San Francisco By The Bay: Cable Cars, Lombard Curves, and Fisherman's Wharf
Experience the quintessential spirit of the City by the Bay—from the Powell & Hyde cable car turntable and Lombard's crooked curves to steaming crab kettles and barking sea lions
San Francisco · 7 stops · 9 min audio · Generated
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1. Powell & Hyde Cable Car Turntable: The Wooden Mechanics of the Bay
Hyde St & Beach St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Stand at the edge of the wooden circular turntable at Hyde and Beach Streets and watch the gripman and conductor lean their full body weight against the wooden bumper of the green-and-cream cable car, rotating the eight-ton Victorian vehicle one hundred and eighty degrees by hand for its return journey up the steep hills.
Invented in eighteen seventy-three by Andrew Smith Hallidie after he witnessed horses slipping and dying on wet cobblestones, San Francisco's cable cars are the world's only remaining manually operated cable car system. Moving at a steady nine and a half miles per hour, each car clamps mechanically onto a continuous steel cable that runs ceaselessly beneath the street pavement.
In nineteen sixty-four, the cable car system was designated the very first moving National Historic Landmark in the United States, saved from municipal destruction by a fiercely determined campaign led by local women activists.
Walk up the steep sidewalk of Hyde Street to Russian Hill to stand atop the crookedest street in the world.
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2. Lombard Street: The Crookedest Street in the World
1000 Lombard St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Stand at the crest of Russian Hill on Lombard Street and look down the breathtaking one-block descent of eight tight hairpin switchback curves paved in red terracotta brick. Framed by stone retaining walls, weeping Russian olive trees, and thousands of purple and blue blooming hydrangeas, cars inch down the hill like beads on a winding ribbon.
In nineteen twenty-two, property owner Carl Henry suggested the zigzag design because the natural twenty-seven percent grade of the hill was too steep for early nineteen twenties automobiles to climb or descend safely. By creating eight sharp turns, the grade was reduced to sixteen percent, making it navigable for both Ford Model Ts and horse carriages.
From the top of the brick steps, cast your eyes eastward: past the red brick curves, you can gaze straight across North Beach to Coit Tower, the San Francisco Bay, and the Bay Bridge shimmering in the morning sun.
Head down the steps and walk northward toward the historic red brick clock tower of Ghirardelli Square.
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3. Ghirardelli Square: The Brick Chocolate Dynasty
900 North Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Step into the terraced brick plaza of Ghirardelli Square and inhale the intoxicating, warm aroma of roasted cocoa beans, molten chocolate, and freshly spun waffle cones. Above the historic red brick factory buildings, the iconic fifteen-foot-tall illuminated Ghirardelli sign glows brightly, welcoming ships entering the Golden Gate since nineteen twenty-three.
Italian immigrant Domenico Ghirardelli arrived in California in eighteen forty-nine during the Gold Rush, initially selling supplies and confections to miners before founding his chocolate empire in eighteen fifty-two. In eighteen ninety-three, his company bought this entire waterfront block, where giant steam-driven conching machines refined rich cocoa butter around the clock.
In nineteen sixty-four, when modern developers planned to demolish the factory for high-rise apartment towers, visionary citizens purchased the site and created America's very first adaptive reuse retail complex, saving the Victorian brick heritage of San Francisco.
Walk across Beach Street onto the wooden planks of Hyde Street Pier.
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4. Hyde Street Pier: The Fleet of Gold Rush Sails and Steam
2905 Hyde St, San Francisco, CA 94109
Walk out onto the creaking wooden planks of Hyde Street Pier and breathe in the salty tang of Pacific sea air mixed with tar and old cedar. Moored along the pier are magnificent historic vessels: look up at the three towering masts and sprawling rigging of the Balclutha, an eighteen eighty-six square-rigged Scottish iron ship that rounded Cape Horn seventeen times carrying Welsh coal and California grain.
Before the completion of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges in the late nineteen thirties, this pier was the bustling automobile ferry terminal for Highway One Hundred and One, where thousands of cars queued daily to board paddle-wheel ferries bound across the bay to Sausalito and Berkeley.
Step aboard the Eureka, an eighteen ninety wooden paddle-wheel steam ferry: her walking-beam steam engine drove fifty-foot side paddles that could transport over two thousand passengers and one hundred automobiles on a single crossing.
Stroll eastward along the waterfront promenade into the bustling sights and sounds of Fisherman's Wharf.
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5. Fisherman's Wharf: Sizzling Crab Pots and Sourdough Bowls
Jefferson St & Taylor St, San Francisco, CA 94133
Stand beneath the giant spinning neon crab-wheel sign at Jefferson and Taylor Streets, where thick white steam billows into the air from open-air sidewalk cauldrons. The air is rich with the aroma of freshly boiled sweet Dungeness crab, steaming clam chowder ladled into crusty round sourdough bread bowls, and freshly fried calamari.
During the late nineteenth century, Italian immigrants from Genoa and Sicily settled here, taking their distinctive wooden double-ended lateen-sailed feluccas out into the fog-shrouded waters of the Pacific to haul in nets of salmon, cod, and sweet Dungeness crab.
In eighteen forty-nine, French baker Isidore Boudin blended French baking methods with wild airborne sourdough yeasts unique to San Francisco's microclimate, creating the tangy sourdough bread that has sustained wharf workers and travelers for over one hundred and seventy years.
Continue east along the waterfront to the lively boardwalk of Pier Thirty-Nine.
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6. Pier Thirty-Nine: The Barking Sea Lions of the Bay
The Embarcadero & Beach St, San Francisco, CA 94133
Walk out onto the wooden decking of Pier Thirty-Nine until a chorus of loud, rhythmic barking fills your ears. Lean over the railing of the K-Docks and watch hundreds of immense, glistening brown California sea lions jousting for space, flipper-slapping each other, and basking lazily under the California sunshine on floating wooden docks.
In January nineteen ninety, just months after the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake rocked the city, a handful of sea lions began hauling out onto the marina's private boat docks. Within months, their numbers swelled to hundreds, completely displacing luxury yachts. Marine biologists advised marina managers to let the sea lions stay, and they became one of the city's most beloved natural wonders.
During winter months, the sea lion colony on the docks can swell to over one thousand animals, feasting on massive schools of anchovies and herring that migrate into the safety of the bay.
Walk to the end of the pier for the most dramatic open-water view of the bay.
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7. San Francisco Bay Lookout: Alcatraz and the Golden Gate
The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94133
Stand at the northernmost point of the pier promenade and let the crisp Pacific wind blow through your hair. Look straight out across the blue waters of the bay: rising like a battleship of sheer sandstone sits Alcatraz Island, the legendary federal penitentiary that once held notorious gangsters like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly in escape-proof isolation.
Turn your gaze westward: spanning the mouth of the bay where the Pacific Ocean enters the bay rises the majestic orange vermilion silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge, its seven-hundred-and-forty-six-foot Art Deco towers piercing the morning fog.
Look closely at the water: harbor porpoises and sea otters frequently breach in the tidal currents, while container ships and historic wooden schooners glide silently through the strait beneath wheeling seagulls.
Listen to the distant mournful hum of the foghorns echo across the bay. You have experienced the authentic, indomitable maritime soul of San Francisco.