San Francisco Walking Tour

The Chinatown centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese enclave outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notable Chinatowns within the City. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants in North America. Chinatown is an enclave that continues to retain its own customs, languages, places of worship, social clubs, and identity. There are two hospitals, several parks and squares, numerous churches, a post office, and other infrastructure. Recent immigrants, many of whom are elderly, opt to live in Chinatown because of the availability of affordable housing and their familiarity with the culture. San Francisco's Chinatown is also renowned as a major tourist attraction, drawing more visitors annually than the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco Chinatown restaurants are cxonsidered to be the birthplace of Americanized Chinese cuisine such as food items like Chop Suey while introducing and popularizing Dim Sum to American tastes, as its Dim Sum tea houses are a major tourist attraction.

Powell Street station (often Powell station) is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street Subway. Located under Market Street between 4th Street and 5th Street, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and surrounding areas. The three-level station has a large fare mezzanine level, with separate platform levels for Muni Metro and BART below. The fare mezzanine will also connect to the Union Square/Market Street station when it opens. The Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde cable car lines turn around at Powell and Market adjacent to the station and Hallidie Plaza. BART service at the station began on November 5, 1973, followed by Muni Metro service on February 18, 1980.

San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet. The present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake, which was two blocks from the present one. It was bounded by Larkin Street, McAllister Street, and City Hall Avenue (a street, now built over, which ran from the corner of Grove and Larkin to the corner of McAllister and Leavenworth), largely where the current public library and U.N. Plaza stand today. The principal architect was Arthur Brown, Jr., of Bakewell & Brown, whose attention to the finishing details extended to the doorknobs and the typeface to be used in signage. Brown's blueprints of the building are preserved at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Brown also designed the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, Veterans Building, Temple Emanuel, Coit Tower and the Federal office building at 50 United Nations Plaza.

Union Square is a 2.6-acre (1.1 ha) public plaza bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton Streets in downtown San Francisco. 'Union Square' also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district that surrounds the plaza for several blocks.[citation needed] The area got its name because it was once used for Thomas Starr King rallies and support for the Union Army during the American Civil War, earning its designation as a California Historical Landmark. Today, this one-block plaza and surrounding area is one of the largest collections of department stores, upscale boutiques, gift shops, art galleries, and beauty salons in the United States, making Union Square a major tourist destination and a vital, cosmopolitan gathering place in downtown San Francisco. Grand hotels and small inns, as well as repertory, off-Broadway, and single-act theaters also contribute to the area's dynamic, 24-hour character. The Dewey Monument is located at the center of Union Square. It is a statue of Nike, the ancient Greek Goddess of Victory. At the center of Union Square stands the Dewey Monument, an 85-foot (26 m) column on which stand a 9-foot (2.7 m) statue of Nike, the ancient Greek Goddess of Victory.[16] The monument is dedicated to Admiral George Dewey, a hero of the Spanish–American War for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898.[17] The monument was dedicated in 1903. Beginning in 2009, painted heart sculptures from the Hearts in San Francisco public art installation have been installed in each of the four corners of the square.[18]