Must-see attractions in North Beach & Chinatown

  • SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 15th August, 2017: historic san francisco chinatown neighborhood

    Chinatown Alleyways

    North Beach & Chinatown

    If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…

  • SAN FRANCISCO - SEPT 2, 2017: The Beat Generation lives on at City Lights bookstore in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco.

    City Lights Books

    North Beach & Chinatown

    No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…

  • Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill Boulevard, San Francisco, USA

    Coit Tower

    North Beach & Chinatown

    If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…

  • San Francisco: Chinatown, Grant Avenue  (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***

    Chinese Historical Society of America

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Picture what it was like to be Chinese in America during the gold rush, transcontinental railroad construction, and Beat heyday in this 1932 landmark,…

  • Waverly Place

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Grant Ave is Chinatown's economic heart, but its soul is Waverly Place, lined with flag-festooned, colorful temple balconies and family-run businesses…

  • Tien Hou (Tin How) Temple in Chinatown atop 125 Waverly Place.

    Tin How Temple

    North Beach & Chinatown

    There was no place to go but up in Chinatown in the 19th century, when laws restricted where Chinese San Franciscans could live and work. Atop barber…

  • Chinatown Dragon Gate

    Dragon's Gate

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Enter through the Dragon archway donated by Taiwan in 1970, and you'll find yourself on the street formerly known as Dupont in its notorious red-light…

  • Beat Museum

    North Beach & Chinatown

    The closest you can get to the complete Beat experience without breaking a law. The 1000-plus artifacts in this museum's literary-ephemera collection…

  • Old St Mary's Cathedral & Square

    North Beach & Chinatown

    California's first cathedral was started in 1853 by an Irish entrepreneur determined to give wayward San Francisco some religion – despite the cathedral's…

  • Bob Kaufman Alley

    North Beach & Chinatown

    What's that – your hometown doesn’t have a street named after an African American Catholic-Jewish-voodoo anarchist street poet? Revered in France as the…

  • Washington Square

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Wild parrots, tai chi masters, and nonagenarian churchgoing nonnas (grandmothers) are the local company you'll keep on this lively patch of lawn. This was…

  • Wentworth Place

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Dragons bring this shadowy brick byway roaring to life. The narrow entryway is illuminated with 'Dragon Boats Chasing Moonlight,' a new mosaic mural…

  • Chinese Culture Center

    North Beach & Chinatown

    You can see all the way to China from the Hilton's 3rd floor inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits ranging from showcases of contemporary…

  • Chinese Telephone Exchange

    North Beach & Chinatown

    California's earliest high-tech adopters weren't 1970s Silicon Valley programmers – they were Chinatown switchboard operators c 1894. To connect callers,…

  • Commercial Street

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Back when the red lights of Commercial St could be seen from the waterfront, this strip provided many provocative answers to the age-old question: what do…

  • Ross Alley

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Colorful murals hint at the colorful characters who once roamed SF’s oldest alleyway – known during the Gold Rush variously as Mexico, Spanish or Manila…

  • Columbus Tower

    North Beach & Chinatown

    If these copper-clad walls could talk, they'd name-drop shamelessly. The tower's original occupant was political boss Abe Ruef, ousted in 1907 and sent to…

  • Jack Kerouac Alley

    North Beach & Chinatown

    'The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great…' This ode by the On the Road and Dharma Bums author is embedded in his…

  • Francisco Street Steps

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Take the high road from Fisherman's Wharf to North Beach via the urban trailhead between 150 and 155 Francisco St. Cross the courtyard, ascend to Grant…

  • Spofford Alley

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Sun Yat-sen once plotted the overthrow of China’s last dynasty here at number 36, and during Prohibition, this was the site of turf battles over local…

  • Portsmouth Square

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Chinatown's unofficial living room is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which staked the US claim on San Francisco in 1846. SF's first city hall…

  • Filbert Street Steps

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Halfway through the steep climb up the Filbert St Steps to Coit Tower, you might wonder if it’s all worth the trouble. Take a breather and notice the…

  • Good Luck Parking Garage

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Each parking spot at this garage comes with fortune-cookie wisdom stenciled onto the asphalt: 'The time is right to make new friends' or 'Stop searching…

  • Mule Gallery

    North Beach & Chinatown

    Upstart San Francisco artists buck art-world trends and kick out brave new work at the backstreet Mule Gallery. Recent shows have featured artworks by Bay…

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