Marina developers; the reconstruction effort brought with it new standards of earthquake-sturdy construction, and within a decade the Marina had been rebuilt and revamped with a shiny new face and s stronger bone structure.
Today the apartment buildings, shops and restaurants seem to be bursting at their seams with beautiful, young and fit 20- and 30-somethings. The singles scene is hopping on Friday and Saturday nights, with lots of fresh-faced postgrads with cocktails in one hand and cell phones in the other. Union is arguably the best street in the city to window-shop the hours away on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and, a few blocks down, Chestnut has an incredible variety of high-quality restaurants catering to every palate.
If you're looking for diversity or an edgy or progressive feel, the Marina probably isn't your neighborhood -- unless you count Fort Mason, which hosts a bounty of cultural museums and nonprofits. Overall, this is the land of SUVs, chic fashion and killer spa treatments. Love it, or leave it to the pretty young things who call it home or home-away-from-home.
Sunny weekend days are truly dreamy in the Marina, especially down by the water. As far as Chestnut and Union are concerned, just follow this motto: Any day is a good day for shopping; any night, a good night for dining. If you're looking for a mellow or sophisticated night out, stay away from the infamous "Triangle" (Fillmore at Greenwich) bar scene on Friday and Saturday nights. And unless you want to pay to park in one of the neighborhood's few garages, don't drive to the Marina; finding a parking spot can take up to an hour.
SOMA
South of Market is a huge district, sprawling from the Embarcadero to Eleventh Street, between Market and Townsend. The neighborhood is a patchwork of warehouses, swanky nightspots, residential hotels, art spaces, loft apartments, furniture showrooms and the tenacious Internet companies that survived the tech market collapse. Although a lot of building has gone on in recent years, it is still not densely developed. You can walk several desolate blocks before suddenly finding a hopping restaurant.
Most of the action can be found in three general areas: by South Park and the Giants ballpark, around the SF MOMA and Yerba Buena gardens, and over by Folsom and Eleventh Street. SoMa, as it's known, sounds a little like a SoHo wannabe, and it does have a strong downtown vibe. However, the name has its roots in the old nickname "South of the Slot," referring to its position on the "wrong side" of the Market Street cable car track when it was an industrial district of factories and Gold Rush immigrant workers.
These days the industry most associated with South of Market has to do with that other Gold Rush: the dot com boom. Once buzzing with purple-haired programmers and hobnobbing young executives, South Park is noticeably more subdued since the Internet companies started closing shop, and probably all the more pleasant for it. The grassy square is a nice place to walk your dog or eat a sandwich, and is bordered by several good shops and restaurants. In the summer the area gets more foot traffic as packs of Giants fans head for the ballpark. A handful of new restaurants have also opened to serve this crowd.
The western end of the district is the most industrial, and is dominated by huge wholesale marts and superstores like Costco and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Originally this made it an ideal zone for loud nightclubs, but as SoMa has become more residential some of the clubs have had trouble with noise complaints. However, this hasn't kept a crop of newcomers like Butter and Wish from opening in the past few years. The stretch along Eleventh and Folsom is the heart of the gay leather and S&M scene, which has its roots in the Folsom Street "Miracle Mile" of gay clubs and bathhouses in the '70s. This is also the site of the annual fetish bonanza of the Folsom Street Fair.
The area around Market and Third Street is more well heeled, influenced by the nearby Financial District and conventions at the Moscone Center. Several of the city's arts organizations are located here, including the SF MOMA, the Center for the Arts at Yerba Gardens and the California Historical Society. It has a bohemian undercurrent, with the museums, several independent bookstores, the line of artsy clubbers waiting to get into the gallery and club 111 Minna, and students from the Academy of Art slouching around the Utrecht art supply store on New Montgomery.
South of Market has been under redevelopment for decades -- the original plan for the Yerba Buena complex was first submitted in 1966. New plans are now underway to make SoMa more accessible from the Market Street shopping district. A pedestrian promenade, Yerba Buena Lane, will connect Market Street to Yerba Buena Gardens, and a $380 million Bloomingdale's shopping center is going into the old Emporium store, encouraging shoppers to "cross the tracks" and venture south of Union Square.
The SoMa district is large and spread out, so if you do find yourself South of the Slot, it helps to know where you're going. The zone around Sixth and Mission can be sketchy if you're walking alone, and at the very least the unschooled wanderer could come away with an impression of nothing more than highway overpasses and warehouses. Target your exploration in the pockets of culture around Yerba Buena, South Park and Eleventh Street, and you'll be sure to stumble upon lots of hidden treasures and funky urban charm.
Mountain View
For the ones who prefer the swimming pool to the fog during summer, Mountain View offers one of the best deal of the bayarea. The last few years, a new set of restaurants and 'cafe' has popped up in the downtown area, and the City Hall seems to be willing to develop futher the Center of Art - although the quality of the shows has to improve. Conveniently placed at the crossing of the 85 and the 101 - commuters will appreciate - Mountain View has attracted a large choice of condos of all sizes and all standings, at prices reasonable compared to Palo-Alto, yet much higher than Sunnyvale.
This page was last modified 20:59, 31 January 2007.